Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea various fish/fishing

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Curtis Hart
Posts: 595
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 5:07 pm
Location: Hillsdale County, Michigan

Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea various fish/fishing

Post by Curtis Hart »

I spent the winter of 2016/17 on Bioko island, which was the second time I have done that. I stayed at Moraka Playa, which is a remote field camp about 3 hours walk from a road. There are some great rivers there, as well as being right on the beach. There are tide pools in front of camp and a great house reef, but we didn't learn this until the second to last day. The ocean is rough and I would say 1 day 15 is calm enough to snorkel off camp.

Tide pool fish
Image20170227_005358 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
Image20170224_213423 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
Image20170224_213312 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

I also spear fished. Mostly in the rivers, but a few times in the ocean.
Snapper
ImageP1010309 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
Image20170114_155553 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

Some sort of Parrotfish, or as the locals say, Bananafish.
Image20170224_093957 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

Not sure what this is. Didn't taste great, locals called it "Full Belly".
ImageP1010573 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

There is one protected place where we snorkeled in the ocean on occasion.
Scorpion Fish
ImageIMG_2716 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

I have no idea what these are, please tell me if you do.
ImageIMG_2687 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

Our favorite river in the world is the Tope Tomo. It enters the ocean about 15 minutes west of Moraka. We bathe there and I did a fair amount of fishing there, mullet and snapper. It is a clear water river and has good snorkeling. I have no idea what any of these fish actually are, so the names I will use are the ones we made up.

This is an "Orange-eye Fish". They swim at the surface and have orange eyes. They are a bit iridescent in the light. I could only get a photo out of the water.
Image20170224_203703 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

About 10 minutes upstream is a nice pool under a cascade. This is the best place to photograph fish. I did not have an underwater camera, and was only able to borrow one for one day.
ImageP1010423 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
ImageP1010381 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
ImageP1010390 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

This is a "Grumpy Fish". They like spaghetti a lot.
ImageIMG_2529 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

We called this one "Super Grumpy Fish"
ImageIMG_2567 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
ImageIMG_2561 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
ImageIMG_2574 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

Not sure if this is a young Super Grumpy Fish or something else.
ImageIMG_2609 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

This is a "Blue Dancing Fish", because of their displays.
ImageIMG_2625 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr

The rest we didn't name.
ImageIMG_2545 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
ImageIMG_2534 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
ImageIMG_2618 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
ImageIMG_2595 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
ImageIMG_2584 by curtisfrommichigan, on Flickr
DanW
Posts: 103
Joined: November 4th, 2010, 8:02 pm

Re: Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea various fish/fishing

Post by DanW »

Amazing, looks like a place I need to spend winter! I'd love to snorkel around that pool by the cascade.

Dan
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