Fishing as Making Do.

In Tokelau, Havini demonstrated to Robert Gillett how to see underwater without goggles.

Pearl-shell was most often encountered inside small caves and underneath rock ledges . The older "tautai" interviewed said that during their youth diving was done without the aid of goggles; divers cupped one hand over the eye ... trapping a small pocket of air in the palm which would enable underwater vision .  As pressure increases with depth , this technique could only be used to a maximum depth of about eight metres, after which the air bubble would be too compressed to be of any use.

          [R. Gillett.   1985.  Traditional Tuna Fishing in Tokelau.  Noumea: South Pacific Commission.]

Gillette also wrote a companion volume about fishing on Satawal Island, in the Caroline Islands West of Chuuk Lagoon.

Subsistence fishing in traditional communities is certainly an impressive example of making do, in all aspects.  In Kiribati, I was priviledged to go fishing with a man whose name I cannot recall, on the island of Aranuka.  A split piece of driftwood lumber, approximately 4x4, by about 4-1/2 or 5' long, was a central piece of equipment.  This log (for want of a better name) had two crosspieces lasted to it, around which was wound a length of monofilament fishing line, perhaps 30 pound test.  Several fish hooks were tucked away in the crack.  The monofilament and the fishhooks were the only gear that was purchased in the store.  From one end of the log to the other was tied a length of some kind of line, which I learned later was a stringer.

In the long crack was kept a spear, and I think even a spare, along with a machete.  When I asked why he carried a machete, he explained, "Te Pakua (sharks)".

We started wading out across the reef flat toward the reef.  Along the way, my companion used the machete to kill a juvenile eel, which he tied onto the log somehow.  When we reached the reef, he tied the log to his waist using  a tether made of hand made sennit, and dived through the wave, towing his toolkit behind him.

Once we cleared the reef crest, he swam along the surface, scanning the bottom in about 12-15 feet of water.  He unwound the monofilament, used the machete to cut the eel up for bait, and started fishing.  I thought it was ingenious, and he certainly was expert: swimming along the surface, presenting the bait to groupers resting on the bottom.  He caught several.  Thinking upon it, they were not of great size, but very good for the "table."

He did, of course, catch other species, and spear a few as well.  But when he had enough to feed a fairly large number of people, it was time to go back.

My companion had taken me out at night as well, to fish for Hemiramphids, halfbeaks.  The diet on this island was varied, as every day, it seemed, a different kind of fish was brought home---through the employment of a different style of fishing.  These are all stories for other times.

The point here is about Making Do, at a high level.