If you get up at dawn on the new or full moon in Port Sud-Est, you can watch the fascinating sight of the octopus fishers. Wearing high boots and gripping long, stalk-like forks, six hundred women of all ages, known and respected throughout the island, scrutinise the rocks and coral in search of their precious loot. Now there are so many of them fishing for octopus that the lagoon’s coral reefs are being destroyed. And their catches are getting smaller and smaller.