The Paua Hunters - November 13th

Imagine being shipwrecked on Rangatira Island. First, the moment when the breeze dies and silence falls, leaving your boat rolling on a dark and oily sea. The sails hang slack, then snap out tight, first in one direction then another as the wind begins to gust, whipping the wave tops to white foam and flinging it against a sky that is the purple-black colour of a bruise. Now hold on! Your boat is driven before the storm days on end, until with a crash, you land on an unknown shore: battered but alive and very hungry. As you step into the bush, robins and tomtits hop up to you… unfortunately you are an avid ornithologist and refuse to eat birds, not even the seabirds beneath your feet! So what will you eat?

Looking for paua in the rockpools

Well, we might not be shipwrecked but it is still fun to try and live off the land. And Mel, who has spent three summers on Rangatira, shows me the ropes. On an afternoon too rainy to band birds, we head around the coast, searching pool after pool for the biggest paua we can see. They are not easy to spot, as their shells are encrusted the same pink colour as the rocks, but when they are grazing they raise their shells up and you can see the black body moving and munching its way around the pool.

Paua body and shell

You have to be quick though - if you don’t twist them off the rocks first time they suck on tight and you will never get them up. Fresh paua, sliced and cooked with butter and lemon (provided your lemon supplies survived the shipwreck) – luxury!

Paua in the rockpools