138 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. XX, January 1966 
Fig. 1. Track of Hurricane, February 1965. 
great damage to the coral reefs in that area. 
The Navuloa Mouth, one of several minor 
mouths of the Rewa, is on the north side of 
the d.elta. This mouth runs into the south end 
of Mbau Water, a lagoon-like area bounded 
to the west by Viti Levu, to the south by the 
Kamba Peninsula, and the east by a large lux- 
uriant coral reef; to the north it joins Bligh 
Water, northwest of Ovalau Island 25 miles 
away. The amount of fresh-water carried by 
the Navuloa Mouth had not been sufficient 
to prevent the growth of corals in the area 
which abounded in fish, mollusks, turtles, and 
other marine life. 
During the February floods the left bank of 
the Rewa River just below Wainibokasi vil- 
lage gave way, and a mass of floodwater poured 
into an old bed of the river and was carried 
northwest across the delta to flow into the sea 
through the Navuloa Mouth as a great brown, 
muddy stream. This was seen from Colo-i-Suva, 
the highest point on the Suva peninsula, by 
Sakanasa Rokotuidau and other officers of the 
Co-operatives Department, who described it as 
"a brown stain on the sea” which covered the 
south end of Mbau Water and stretched out 
into the ocean over the barrier reefs. 
For some days after the floods a few dead 
fish, mostly parrot fish and wrasse, were found 
on the beaches round Laucala Bay, the Suva 
peninsula, and Lami. Fishermen reported find- 
ing dead fish off the Nasoata and Nasilai 
mouths of the Rewa, but it is not uncommon 
for a few dead fish and shells to be found after 
very heavy rain. However, on February 15 a 
report came in from Tomberua Island that the 
sea round the island was covered with thou- 
sands of dead fish. I made a trip down the 
Rewa to Tomberua Island on February 17 to 
see for myself the extent of the damage, and to 
talk about it with the people of Kamba village. 
Mr. McHugh, owner of Tomberua Island, 
and the Kamba villagers told me about the 
dead fish. On February 13 and 14, while they 
were attempting to salvage a small cutter which 
had been wrecked on the outer reef during the 
storm, they passed many dead fish floating on 
the water. They said that the fish lay in long 
swathes in the hollows of the waves, 10 ft wide, 
several fish deep, and stretching as far as they 
could see. There were fish of all kinds, a few 
very large fish, most of which had been mauled; 
many hundreds of medium-sized fish, small 
barracudas, parrot fish, wrasse, red and grey 
snappers, groupers, eels, surgeon fish, mullets, 
puffer fish, and trigger fish; many thousands of 
very small fish, brilliantly coloured damsel fish 
and butterfly fish, small eels, and young fish of 
all kinds. On February 15 and 16 many of these 
fish were washed up on the beach at Tomberua, 
where they were buried, but very few were cast 
up on the beaches of the Kamba peninsula. 
The Kamba people, who are expert fishermen, 
told me that they had never heard of anything 
like this happening before. The floods of 1929, 
1931, 1954, and March 1964, although causing 
heavy damage to property and food crops and 
mortality amongst livestock, did not affect any 
reefs to this extent. 
I walked on the Tomberua reef at half tide 
