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Nauru was very different from any of the other places in which the Costa family had lived in. Nauru was what you would call unique. They have many customs which a normal person would find difficult to get used to.

One of the most outrageous customs would be the one when a couple has a baby. If a couple has a baby in Nauru, they would have to unlock their houses and let their friends take whatever they liked. For example: cars, boats, fridges, beds, televisions, videos, computers, toys, clothes, kitchen utensils and even the water pump, everything would go. People then have to go and buy everything new again until their next baby was to be born.

Another custom which was very common in Nauru was the one of having guests to your house for dinner. If you were to have a guest for dinner the food that was prepared for the meal was considered to be theirs. So when it was time to leave, the guests would use plastic basins to take any food that was left over from the meal.

Like most houses in Nauru the Costa's house has a large swimming pool. Erica and Rita use to swim in it three to four times a day. Every Sunday all the family friends would go to their house for lunch and dinner and would have a big party around the pool.

Whilst on his diving trips Fernando would bring home all different types of fish and sea creatures and then put them in the pool for his daughters to play with. In the swimming pool they had an octopus, Morton May bug and even a lobster.

When Fernando first bought the octopus home and placed into the pool Rita jumped in to play with it. At the beginning the octopus wrapped itself around her arm and held on with its tentacles quite hard. After ten minutes the octopus calmed down and then the whole family could play with it.

Fernando had many close encounters with sharks whilst diving but never got seriously hurt. He went on many night dives and took hundreds of pictures but this was quite dangerous because he was not able to see very well but the sharks could.


Rita playing with the octopus in our pool

During one of his last dives Fernando and Mum were cruising the reef when two sharks started circling the divers too close for comfort. One of the sharks followed Fernando into a cave and he decided it was high time to test his strength against the tiger of the deep. Fernando stabbed the shark in the head and to avoid to be bitten he pinned the shark against the bottom of the cave. To be able to control the violent trashing of the hounded shark, Fernando had to cling to the coral with his spare hand. And there he was in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean with a very upset two meters white tip reef shark and not knowing what to do next. Mum came to the rescue but only made matters worse when shaking with fear she dropped her knife onto Fernando's head. A Nauruan diver tried to help Fernando but was hit by the tail of the shark and had the strap of his mask broken which forced him to go to the surface for repairs. Fortunately for Fernando the Nauruan diver returned and put and end to the embarrassing situation by cutting the tail bone of the shark.

Fernando rarely dived alone. He used to train people in the pool at home how to use the tank and regulator. He also taught them how to buddy breathe in case of an emergency.

With Erica on the left and Catherine on the right

Fernando taught Mum how to dive. At the age of eight he taught his eldest daughter Erica the basics before she took for the underwater world herself. When his younger daughter Rita saw that her sister was diving she demanded to be taught. So at the age of four she knew the basics of diving.

Two years after living in Nauru the Costa family decided to go on a trip around the world.

From Nauru the family traveled to Honk Kong and Macau where they spent a week traveling and catching up with old friends. From Hong Kong they flew to Switzerland and spent three days in Zurich.

The whole family loved Switzerland mainly because it was a pretty place and had lots of interesting clocks and most importantly ... the chocolates!

They traveled to Lisbon, to be with their family and friends. In Portugal they spent about six weeks sightseeing the country from North to South before heading to The Big Apple - New York.

In New York they visited all the usual tourist spots including the Empire State Building, The World Trade Center, Manhattan island and the Rockefeller Center. They stayed in Connecticut the home of the famous Stamford University which they visited.

From New York they flew to Los Angeles and obviously Disneyland was the destination. During the three days that they spent at Disneyland they went on as many rides as humanly possible and had a great deal of fun meeting all the characters that make Disneyland famous: Mickey Mouse, Minnie, Pluto, Donald Duck and many others.

The next stop in this world tour was Honolulu where they spent two days relaxing and having fun in the sun before heading back to Nauru.

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