Solomon Islands
Laulasi Island
Shark callers summon reef sharks to shore using ancestral chants on a sacred artificial island.
The chanting begins before you see the sharks. A low, rhythmic call carries across the water from a coral platform barely larger than a house, and dark shapes glide in from the reef edge as if summoned by name. On Laulasi Island in the Solomon Islands, they have been summoned by name — by the same families, using the same chants, for longer than anyone can remember.
Laulasi is a sacred artificial island in Langa Langa Lagoon off the coast of Malaita, built up from coral over generations and reserved primarily for ceremony. The island's abu fera — shark callers — maintain ancestral relationships with specific reef sharks through offerings and chants, a practice that is not performed for tourists but can be witnessed with advance permission from the island's custodians. The coral platform is constructed using the same methods as Langa Langa's inhabited artificial islands, but Laulasi's purpose is spiritual rather than residential. Photography requires explicit consent from the shark caller before beginning. What visitors observe is not a show — it is a living spiritual practice that predates any outside contact with Malaita, witnessed in silence from a respectful distance.
Couple
One of the most profoundly unusual experiences two people can share anywhere in the Pacific. Sitting in a canoe watching sharks respond to ancestral chants — it's the kind of moment that words struggle to contain afterwards.
Family
Children old enough to sit quietly in a canoe will witness something they cannot see anywhere else on Earth. The journey by canoe to the island and the ceremony itself are gentle and safe — the intensity is spiritual, not physical.
Friends
A shared encounter with a tradition that most people don't know exists. The canoe journey from the Malaita coast, the silence before the chanting starts, and the sight of sharks gliding in on cue — you'll be talking about it for years.
- Laulasi is a ceremonial centre for the shark-calling tradition; abu fera (shark callers) maintain ancestral relationships with specific reef sharks through offerings and chants, and the sharks reportedly respond to the callers' presence at the island's edge.
- The artificial island's coral base has been built up and maintained over generations — the same construction method as Langa Langa's inhabited islands, but this one reserved entirely for ceremony.
- Access is by canoe from the coast of Malaita, and visits require advance permission from the island's custodians; photography requires explicit consent from the shark caller before beginning.
- The entire practice is considered sacred — visitors observe but do not participate, meaning the experience is one of witnessing something that was never designed to be a performance.
Fish offered first to the ancestral sharks before the village shares the reef catch.
Smoked fish and taro served on a coral platform built by hand over generations.
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