I looked around and thought 'if I had a bicycle

"I was fortunate enough to be with the feeders, up, close and personal with these sharks. I touched them as they passed and when I did, I felt their power, their precision in the water and the peace with which they went about in this world.

"It was beautiful. Their existence there ensured that the world down there stays beautiful. The reef was alive, the colours so vibrant, it was awesome that I did not want to come up.

"I looked around and thought 'if I had a bicycle, I would just take a scenic tour up and down the mountains and valleys'."

Manoa's thoughts went back to ancient times and that relationship between Fijians and sharks.

"I wondered what brought about the end of that relationship. What did we do wrong? When did fear come in? After that experience, I believe we still have that understanding with them."

Thanks to the shark-feeding operators - Aquatrack and Beqa Divers, which operates just close by in the passage the stories of old will remain.

And while shark-feeding may contradict with the aims of conservation to leave sharks be to feed in their natural environment, Manoa believes the feeders in the Beqa passage have done what he has been trying to the past few years ù prove that Fijians have a special relationship with the sharks.

"These tourists bring in a lot of money to see these sharks but better still, here we have a chance to learn of this old relationship and understand just what these fish mean to us.

Energy-efficiency investments paying off

Since Doug Miles moved his Seacoast Volkswagen dealership from Portsmouth to a new building and location seven years ago, finding the best way to deal with high energy costs has been a priority.

"It's always a sound business decision," Miles said about the investments he has made over the years. He has installed passive solar units, three small, computer-controlled natural gas boilers and a 35-foot wind turbine. More recently, the dealership added an 80-panel photovoltaic array to produce electricity and is changing to energy-efficient LED light bulbs in all of the property's parking lot light fixtures.

"We've had so many different projects, and we're just fortunate to be in the position to pursue them," Miles said of the various state and federal grants and tax incentives he has utilized to add one piece of the energy efficiency puzzle after another.

Though energy prices are down from a year to two years ago, commercial electricity and energy costs have been a consistent top concern for business owners in the region, along with skyrocketing health care costs, taxes and regulation.

Michael Licata, an energy policy expert with the New Hampshire Business and Industry Association, said energy costs overall in New England have been higher for more than two decades, in part because the regional power grid has been more reliant on natural gas for electricity generation than most any other part of the country.

"Right now natural gas is really cheap and there are a lot of reasons. It's simple supply and demand. The economy is really bad and people aren't using as much," Licata said.

While natural gas prices have been volatile, deregulation has given large-scale energy users the opportunity to find favorable electricity contracts. "Businesses need to be on the cutting edge to remain competitive in a global marketplace. They have been able to find pretty favorable contracts on the open market," he said.