Fishy business

Sri Lanka is an Island, and therefore surrounded by sea, and fish…so there’s always lots of fresh fish to eat. If you’re near the sea, there will be a fish market somewhere near you where you can go and buy all kinds of fresh fish (some of which I’ve never seen before) for not much money. The first time we bought some fish at the market we bought a kilo of tuna for about 4 quid.

Or you can walk down the beach and (if you happen to be in a touristy spot) you can choose the fish you want to eat outside the restaurant, and how you would like it cooked. When we were in Galle Britta had Jumbo prawns, which were the size of a small lobster (no exaggeration!)

Having rented a house for three months in Negombo, which is one of the countries largest fishing ports, we were surrounded by fishermen, their boats and their families. So it seemed logical for me to take some pictures about this fishy business. As I mentioned in a previous post (about tea) I needed to produce some work with a narrative, and also another piece of work which dealt with an issue, for my MA studies. As with tea, the fishing industry provided me with both these possibilities. Reasonably easy to do a narrative here, but what is the issue? Well, as with tea, it comes down to money again. Fishermen are mostly self-employed, and if they don’t catch anything, they don’t earn anything. Which means they go hungry of have to pawn something until the next catch.

A couple of days after we first arrived the government put the price of fuel up. The fishermen (up and down the country) were not happy about this and held a series of strikes and road blocks which, for a few days at least, caused a fair degree of mayhem. Especially if you wanted to eat fish. The fuel price more than doubled for diesel and Kerosene which meant that if the fishermen didn’t catch much fish (which happens fairly often) then they end up owing money rather than earning it.

Fishermen block the road with their boats and burning tyres.

Fishermen refusing to let any traffic through their road block.

Apart from the monetary issue, there is also an environmental one, which is a case of over fishing. About one third of the population lives in coastal regions, which means that around 65% of the nations animal protein comes from fish. Management of stocks is being introduced with deep see fishing of tuna, but other than this there is not a great deal of regulation. Opinion on this varies according to who you talk to…the fishermen, for instance, think there is no problem with fish stocks, just that there are too many fishermen…

Other than financial and ecological, there is also a political element involved. The government don’t seem to give the industry a great deal of support, and don’t like it when the industry makes a fuss about things. For example, the leader of one of the fishing unions, Mr Herman Kumara, was threatened (by government heavies) and publically blamed for the national orchestration of strikes and road blocks, to the extent that he had to leave the country. Also, other government led initiatives, such as the establishment of tourist resorts in the north like Kalpitya, have seen fishermen pushed off their traditional beach side home grounds, and out of their fishing waters.

Fisherman in Negombo lagoon harbour. Many of the fishermen wear scarves on their head to keep their hats from blowing off.

Fisherman at Trincomalee, fixing his net.

Bigger fish are caught with pole and line.

Pole and line fishermen out looking for big fish. 

Negombo Fish Market.

Negombo Fish Market.

Gutting and preparing fish to be dried.

Boxing up dried fish.

Filling up the bigger boats with diesel, these boats go out deep sea fishing for Tuna, shark etc.

'Trawler' captain. The bigger boats are called trawlers, but they don't trawl in the same way as European trawlers. 

Wheel house of trawler, this is also sleeping quarters for a crew of six for up to 5 weeks at a time. 

Unloading the cargo of Tuna.

Washing the cargo after it's been in the cargo for several weeks.

Fish market for deep sea fish.

Fisherman Nimal and family. Nimal is pleased his eldest son works at a posh hotel (Jetwing Sea) rather than become a fisherman. 

Fisherman Prasad and family.

Fisherman Nisanta and family.

I took lots of pictures of fishermen on the beach, in the harbour, and also at home, but the best fun I had was going our fishing with Nimal, and his mate Samath, at four in the morning. Heading off into the dark, a high speed on a motor boat, not knowing how far out we were going, not being able to ask, as language was limited, and not wearing any kind of life vest (don’t be such a poof) was really exciting.

I found it really hard to focus in the dark, or work out what setting to put my flash on, so the pictures from the first hour or so weren’t very interesting, but once the dawn began to break it was really beautiful. They drove to a seemingly random spot (it wasn’t random, they had an electronic gadget to say where the currents, or fish, I’m not sure which, were) dumped the net over the side, and then waited for an hour or so while the sun came up. Sampath munched on some betel nut (more on this later) and a few other boats came along side to say hello, and comment on the fact that they had seen my camera flashing for miles off.

Nimal, on our way to the fishing ground.

Nimal and Sampath put the net (about 200 ft long) in the water. 

Nimal and Sampath wait while the dawn breaks behind them. 

Getting up at 3.30 am suddenly seemed worth it for the sunrise.

When it came time to haul the net in there didn’t seem to be much in it…and there wasn’t. The kind of fish they were after were tiny little ones, they called them coral fish, I’d call them sprats. We headed back to the beach by about 7am, and spent the next hour or so emptying the net. There was a total of about 20 or 30 kilos of fish. Nimal’s wife, violet met us on the beach with a bottle of hot tea, and helped him vary the fish a couple of hundred meters down the beach to the market, where they weighed it all up and sold it in about 3 or 4 minutes.  The money he got didn’t even cover the diesel for the trip. I asked him how much it cost him in fuel and he said about Rs 2000 (about £10) so I paid that for him as a way of saying thank you for taking me out.

Pulling the net back in.

As the net comes in again we are followed by birds.

The coral fish are very small, and there doesn't seem to be many of them.

Other fishing boats come along side for a natter, and discuss whether it's been a good catch or not...they don't seem to have caught much either.

Emptying the coral fish out of the net. 

Sampath with his head scarf on.

Nimal and his wife Violet put all the fish into a basket and head for the market,  a couple of hundred yards up the beach. 

As with tea workers, the fishermen work long and hard hours, often for little financial reward (though this isn’t always the case…if the catch is good, the return is good) but have very little financial security; they are wholly dependent on what they catch.