Gone Fishing

The other day I went fishing. I wanted to hitch a ride by wading into the rising tide with a ten dollar bill and a pack of cigarettes waving above my head, speaking for themselves if my oral language skills weren't adequate to make the offer. Every day nearly a hundred 20, 25 ft wooden dhows, single sail boats which cant be tacked in less than three minutes, set sail for the horizon for an honest days work and to bring in a few hundred pounds of fish meat. I have a thing for sailing and this opportunity brought my excitement level right up there with sky diving. There is something so pure and honest about fishing in a wooden sailing boat that I yearned to partake, something unalterably necessary and decent that is timelessly reflected by the endless expanses of the sky and sea which encompass the endeavor.

My ambition proved to be bigger than my courage and I negotiated the trip through a 'friend' I had met in the village for $30. I brought a few cigarettes as a courtesy. Each boat caries four crew and perhaps a half kilometer of net. Along with other odds and ends my favorite accessory was the 5 gallon metal bucket with a large square hole in the side that served as the boat's stove. Sailing was good in the gentle wind past the pristine turquoise reef shelf and into deeper water. We had left mid afternoon and just before sunset we were casting the net, "pole, pole." It seemed to take forever and I couldn't imagine bringing it back into the boat loaded with fish. The small shallow keeled boat (maybe it doesn't really have a keel) was rocking badly from the small swells that came to our side as we unloaded the net. Thankfully, once the net was out it was tethered to the front of the boat and the wind swung us around to face the swells head on adding a bit of bearable pitch and keeping the yaw to a more sparse and random occurrence still vicious when it came.

All the while a fire had been raging in the ships stove with about five pounds of cassava root boiling above it. This would be our Ramadan dinner. Two of the crew, none of whom spoke more English than my Swahili, took time for a prayer, facing north, just as the sun went down on the ship's small deck. The other two sparked up a few spliffs in preparation to pass the long night so I joined them, feeling an ounce of camaraderie. The cassava was a little undercooked but it was accompanied by some overcooked tuna that had been caught on a line to make it more bearable. We shared the dinner on a large aluminum plate sans forks or chopsticks.

Then what? The sun had gone down and the net was out. It was time to wait for the poor unsuspecting fishies to deliver themselves blindly into the net. No one had an instrument or a musical talent worth sharing. No one produced playing cards or a board game. The two Muslims prayed again a few hours later. Thankfully there was a small radio with decent reception that played a mix of American pop radio. I brought out my snacks and offered them, some bananas, peanuts and sweet bread. I didnt bother sharing the cigarettes because I was already fighting the thought of nausea from the pitching waves and an ounce of nicotine over that rolled into the splifs might have sent my bowels over the edge. There was, however, the night sky. It was a cloudless night with a full and shining milky way right above us. I tried to recognize constellations but failed. The Big Dipper was not up or too far north. The Southern Cross was similarly missing in the South and Orion may or may not have been out, it was hard to decide. The stars were spectacular though and calmed my stomach. In the distance I could see a faint glow from a township on the neighboring island of Pemba, still a good 6 hours sail away, and the lights from our fishing village reassuringly near by. Looking overboard I began to hallucinate spots of light in the water. They kept happening and more so where the waves splashed against the bow of the boat. This was a very real hallucination. I leaned over the side and sloshed my hand about in the water. A trail of glowing sparkles followed my fingers like magic pixie dust. Startled, I jumped back. That was some really good herb - I though. I grabbed a fire wood stick, about the size of a broom handle, and stirred the water. Sure enough, the phosphorescent plankton were out in force giving the sea a magical life of light in the night to match the speckled stars above. I yelped out to the crew in the excitement of my discovery. They barely mumbled a word as if they couldn't see what was going on or had seen it so often they didn't care to notice. They seemed more amused by my stirring of the water than the light show below the surface. I amused myself for a while thinking it might be long before I got another chance to have such fun.

As the night wore on the crew produced blankets and plastic tarps, I got a nice big blanket and a dirty canvas sheet, curled up on the damp hard wooden floor and went to sleep with the radio singing lullabies. The though of closing my eyes nearly scared the cassava out of me. I was horrified. How was I going to survive the night without sleeping or throwing up? Slowly, after contemplating many things, I slouched down farther and farther into the bottom of the boat. I found that lying down actually reduced the linear movement of my body and after a while I was tired enough to actually close my eyes and fall asleep, sort of. Ill call it rest.

The moon came up well before daybreak but apparently signaled time to collect the net. Bodies slowly stirred and moved into action. Pulling in the net was a more difficult task and fortunately I was relegated to watching. I was secretly hoping for a good catch so the fishermen might think I brought them good luck and talk about me favorably to their friends in the village or at least smile at me. For a while, though, the net came back empty and I began to wonder about their tactics. When we laid the net I had expected to come around with one end and round up a bunch of splashing fishies. Instead we just cast it and pulled it back in like an marine fly trap. My worries were dashed in dramatic fashion when I was called to help haul in a fish that turned out to be a 150 pound Manta Rey. Not long after we hauled in a 7 or 8 foot blue marlin with a big nasty spear on its nose and a beautiful latex dorsal fin. A second marlin followed shortly. Four 2 ft tuna rounded out our catch. I was surprised to find the fish completely lifeless upon entering the boat. I guess they die when they get tangled in the net some how. A bit sad but bearable since fish eyes aren't so compelling.

It was still entirely dark and starry when the net was finally pulled in. Right away the crew hoisted the sail and pulled it tight to slice back into the wind towards Nungwi. The smallest tuna was gutted and its left half was chopped up for breakfast. I had been fantasizing about raw tuna for a while now, seeing all the fresh catches at the fish markets, but wasnt able to get my hands on any as sushi had not found its way into the culture. I knew the diced tuna before me was destined for the boiler so I grabbed a flabby chunk, rinsed it in the ocean and sunk my teeth into the soft red flesh. It was exceptionally good, fresh as raw fresh tuna could be. After precariously firing the metal can stove with hot smoldering coals falling out on the the deck of the wooden boat every so often the tuna was served with a heaping mound of white rice seasoned with the juices from the boiled fish. I was beginning to grow sick of the smell of fish. It was on my hands, my shirt, my pants, the boat and the hundreds of pounds of dead fish in the boat. I ate some breakfast but wasn't too hungry.

Sailing was slow into the wind and tacking didn't seem to be an option. After some discussion with the crew the captain decided to bring down the sail and power our way back with the outboard. The motor had the equivalent power of a scooter and we didn't cause much of a wake but it was an improvement over the sail. The sun began to lighten the sky over the horizon and I could see other masts scattered about the water, making their way back, hopefully with loads of fish, after a nights work. The ride back was quite and slow save for the mild rumble of the outboard motor. Not much was said. I found myself quite tired and ready for a shower and a nap. I was very pleased, however, at our bounty. The two marlins and manta ray seemed to me like an impressive catch and wondered how we fared compared to the other boats making their way in.

Before we reached the beach we ran out of petrol and the motor went silent. The sail was hoisted on its wooden pulleys and wooden masts and we kept moving, into the wind, towards our destination, forced to make at least one tack. When we arrived the sun was fully bright and strangers helped us haul the fish up the sand near a little shed where a crowd of men gathered. Within seconds of laying our fish down they were being auctioned to any who cared to be standing around. No scales were needed, just eyeballs. A small, energetic old man rattled out numbers in Swahili, counting up when someone gestured and approval. The two marlins went for 80,000 Tanzanian shillings each, the manta ray for 60,000, and two of the tuna for 40,000. 1,000 Tanzanian shillings is about $1. I hung around for a bit to marvel at the scene and after finally realizing that I was near delirious with fatigue I stumbled back to my hotel room, took a bucket shower and went to bed.