first day's catch
august 1, 2009 happened to be the opening day of the post-monsoon commercial fishing season in goa. i was in colva beach that evening at about sunset when two small local fishing boats arrived at the beach with their catch. here are some (okay, many) photos.
the catch was solar shrimp and they seemed to have quite a lot of it. interesting to see everyone from the small village including women and kids rushing into the water to help haul in the boats. the fisherman sang a konkani song as the pushed and pulled the boat up the beach on wooden railway sleeper like logs that a man lubricated with oil from a pail using a paint brush. as soon as the boats were secured and the catch was unloaded, the women took over inspecting and sorting out the catch. it is traditionally the women folk who market the catch, hence they are the ones who decide what's good and what's not. there was an old matriarch ordering the others around, i didn't get a photo of her (she was a bit intimidating). one young dad seemed to be pleased to see his little kid :)one of the boats was the "princess diana." i didn't get the other one's name. it said "cain & cliff fisheries." how come there were crows on both the flag masts!! i was really impressed by the way they transported the catch into the village (see the last few pictures). truly ingenious!!i was told each of those small baskets would be worth about 500 rupees. the price would come down in the ensuing days as the supply grew. we could see a few women selling solar shrimp by the roadside as we made our way back to the resort. looks like everyone had a good catch on the first day.
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