It is early morning along the coast of Ghana in the busy fishing community, Winneba, and residents are gathered at the shore overlooking the sea to welcome the fishermen from sea. The beautiful morning sun is lazying across the sky. Birds are soaring in the sky and boats are dotted on the sea like tress in a savanna land. Fishermen who did not go to sea the previous night are busily carrying their fishing nets from one end of the shore to the other and women can be seen balancing pans and trays of different sizes on their heads waiting for the fishermen to bring the fish to the shore. Some few children are seen loitering around. Some older boys are also busy climbing the coconut trees nearby to pick some of the fruits from the trees. The boats begin streaming in—different colorful canoes up to 140 feet long, each hull carved from a single tree, the fishermen from sea draw close to the shore, they tie one end of the rope to a coconut tree on the shore while the other half is tied to the boat and begin to pull the nets to the shore. Young, old, men and women all come together to pull the net to the shore. Some of the women bring drinking water to the shore to quench the thirst of the fishermen and those helping to pull the nets.
They pull the net slowly and it may take them several hours to pull it to the shore. At a
sound from the leader of the group, they all pull the rope and rest for a little while, then pull again.This is repeated till the nets are drawn to the shore and the fish taken out of the nets and put in pans, basins, sacks, buckets and so on. Fishmongers and other people usually come to the shore to buy the fish, some go to sell the fish in the market, others go to smoke it for sale and others also take it home for domestic use. The fishermen give some of the fish to all those who helped to pull the net to the shore. There are also some one or two children around who are waiting for the least opportunity to steal some of the fish from the fisher folks, they will exchange the fish for some sweets or roast them and eat.
When everything has been settled and all the fish is distributed and sold out, the tired fishermen go home to wash down, eat and rest for the day as they wait for another night. Those who broke their nets go to mend them in preparation for another adventure in the evening. The fishermen usually leave for the sea at 5:30 pm and return around 6:00 am the next day, they spend the entire night at sea.
Midnight on the Gulf of Guinea, several miles off the shore of Winneba, the fishermen pitch their boats in the sea. Usually, the captain and crew members of the boat pull up a trawl net by hand. As legal commercial fishing goes, this is about as far as one can get
from the robotic, industrial operations of big vessels. There are very few mechanised devices on the boats they take to sea, save for a horsepower inboard diesel motor and a naked light bulb (some also use local locally made torches) swaying over the deck.
The fishermen fish by sight, looking for flashes of bio-luminescence in the water that signal a school of fish. As the moonlight shines on the sea, the scales on the fish shine in the water. Some of the scales can shine like lights under the ocean. This way, the fishermen are able to see the fish even if they are several kilometers away. Sometimes too, by reading the stars they can locate the presence of fish even if they are very deep in the sea. They have no radio on board. One of the crewmen throws a rope overboard, weighted by a rusty ball of iron, and checks markings on the line to check the depth of the water.
The yield from the nights are often paltry, a few dozen fish including some shrimp,
cassava fish, salmon, eels and so on. Some of the crew members squat on the deck as the boat lurches into position for another trawl and sort the scrawny fish to be sold at the town market. All this while, they are have not had any sleep and are working hard to finish up and get back to the shore before day breaks.
In much of West Africa, the industrial and inshore fleets often work within sight of each other, competing for the same fish; some captains of large and small boats can be tempted to ignore a boundary, and the law during fishing, in pursuit of profit, like Oliver Twist,they always want more. Reports are told of how trawlers and other big boats ram canoes and other small boats, intentionally snarling their nets and otherwise threatening and intimidating local fishermen. As soon as the large boats cross into the inshore exclusive zone, they’re fishing illegally. The big boats intimidate and bully the small boats.
In the olden days, fishermen use to paddle their boats to sea, it is however becoming difficult these days because fishermen must go long distances due to lack of fish in our seas. In the past, our fishermen did not go into the deep seas before coming down with a
heavy catch. These days due to over-fishing, a lot of the fish stock has been depleted. Some species have become extinct and are no longer available in our waters.I am sometimes afraid that a day will come when we may not get any fish to eat. Sometimes, fishermen face very serious and dangerous storms which result in the drowning of some of them. In such a situation, some of them may die because they do not go to sea with any safety equipment, they rely on their experience and instincts.
Due to the high costs of the equipment that fishermen use in for their business, fishing is becoming less and less profitable. But most of them do not have anywhere to turn to because of poor formal education, so they are forced to stay in it. Fishermen these days are really going through a lot. I think that more efforts should be made by government
and NGOs to support the fisher folks. None of the fishermen fish on Tuesdays. It is a taboo for any fisherman to go out to sea on that day. Instead, they mend their broken ropes and nets. They also do minor repairs on their wooden boats and rest as well. CHEERS!!
Reference
http://web.cgu.edu/faculty/wickera/fisher.htm
