A winter fishing trip

Men of the sea

In my mother’ s and in my father’ s family, we had our share of marine engineers. Some years ago, it was difficult to find a family that was originated from an island that wasn’t related to an engineer, or a captain, or a boatswain… So, I grew up listening to dozens of stories about their life at the sea: those magnificent stories with such a strong blend of words… Italian marine words and sometimes English with a Greek suffix, all with a touch of a characteristic island accent… Strange: they wouldn’t talk so much about the places they had seen, nor about ports and cities. They loved talking about their life on the ship, stories about the crew, about the people that they met on board and of course about food; it doesn’t matter if it is served in the crew dining room or in a kitchenette that seems to have jumped out of a comic strip –food is a subject that is never taken lightly, not in a boat.

A sea trip, even a short fishing trip, when it is your daily life, can be tough; a lot of hard work, a few hours of sleep and challenging weather conditions. Each trip is a new adventure and needs to follow the pattern and habits of previous successful trips: seamen are superstitious, and fishermen are quite reluctant to accept visitors when they work. Christos joined the three-day fishing trip, and he knew, that if the first couple of nets would come out of the water empty of fish, he would be dropped off to the next island; no matter how long he’ d have to wait for the next ferry to get there.

 

Without any scheduled stops, time in a fishing boat goes by slowly and life develops around the moment when the nets are pulled out of the water: if the fishermen see a lot of red fish they are satisfied; if not, the fishing and the waiting continues. It’ s like you are on a spaceship; you are surrounded by blue, in places where the island lights fade away and have the privilege of a unique and breathtaking sunrise. Wrapped in wool sweaters and thick raincoats, trying to warm your hands around a hot cup of coffee that gets cold in two minutes, you can’t overlook the color of the sky that seems almost electrical.

And of course, there are the amazing fish soups: fresh, steamy kakavia, that the engineer and the boatswain prepare with the confidence of experienced cooks that are resourceful and creative. My father says that all marine engineers cook well, -I don’ t know- maybe he’s right. The soups on that fishing boat where so good that made all the crew smile. Then, the storytelling started: stories about the secret fishing spots, stories about old seamen, and stories from home. Stories from home were tricky ones; they made people light a cigarette or two; and they made them look outside the small round kitchen windows, where the night sky was so filled with stars, that you’ d thought you can touch them.

Music inspiration for this post: Antinomia – Kavvadias (ksemparkoi)

 

words by maria alipranti

photography by christos drazos