More fishermen

 The journey so far

We are coming to the end of our costal tour of Spain. Soon we will start travelling inland towards Madrid and then back to Barcelona for Christmas and New Year.

So far we’ve already clocked up nearly 6,000 kilometres in the last 3 months and have thousands of kilometres planned for 2018.

What I’ve been up to.

The weather is getting cooler here and recently I’ve been waking up a little later than usual. My usual routine is to make breakfast and a cup of tea and then head out with Rocío (my girlfriend) and Shiba (the dog) in search of a strong coffee. I often use this time to scout out locations and see who I can meet. Today was no different. On the search for an espresso we wandered past a  small fishing port. I really wanted to explore it, but the desire for coffee was too strong. I decided to check it out later if there was anything worth shooting there.

I’m in a picturesque town called Barbate in the Spanish province of Cadiz. A place I’d never heard of until I spotted it on a map and thought it could be a nice place to spend a couple of days. It’s a small port town that had a feel of being very touristy, despite there being no tourists –  One of the beauties of travelling in Spain at this time of year.

It turns out that fishing is big business here, or rather tuna fishing is very big business here. I discovered that between the months of March and September the fishermen place huge nets out at sea that catch tuna as they migrate from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. One friendly fisherman told me that there is tight regulation about how much they can catch. Because of this the tuna population is very healthy and they expect their cuota will increase next year.

Within 15 mins of being in the port I had met some interesting and colourful characters. I asked one in particular if the fishing they do was hard work, expecting the answer to be ‘damn right, it’s bloody hard!‘. He calmly replied ‘Na, not really‘. Fair enough, I thought. At least he’s honest.

Another fisherman I met told me that during the off season, when there is no tuna, he makes his way down to the port to help his friends, in return for a small bag of fish. This is enough to get him and his family through the winter until March when he will head back to sea and the tuna will arrive.

As I was leaving the port I spotted a small shack. Inside it was dark except for one light which shone on an elderly gentleman in the corner. He was working away repairing  what must have been many hundreds of square meters of fishing net. I tried to engage him in conversation but he was more engrossed in his work, he let me take a few shots before I moved on. Leaving him to get through what must be a never ending task.

I’m so glad my morning coffee run turned out this way, I’m starting to think that all good adventure start with a coffee.