A pretty fish (Burela, Spain)

I had been told to come to Burela to learn about bonito fishing, and oh boy have I learned about it. Not only did I go on a tour of the official bonito museum (which floats -- it is a boat), but I have seen boxes of bonito at the pre-dawn bonito auction and, what's more, "interviewed" a man who used to own a bonito boat. In short, I am a bonito expert. That's a lie; I am no expert. But, thanks to Tono (there should be a tilde over the "n" -- the name is like "Tonio"), the gracious man who chatted me up at the lonja (reversal of roles!) and invited me to come and talk with him this morning at his office, I know much more than I did before I came to Burela. Allow me to write at length about this fish:

Bonito is, true to its name, a pretty fish. It is also a migratory fish, and travels in shoals from the Azores Islands towards the northern coast of Spain between June and September, making its way to the region near the British Isles called "Gran Sol" by October and then, mysteriously, disappearing. Its movements have everything to do with the temperature of the water, and are therefore, to a certain degree, unpredictable; the climate refuses to do the same thing twice. You have to look for bonito to fish them, and every year you end up looking in new places. Burela has always been economically dependent on the costera, the passing of the bonito, and its float had up to eighty ships at some points in the past century. Now there are about thirty, and, although they are made of metal instead of wood and sport fancy-shmancy tech toys like global positioning systems, the method of fishing bonito remains (almost) exactly the same as it was fifty years ago.

On the Galician coast, bonito is fished with hooks, fifteen of them, which are attached to lines strung to an elevated horizontal bar at the stern of the ship, which allows for the bait to appear to swim through the water as the ship moves. The bait is not live, though -- it is a little bundle of ribbons covered with a jiggly, squid-like piece of plastic. Back in the day, when artificial materials didn't reign supreme, fishermen used corn husks to make the bait, but to their disadvantage; apparently the fish are more likely to bite certain colors of bait on certain days (which makes the rainbow that plastics offer a boon to modern bonito fishermen). On cloudy days, light-colored bait is used; on bright days, dark-colored bait. And on good days, this is how the fishing happens: A boat comes upon a shoal of fish, and they, liking the color of the bait on the hooks (I imagine: "Neon pink?! I've never eaten anything THAT color before!! I wonder what it tastes like!"), start to bite. Quicklyquickly the fishermen pull the lines with fish on them towards the side of the boat, grab the fish by the tail with a long hook, and whack it on the head with a wooden club with the intent to stun. If they hit it too gently, it thrashes its way to an ugly demise, and if they hit it too hard, blood might fall into the water and frighten the other fish away. This is the last thing the fishermen want, because they will continue to make passes through the same shoal until they stop catching fish.

The boats go out for a maximum of twenty days at a time, but come back sooner if they get lucky with the fishies. Tono recalled that when he first started fishing for bonito, at age fifteen, they knew that they had gotten lucky with the fishies when they saw whales; both whales and bonito eat shrimp, so, where there were whales, there was likely to be bonito, too. (He didn't say anything about whales these days, but many people have told me that they keep retreating farther and farther into the deep ocean; I wonder where and how often modern-day fishermen see them.) (I would really like to talk to a whale.) Tono also said that overfishing is not as grave a problem with seasonal fish, like bonito, as it is with fish that stay in the same place, like merluza/pescadilla. However, fishermen at other ports catch bonito with circular nets (that don't just catch bonito, but anything else unlucky enough to be swimming by), which he looks down upon because it is "industrial" and the quality of the fish decreases immensely. Also, until a few years ago (ten?)(ish), it was legal to fish by stringing long rectangular nets in the water, but, of course, some ships were caught placing nets that were eight times longer than the legal limit, and the harm to non-fishy species, like dolphins, was so great that the practice was banned entirely. Before the ban, bonito did suffer from overfishing; now they seem to be doing all right.

Well! I hope that you are impressed! It is really an interesting form of fishing, particularly because it's changed so little in the past fifty years. In addition to learning about bonito fishing, I have formulated a plan of attack against my recent moodiness (I'm lonely, but I deserve no pity, because 1. I am having an adventure and 2. it is a learning experience) (3. and it builds character! I don't think Calvin ever bought that, though): I will go on day trips to nearby towns! Yesterday I spent the entire day in and around a town called Mondonedo (the second "n" has a tilde over it), which is tucked between green hills a ways south of Burela and which used to be much more important than it is now (now it is a tourist hub; it used to be the capital of a province). I saw the impressive cathedral and the exteriors of several other churches, a convent where nuns still live, many an old beautiful building bathed in sunlight, which makes everything old beautiful, and much more in the way of camera fodder. I also went walking around the neighborhood called Los Molinos, through which artificial water canals run (some houses are accessed by little bridges!), and explored the rural surroundings. Narrow dirt paths bordered by trees and bushes that sometimes formed a dense ceiling -- ugh. Beautiful. In the spirit of my guide book: charming.

Something else charming that I've been meaning to mention: In several of the towns I've been in, I've stumbled across the Place Where the Old Men Meet. This is an unofficial landmark -- usually somewhere near the water, and usually somewhere with benches or steps -- where something vital to the functioning of the town takes place: old men reminisce! When I found the Place Where the Old Men Meet in Burela, I asked a man nearby what the building where I had seen them gathered was called. He said that it was a social room of sorts, but that everyone called it "the story benches." Isn't that lovely? In every town (or at least many towns), every afternoon, old men gather to tell stories, or, if the words aren't flowing, to sit in silence (but also in company). Routines of the retired. May we all enjoy them.

In other news, it is looking like I am going to be able to go on a fishing excursion with Jose (the man who had agreed to let me go with him last week, but whose ship broke) tomorrow night. I am nothing if not persistent (and BOLD), and on Friday, as I was returning by foot to Viveiro from San Ciprian, I passed by the port at Celeiro and decided to leave a note for him at the main office of the lonja. It read something like: "Oh hey there, Jose! I hope your ship is fixed soon! If it is, think I could go with you sometime next week? I won't be far away and I'm great at taking buses! It's okay if you say no! Well, let me know! Great! ~Irene" but sixteen times more formal and maybe only half as obnoxious. I didn't expect him to write -- because half as obnoxious is still pretty obnoxious -- but yesterday I got a one-line e-mail from him, all capital letters, telling me to show up at the dock any night this week. I'm tempted, at this point in my writing, to go wild with exclamation points, but I've resolved not to reveal my inner enthusiasm, lest the sea gods notice and cause the ship to break again (I already saw the weather forecast for tomorrow: rain all along the northern coast of Spain) (i.e. waves!). To that end, I'll say: If I do get to go on the ship, maybe it'll be sort of interesting. I probably won't learn that much, though. Honestly, I'd rather stay in my hostel room and watch TV or something. At least I wouldn't get seasick. And who wants to be around a bunch of flopping dying fish? Probably only weirdos. Lord knows I am not a weirdo! (Do you think I fooled them?! Oh probably!)