Fishing in Cape Town

It was the seagulls I noticed first, that caught my eye, though it had also taken me a second to notice them, white swarm against the blue, blue sky, hanging in the air like a cloud. We were taking a driving tour of Cape Town in Alvin's little white car, all six of us, me on Orian's lap in the front seat.

"Down by the water," Alvin said. "They are fishing."

There was a crowd of people, perhaps fifty or more. Some, especially the old-timers and the women and children, milled about the beach. It was a fun time, a spectator sport for them. The men were in the water, at the water's edge, gripping a long net in a communal effort, reining in the net against the action of the waves. Alvin pulled off and we popped out to have a look, yearning to take part in the action but not certain where to begin, where to enter the fray. The men shouted commands to each other in a language that was not English, working in sure, steady movements. They pulled in part of the net, rolled up the net with the fish in it to try to keep the long net from tangling, moved back towards the water to rein in more net. The pulled net out of the water for an impossibly long time, there was so much length. They were pulling in net the whole time were were there and had not finished by the time we left half an hour later.

The fish in the water looked so orderly. There must have been a school of them, perhaps come close to shore to spawn and then caught in the net as the waves pulled them to and fro at the shoreline. They were caught in the net by their gills, their heads poking up above the water, all standing up at attention and alert, like a little fish army.

High up on the beach were the first parts of the net to have been pulled out. This is where a few old-timers were helping, moving along the net, pulling fish out and throwing them in buckets. We wanted to help, to become more than just spectators, yearning to pull the fish out of the net. Eventually Quinn and I timidly approached the nets and reached for the fish.

But taking out the fish was not as smooth to our inexperienced hands as to the practised motions of the old-timers. First, we had a hard time getting to the fish: we could see the fish through the net, but where were the edges of the net, how could we pull them out? Once we located a fish with our hands, we discovered that the gills tightly held each fish into a hole in the net. How great the force of the ocean, or the urgency of the fish to get himself so tangled in the net! Quinn and I clumsily pulled at the fish, getting more scales than anything, the fish staying behind in the net. Eventually, an old man came over and pulled out a fish for us, speaking a little English.

"You must pull the fish out this way," he said, grasping the fish and pulling it head first out of the whole in a motion that was too quick for me to understand what he had to to free the fish so quickly. He indicated that pulling the tail end of the fish would damage the gills, and then they were no good for smoking or fishing or eating.

Where these locals? Were the fishing for sustenance, commerce, both? They seemed like a single community, a single ethnic group, with the same language, the same build: slight and wiry. I don't know. They were not rich, but they also did not seem like the poorest of the poor. It was a sunny afternoon in Cape Town and they were enjoying their day.

Note: I am not sure what type of fish they are. They are popular in South Africa along the coast, not high in quality, but a decent protein source.