The fisherman spent the early morning hours in his small wooden boat with a single motor on the ocean harvesting the gifts that the sea offers. The work is physically demanding, challenging, unpredictable yet satisfying. He arrives back at the beach unloads his bounty then proceeds to selling his catch on a basic wooden platform to support him and his family.
After a long hard productive day, the fisherman goes home to rest and sleep and then before the crack of dawn he repeats the process again like past generations before him have done. How long will the proud hardy individual fisherman be able to perform this ancient daily ritual? Between the water pollution and the commercial fishing fleets overtaking the mighty oceans waters the fisherman’s livelihood is being squeezed out of existence.
The fishing villages and boats that rest on the shore as well as the folklore and beliefs involving fishing and the fisherman help to romanticize this way of life. The Brazilian song “E doce morrer no mar“ tells a story of a handsome fisherman that never come back in the morning, his “saveiro” (boat) arrived empty. His lover is sad. She knows that “Yemanja” the Queen of the Oceans took her man, but how sweet it is to die in the green ocean waters.
Copyright© Edge of Humanity LLC 2014
