Casting light
They’re catching tuna in the Maldives in a way that takes nothing but the fish and leaves nothing but a wake.
THE night has been good to us. Maybe all the nights are good here in this balmy, flat-sea atoll where the only disturbances have been laughter from the crew and wavelets lapping on the hull.
Now the vessel — a 37m, 64-ton dhoni called Kadurolhi — is waking up with muffled thuds and footfalls as the crew stand and stretch and rub their eyes, and make desultory conversation about the day’s fishing ahead. For today, the dhoni will head south off the atoll into the big blue and follow the feasting sea birds to schools of skipjack tuna.
The tuna will be caught one at a time by fishermen standing on the stern with carbon-fibre poles and heavyweight lines ending in barbless hooks, and flicked onto the boat. As fishing goes, this is as ethical and clean as it gets — no purse seiners with nets that swallow anything in their way, or belching factory ships lying hove to in international waters as they digest Earth’s marine bounty.
For weeks the catches have not been good — a couple of tons at best and always well below the usual eight tons that is enough to fill the dhoni’s holds and make the crew very happy.
“There is too much other food in the water,” says skipper Khalid Hussein, a man who has spent 30 of his 50 years as a fisherman. Still, we are going to try. In less than half an hour the crew have hauled the anchor off the sea bed and with muttering engines the dhoni has drifted into deeper water and then stopped. A vast, finely meshed net is rolled over the side, rustling like a debutante’s gown.
Off the reef, 5.30am
The skipper is the first to go. He and four others strap on their tanks and splash off the side of the dhoni and disappear into the gloom. The rest of us enjoy a false dawn as lamps are swung outboard and the sea turns white with the flick of a switch.
In Taiwan, fishermen burn acetylene to attract fish — “sulfuric fire fishing”, they call it. On Lake Malawi, men in dugout canoes hold Chinese-made Butterfly paraffin pressure lamps over the water. The lamps on the Kadurolhi, though, could light a football stadium. Forty metres below, the skipper and his divers will be shepherding tiny baitfish into the net.
A tug on a rope is the signal for the crew on deck to begin hauling and as dawn begins to break, the net with its glittering, squirming freight of silver fish comes floating up out of the deep.
The crew are pleased — it’s a good haul. Plenty there to drive any number of tuna into a feeding frenzy. Here’s hoping.
By the time the sun is fully up, the dhoni is motoring south. On deck the fishermen — mostly young men from the same island — prepare their gear. The poles are rigged with lines. One man is busy making jigs — pieces of plastic bag tied around the shank, bright, wavy things to catch the eye of a passing skipjack.
If tourism is the guts of the Maldivian economy, fishing is its heart. There are 34 atolls and 1 200 islands in the archipelago and on many of them fishing is the main economic activity. After tourism, fishing is the country’s main earner, and tuna is its biggest export. With about 1 000 boats engaged in pole-and-line tuna fishing in the country, it’s also the biggest employer with a pay structure that is the envy of office hacks everywhere: profits are shared.
No surprise, then, that young men flock to the boats — in a good month, a fisherman will take home $1 500 (about R19 500). Half the profit from every trip goes to the boat owner, the rest to the crew. The owner will also give the skipper a cut from his share.
“There are no company-owned boats,” says Hussein. “This boat is owned by a former fisherman. Others are owned by families.”
Family ties are also a big factor. “Working on the boats also means they get home to their families,” says Iain Mahood, commercial director of World Wise Foods, the company supplying Woolworths with its MSC-certified pole-and-line tuna.
“Whenever the dhoni is in port, the crew are at home. They’re not out at sea for weeks or months at a time.” In the blue, 9am We are utterly alone on a gentle swell. Up on the open bridge, the skipper and his spotters scour the sea for the gatherings of sea birds diving on schools of fish.
The spotter makes slow sweeps with his binoculars, pauses and shouts. There! Birds! Hussein swings the wheel and opens the throttles. The dhoni surges forward.
The crew are already on their feet, moving to the stern, poles held aloft. Cries of “Ye, ye, ye” float up to the bridge. Two men are wearing motorcycle helmets, another has wraparound safety goggles. “What are the helmets for?” I ask. “You will see,” they say. The scene ahead looks like a World War 2 aerial dogfight. Birds wheel and twist and plunge into the sea.
The water is a boiling mass of bubbles and bobbing gulls swallowing their catch. Judging from the number of birds, it’s a big piece of action. The birds tell the skipper which way the shoal is running and he eases the dhoni into place ahead of it. Two men have scooped baitfish out of the tanks and stand port and starboard, ready to fling the wriggling fish into the sea.
The sprinklers begin to hiss and water spatters onto the sea — any tuna is going to think that’s another school of frenzied fish. The dhoni eases ahead of the frenzied water. The fishermen cast their lines . . .
Suddenly the sky is full of flying fish. Poles arc towards the sea, flick back and shining skipjacks sail onto the deck. The baitmen are scooping handfuls of bait fish over the side. The birds are squawking and plunging.
The poles arc through the sky and flick backwards. Everyone is shouting “ye, ye, ye”. Fish fly through the air onto the deck with muscular thumps. One lands in the livebait tank (“Lucky tuna,” I think), another skitters past my head and lands in the galley. Now I know why some of the crew wear helmets.
After a few minutes, the frenzy relents, then ceases. The school has gone — dived or veered off or gotten smart — and the Kadurolhi is alone again on the empty ocean. But the deck is covered with fish. They are everywhere, slithering into the scuppers as the crew grab their tails and drop them into the ice slurry in the hold. It’s not a bad haul for the first run of the day. The dhoni sails on.
So the day passes. There are long hours of nothing as we roll over an empty sea, spotters scanning the horizon, the crew chatting and cooking and fixing gear.
Trays of betel nut are passed around. Chewing betel is an acquired art — I make the mistake of scooping a handful into my mouth. It’s like eating bricks. Everyone thinks this is great comedy.
In between are minutes of chaotic excitement — birds and sprayers and shouting fishermen and fish flying out of the sea. One man, one fish at a time. Still, the catch is less than hoped for and Hussein turns the ship around and steams north. When we see other dhonis on the horizon, we head for them and join the action.
By late afternoon, there are about three tons of skipjack in the hold. On a good day there would be eight tons. Hussein tells me he once went out in bad weather, when all the other boats stayed in port. That day they got 40 tons from a single school in less than an hour. Fisherman’s luck is universal.
At sunset we turn for home. First stop is the Mifco fishing company wharf on Kooddoo Island. Two company assessors come aboard to sort the skipjack as they come out of the hold.
The tuna are loaded into crates and a crane swings them onto the wharf. The crew watch closely as the men sort the fish, keeping that one, discarding that one. The crew will keep the small ones for themselves. Nothing is wasted here — this is sustainable fishing just as it should be.
A crowd has gathered on the wharf, to watch, just like people do everywhere when the fishing boats come in. It’s a primal thing to look at the catch, something you don’t see much any more in these days of purse seiners and factory ships.
With the last fish out of the hold and weighed and the decks scrubbed, Hussein fires up the engines and the Kadurolhi eases slowly away from the wharf and, with its crew grabbing a late supper or kicking back on the deck, disappears into the velvet Maldivian night.
Ash was hosted in the Maldives by Woolworths. See "Sassy Fish" on page 39 for more about tuna and turn to page 36 to find out how you can win a holiday in The Maldives
Now I know why some of the crew wear helmets