People are People - Venezuela Fishermen

Venezuela fishing boats

Oct 1st 2017
Thursday we planned a little lime at the pool in our marina.  Sv Tango and Sv Kelly Nicole.  I got up there just before the sky opened up dumping massive amounts of rain.  It also blew.  The others including Tom decided to wait it out on their boats.  However, I was not alone.  A group of four locals took refuge under the covered area, along with two Venezuelan fisherman.  I shared some channa (snacky food) with everyone.  The locals knew a little Spanish and began chatting with the fishermen.

The rain eased so the locals departed.  The fishermen knew very little English.  My Spanish is non-existent.  *Silly me....I took French in school despite growing up in a very Hispanic town.  Sigh.  However, soon we were trying to converse with much gesturing.  One of the first things we discussed was our presidents.  They said "President Maduro.....he loco."  I quickly countered "President Trump....he mucho loco."  We all three shook our heads sadly in agreement to both statements.  That out of the way, we continued to talk on a limited basis - person to person.

They work on one of the larger Trinidad fishing boats.  They started in January 2017.  Each time they leave Trinidad, they head up to St Vincent to take on bait fish and then out into the Atlantic.  They are usually gone for 25 days before returning to port.  The turn around is short before they head out again.  They are in port now a tad longer as the boat needs painting.  They will stay with the boat and fish through November.  Then they will return to Venezuela for the month of December.  Come January, they will start over again fishing.

They are both married, with two kids each.  Remember......very little English and near non-existent Spanish and yet.....we were communicating, sharing, learning.  Tom arrived as well as Stephan and Annika off sv Tango.  We offered the fishermen some cold beers and more channa to snack on.  Stephan and Annika had spent several months in Brazil when they crossed the Atlantic.  They knew a little Portuguese and started communicating with the fisherman via a combination of Portuguese and Spanish.  We all had another round of coldies.

After a bit, they disappeared to their boat, saying they would return soon.   When they came back, they had a HUGE bag filled with big, frozen fillets of cleaned fish - tuna and Mahi mahi!  It was at least 15 lbs of frozen fish.  We were blown away at this generous gift.  They just smiled.  Tom took it to sv Honey Ryder to put in the freezer, pulling out half for our Swedish friends.  When he returned, he brought a 4 page English to Spanish translation guide I bought this past summer. The youngest of the fisherman was very interested in this.  He used it to ask additional questions, as did we.  The gesturing continued as well along with head nods, smiles and laughs.  Did we understand everything they said?  No.  Did they understand everything we said?  No.  It didn't matter.  We simply enjoyed what we could understand as well as the process and effort.

We have seen them since a couple of times since - "Hola" we say.  "Hello" they say.   

Note -  The above picture is of Venezuela owned fishing boats.  These are very different in design than the regular fishing boats we are used to seeing.  These are wooden, low waterline and usually carrying a crew of 8 or more.  They often dock near sv Honey Ryder, rafting up side by side by side.  As we sit in our cockpit, we can't help but observe a little bit of life onboard these vessels.  It is fascinating.  It should be noted that the fishermen I mentioned above are not on vessels like this but instead a traditional, steel type fishing boat.  They are rare.  Generally those crews are Asian with American captains.