Monday, January 15th, 2018 Canoa
We walk along the beach for at least an hour every day, usually longer. Sometimes there are thousands of small red crabs that scurry away as we approach.
Fishing in Canoa doesn’t seem to have changed much over the years. The only technology is an outboard motor, usually 40 horsepower which seems a little underpowered for the seas and the weight of the boats. Two fishermen will carry the nets wrapped in a tarp and suspended from a long pole with each man holding one end, to get them down to the beach. The nets seem to be about 100 m long and less than 2 m wide. With floats at the top side and small weights at the bottom, the nets are stretched out in the water and then the boat loops around and the 2 or 3 fishermen in the boat pull in both ends of the net. It seems there are different sizes of mesh used to catch different sizes of fish found within 2 m of the surface of the ocean.
One fisherman will carry the outboard motor from home on his shoulder. Two others will carry gas cans strung on a pole. Older children often help. Most of the boats are rolled up or down the beach on logs. The more fortunate of the fishermen might own an old set of wheels to make rolling the boat into the water easier. Then they push out through the surf, start the motor quickly and bounce over the waves to deeper water. Mostly they seem to stay within a few km of shore.
We’ve never seen any fish finders or other technology. The outboard motor is as high tech as it gets. The fishermen seem to know where they want to fish. Experience.
Some days, a group of a dozen or so fishermen will stretch the nets out in a loop from the beach. Three or four men will pull the net out into chest deep water and loop it around. Then everyone pulls both ends back up onto the beach. We’ve seen them catch dozens or hundreds of small fish at a time, including a few spotted rays, which are also harvested and eaten. Small children, not yet in school, will often be with their mothers and help with gathering the fish.
It’s hard to understand the economics of so much labour for what looks like a modest return. However, the fishermen seem to get by. Homes are often modest by our standards but people have motorcycles or old trucks, TVs, satellite dishes and cellphones. Electricity, food and taxes are cheap and there’s no need for home heating. Yesterday we bought the biggest head of broccoli we’ve ever seen for $1. The taxes for our condo, worth at least $100,000 US, are about $40 per year. Electricity was about $5 or $6 a month for the house we rented 2 years ago. We don’t know if that’s typical. We heard that people had to pay $3,500 for a unit in the new government housing that replaced the tent city where many lived after the earthquake. The children all look healthy and happy as they go to school every morning in their school uniforms. Like children everywhere, many of them often stop for a treat at the little convenience stores after school.
In the cities of Ecuador, the standard of living seems higher, but it still seems that a minority would have as many luxuries as we have in Canada. However, as in everywhere else that we’ve been, there may be a very wide range of incomes. It’s hard for a visitor to get an accurate picture of what life is really like for the local people. We don’t pretend to understand much of what we see but we love seeing it.
We walk along the beach for at least an hour every day, usually longer. Sometimes there are thousands of small red crabs that scurry away as we approach.
Fishing in Canoa doesn’t seem to have changed much over the years. The only technology is an outboard motor, usually 40 horsepower which seems a little underpowered for the seas and the weight of the boats. Two fishermen will carry the nets wrapped in a tarp and suspended from a long pole with each man holding one end, to get them down to the beach. The nets seem to be about 100 m long and less than 2 m wide. With floats at the top side and small weights at the bottom, the nets are stretched out in the water and then the boat loops around and the 2 or 3 fishermen in the boat pull in both ends of the net. It seems there are different sizes of mesh used to catch different sizes of fish found within 2 m of the surface of the ocean.
One fisherman will carry the outboard motor from home on his shoulder. Two others will carry gas cans strung on a pole. Older children often help. Most of the boats are rolled up or down the beach on logs. The more fortunate of the fishermen might own an old set of wheels to make rolling the boat into the water easier. Then they push out through the surf, start the motor quickly and bounce over the waves to deeper water. Mostly they seem to stay within a few km of shore.
We’ve never seen any fish finders or other technology. The outboard motor is as high tech as it gets. The fishermen seem to know where they want to fish. Experience.
Some days, a group of a dozen or so fishermen will stretch the nets out in a loop from the beach. Three or four men will pull the net out into chest deep water and loop it around. Then everyone pulls both ends back up onto the beach. We’ve seen them catch dozens or hundreds of small fish at a time, including a few spotted rays, which are also harvested and eaten. Small children, not yet in school, will often be with their mothers and help with gathering the fish.
It’s hard to understand the economics of so much labour for what looks like a modest return. However, the fishermen seem to get by. Homes are often modest by our standards but people have motorcycles or old trucks, TVs, satellite dishes and cellphones. Electricity, food and taxes are cheap and there’s no need for home heating. Yesterday we bought the biggest head of broccoli we’ve ever seen for $1. The taxes for our condo, worth at least $100,000 US, are about $40 per year. Electricity was about $5 or $6 a month for the house we rented 2 years ago. We don’t know if that’s typical. We heard that people had to pay $3,500 for a unit in the new government housing that replaced the tent city where many lived after the earthquake. The children all look healthy and happy as they go to school every morning in their school uniforms. Like children everywhere, many of them often stop for a treat at the little convenience stores after school.
In the cities of Ecuador, the standard of living seems higher, but it still seems that a minority would have as many luxuries as we have in Canada. However, as in everywhere else that we’ve been, there may be a very wide range of incomes. It’s hard for a visitor to get an accurate picture of what life is really like for the local people. We don’t pretend to understand much of what we see but we love seeing it.
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