The brave fishermen of Ceará
Imagine a small fleet of boats resembling what we would call a raft not more than three or four meters long, with cotton-fabric sails rigged on a mast consisting of a few bamboo sticks appearing from the darkness without any light, and approaching the shore like ghost boats.
I was mesmerized by this view. So I joined the group of men waiting for the boats ashore and as the first jangada arrived to the beach I also helped them carry it up on the dry sand. The boat was very simple. The fishermen who had been sailing on it were completely exhausted to say the least. There was not even a place to sit on that little craft and I imagined they had travelled a long time to get back to the shore. After those few boats landed, the fishermen started to distribute the fish to the crowd as a kind of improvised fish market. In the crowd I also spotted the owner of the restaurant reclaiming some fish for his restaurant. That’s when I realised that the whole delay with our dinner was due to him running out of fresh fish and he was waiting for the boats to come back with their catch.