Saturday, April 21, 2007

Chennai Beach fishing

Fresh fish being fried on the Marina -- Chennai Beach.

But for that to happen the fishermen need to leave at dawn.

Here is a style of fishing at sea that one can watch from the shore. I think this net is called the `peruvalai' (big net). Beach goers can usually see these nets piled up in a big mound on the sand. It is loaded on to the catamaran first, in a carefully arranged layer...
then with one end trailing the fishermen set out to sea...
setting out... the catamaran goes following a big U route, and the fishermen trail the net out in a big `U' and come back to the shore with the other end... I would guess the net would be a few hundred metres long...
Once on the shore two teams of fishermen drag the net in, a process that takes more than an hour.
And well on time to keep the snacks ready by the time we hit the beach later in the day.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent photos Balaji.
Your photos tells the story and i think penning was not required for this post.

R. Balaji said...

Thank You, Sathiyan.

Anonymous said...

This is great info to know.