Robert Lalah, Staff Reporter
Left: It takes some time to repair a fishing boat, and it requires great skills to do it right. Right: Gary (left) says when the waters get choppy, there's no guarantee that they'll make it back to shore alive. - Photos by Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer
Now to be honest, the smell of fish was overpowering and the sound the water was making as it rushed to shore was making me more than a bit uneasy, but when the wrinkled fisherman in front of me started talking about the last time he wrestled a 200 pound shark with his bare hands, I decided to ignore what felt like my impending collapse and muster something of a smile. This was definitely no place for the lily-livered.
Here, men fought hungry, vicious creatures without breaking a sweat and went days without food and water without even as much as complaining.
This is Rocky Point fishing beach in Clarendon where on any given day, you can find some of the roughest and toughest fishermen in the country doing what they do best.
Now, the stories they tell are enough to make the hair on the back of your neck reach for the heavens, so photographer Ricardo Makyn and I spent some time with a few of them recently and got more than an earful.
Near miss
Meet 'Gary the Terroriser'. Well, that's what they told us that he's called. Gary has been fishing for more than 20 years and has almost lost his life at sea on more than a few occassions.
"Yes man. Mi a fish since mi eye deh a mi knee. You think a fenkeh fenkeh wuk dis? If you nuh have strong heart you dead inna dis work!" he shouted as he leaned against an old canoe that looked as if it had passed through more than a few harsh waves in its time.
He pointed out to sea. It was a windy day, so the water was quite choppy. "That out there is not a nice place if you don't know what you doing. You encounter all kind a thing out there," said he.
Just then, an older fellow, wearing a cap, walked up to us. He said he gave up fishing because he no longer had the stomach for it.
On an average day for the fishermen, they get up at 2:00 a.m. and head straight out to sea. It's all up to chance what happens next.
"Sometime you go out there and you expect to come back the next morning and you end up lost and out at sea for all a week or two," said Gary.
He recounted the tale of the last time he got lost and what he had to do to survive an impending shark attack.
"Three of we out there and everything good. Then all of a sudden a pure breeze and rain. The boat start rock so," he started swinging his arms from left to right. "The thing turn over with all of us and we haffi fight inna di cold water till things calm back down. When we lift up the boat we see seh it have a big hole inna it! Mi seh Pupa Jesus a dead we dead yah now!" he shouted and a look of horror came to his eyes as he recalled the incident.
Survived ordeal
Edgar, the man in the hat who had joined us, chimed in.
"Bwoy it never pretty at all," he added.
Gary took back control of the story. "We haffi tun we hand mek fashion and use piece of cloth fi stop the leak. It look like Jah did deh pan we side so we survive," he said.
The men on the boat, however, soon realised that because the sky was overcast, they couldn't tell the way back to shore. They would have to wait until the weather cleared before they could even attempt to get back home. This could take days.
Little food
I assumed that by then the men were terrified. I made the point to them and it was met with dismissive laughter. "No man! We there a sing song and a praise Jah fi survival! We did have some ice cube inna di igloo so a it we gwaan suck a day time fi keep cool. We never have nuh food, but the ice cube dem did help," said Gary.
But as the story goes, on the fourth day that the men were at sea, the sky had still not cleared. Things got even uglier when the men realised that they had an unexpected visitor. "When mi wake up one morning, mi see pure shark a circle the boat. Mi seh a wah dis pan mi God? A must sign. So mi wake up the other man dem and we start use anything we have inna di boat fi start lick dem inna dem head! One a dem jump up and grab on pan Prento and nearly nyam him alive! But we lick di brute and him splurt!" Gary shouted and Edgar laughed as he remembered the incident.
Back at sea
A lanky man, who I assumed was Prento, was sitting on a nearby boat. For some reason, he didn't seem as pleased as the rest.
Gary said that soon after the shark incident, the skies cleared and the stranded fishermen made it back to shore. They had been at sea for five days. The strange thing is that one of the fishermen said that when he got home, the first person he saw was his wife. He was back at sea the next morning.
Prento spoke up. "Yes man it can be terrible, but is the work. That is what we do. We are fishermen and we proud of the work so nothing can keep us from the sea!"
Please send comments to robert.lalah@gleanerjm.com.
