NCenizal
n years, that I have been away from my birth place, are partly realization years of my childhood curiosity. In SCUBA diving I found some to fill up one. In retrospect to shrimp trawling days with my father, were times I had laid my eyes on aquatic things while I sift on valuable catch in a narrow stern platform(batya) of our boat. The frequent pitch black nights and occasional starry one, always hightens the luminance glow-in-the dark skins of underwater mollusks and shrimps. Such glow in the dark thing is called “bioluminescence” which most deep sea marine life has that kind of properties. It fascinated me with all its amazing color even in dusk. A larger wick-lamp illuminates my sorting and as I clipped the kerosene canister to fasten the lamp so I could free up my hand to speed up my sorting. Sometimes the gasping for breath and scampering of caught fish, hesitated me to sift on its heap, after my father poured-in all trapped things inside net’s cod-end(pusod ng lambat).
Venomous fish such as Lionfish(Gatasan) and scorpion fish(Lupo) and stone fish(mungot) are fish to observe when sorting. Their venomous fins can sting you and probably make you feverish in excruciating pain. Any accidental stepping on it could send my father rushing to shore to apply anti-venom and may disrupt our trawling that already spent few gallons of gasoline. Though a first aid anti-venom “tambal” were readily available in my father’s pocket, we didn’t know how effective it was to my case. Such overnight trawling sometimes lasted 10 hours with 2-3 hours trawling period(aryada) before heaving the nets(simbada). My little help then could make my father drop the otter board immediately and trawl nets in succession after net was hove while I was been busy sifting catch. That way we could shortened the heaving interval and tug the nets a bit longer so we could get home earlier than the usual 6:00 am.
My father explained to me the environmental impact of trawling , compare to larger bagnets fishing vessel that just lured fish by lights. Shrimp trawl are bottom trawling that usually catch sessile organisms, that usually ends up as by-catch. After sorting you can describe its proportionate heap height difference. Maybe about 3 is to 7 ended up , by-catch constitute the larger heap that usually sold for 5 pesos a kilo to process as fish meal. I will have no position not to object the eradication of such fishing method. My young mind those days were making it just mundane activities to involve in such chores to lessen up my fathers task on such sleepless nights. During the last hours of heaving of nets(papulas) the rising sun view all sorted catch, sun rays dulls their vibrant colors due to their lifeless state I think. But that never stop my curiosity on thinking how they look like down there. Underwater mollusk were starting to deteriorate, the lifeless scorpion fish with all its gala of spines are nothing but lifeless swarms of rejection from sorting. A projected hours more and its foul odor will add to ill-smelling air on the coastal Manlayo. That, I dreamt of seeing them alive one day, swimming, crawling and having their eyes on me.
For few thousands you can enjoy Scuba diving, with your curiosity, the guts and to me became a luck , being a friend to a Japanese dive shop owner. Then all scuba diving dream is just history. Days after every other months I am with him underwater. Finally Im seeing the lifeless by-catch then in vibrant colors. Probably, God with all His omnipotent hide the canvas of colors down here –underwater, where we seldom see them. The few could see are the luckiest to witness a gallery of colors in corals, the hues, the patterns and the most peculiar color combinations you can see.
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My yesteryear finally connected to today. I may not have the accomplishment of my dreams but I had the pleasure of seeing the other side of the world. The world that we hoover its top almost every night . That it takes a man like me to almost 25 years before I finally saw what’s down there. If only my father were alive I can show the pictures and describe to him, how this creature swims. That the pesky mollusk he hated was like fluorescent in pastel colors. You would probably stop on your way to something if your eyes laid on them. I now put strike-through line on one of my “bucket lists” , and probably the other lists –100 things I must do before I die.
I remember there was a winning Underwater Photography entry that won almost 82,000 dollars in prize last year. It was sponsored by Nikon and Canon underwater DSLR camera. The winning entry are a scorpion fish as the subject and second placed by an underwater mollusk. I almost scoffed and shout “what?” throwing my post issued Underwater Photography Mags. This creatures are our by-catch of everyday and you can sold for almost 3 to 5 pesos a kilo.
Truly, life is a matter of appreciations. The beauty of living things is how you perceive their purpose to their usefulness. There is world where they hate them whereas the other one may praise them. In this case trawl by-catch and the underwater photography.
ncenizal
