Extreme Fishing by Robson Green

Author:Robson Green [Green, Robson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471127502
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Dhow Fishing

I wake up with images of haggard German women on heat and feel sick. At breakfast there are old Italian boilers in on the act and we all decide to get some air. Today we are heading to Malindi, a former port and tourist resort on the east coast. I am dhow fishing with Hassan, Mohammed and Mohammed (Mo for short), three guys who fish together day in, day out and who are like the Kenyan angling equivalent of the Rolling Stones, all with faces that could tell a thousand stories. They are all wearing the traditional dhow dress of plain coloured kilts. We greet one another and I hop aboard their boat.

Dhow boats are Indian in origin and design and have been used in the area for centuries; today we are going out in a vessel Hassan says he has designed and built himself. The craftsmanship is truly outstanding. Coming from a shipbuilding background I appreciate the design and execution. As a lad out of school I was accepted for an apprenticeship as a draughtsman at Swan Hunter, where I worked in hull design and shell expansion, but I quickly realised that, if shipbuilding and I were both to survive, we would have to go our separate ways. I know the industry has been struggling since the 1980s, when I coincidentally worked at Swan Hunter, but I would like to take this opportunity to underline that the decline in shipbuilding in the northeast was down to Margaret Thatcher and not my ineptitude as a draughtsman. Honest!

The men unfurl the sail and we tack across the water. It’s amazing how the boat glides through the waves; I feel this is how we are meant to fish. It’s so natural and more like the poetry of fly-fishing that I love so much. It is also in complete contrast to the big white petrol-guzzling craft we went out in yesterday. I stare at Hassan, in awe of him for building this boat. As we sail across the sea I turn to him on camera and say, ‘This really is an amazing dhow boat, so beautiful and perfect for catching reef fish. I understand you built it yourself?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he says.

My pupils dilate. WTF? ‘Oh? A little bird told me that you had built it.’

‘No, a local businessman built and paid for it.’

‘Did you have any hand in it at all?’

‘No.’

Basically he’d spun me a right old yarn until he realised he was going to be on camera and it might tie him in knots later.

But whatever the genesis of the dhow boat, one thing is irrefutable: Hassan and his friends know how to fish. I’ve never seen anything like it. They work the lines not only with their hands but also with their feet, playing the fish like puppets on strings. Their feet and hands all bear the scars of their work but over time the skin has hardened and they feel no pain. Each of them pulls up four fish, sometimes two at a time, without ever tangling the lines; it’s an incredible feat.

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