sharon and i woke up in the 4s on thursday morning to see sunrise. morning prayers are at 4:30, so things start hopping pretty shortly after that. it was really overcast and still dark when we quietly slipped out of our hotel. we walked quite ways down the street before finding a becak driver to take us to the coast on the opposite side to see the sunrise. (our hotel was on the sunset side of a peninsula. we needed to get to the opposite side. about a 5 minute becak ride.) when we got there, the morning looked like this:
we wondered if there would be much of a sunrise at all. but that quickly turned into this:
ok, that ALMOST makes getting up before 5 worth it. by the way, the land that you see stretched out along the horizon is mainland java. remember, we’re on a small peninsula jutting out into the south sea. in fact, there is absolutely nothing in the water between this coast and antarctica. because of this, the water here is QUITE dangerous. many people, indonesians and tourists alike, have lost their lives to the power of the south sea.
not too long after we got out there, the place became action packed. lots of indonesian tourists from other places were there on holiday and turned out to see the sunrise. people on their way to market were making their way down the beach. kids were out trying to catch crabs on the rocky shore. but what caught my eye were the fishermen.
i watched several people on shore load this boat up with nets and send it out into the water. sharon went and talked to the men after they came back to shore while i wandered around snapping more photos because by now, sunrise had turned into this:
amazing! i meandered over and listened in on some of sharon’s conversation with the fishermen. most of them have been doing this for years. four times a day, they send the boats out. they drop the nets in deeper waters, then they pull the nets in from shore. sure enough, shortly thereafter, the real work began!
(the ocean is just beyond that wall)
six people hook themselves on to two ropes (3 people on each rope), both of which are connected to either side of a vast net that is somewhere out at sea where the boat dropped it. and they begin pulling it in, slowly but surely. each guy uses a small rope tied around his waist to hook onto the rope, backs up until he’s all the way across the street, unhooks, goes back up to the front, rehooks himself back onto the rope, and backs up again. it was amusing to see them scurry out of the way when bigger vehicles like buses came rumbling down the road!
this guy offered to marry me! how romantic… the white thing just in front of his right hand is what keeps his rope (tied around his waist) hooked onto the bigger rope (which is connected to the net).
unfortunately, the clouds came back, and after about an hour of watching the fishermen pull their net in, it began to rain. we found shelter beneath the tarp of a beachside vendor.
it wasn’t too long after that, though, that the net finally made it to shore! someone lent me an umbrella, so i ventured down to take some closer pictures.
the final catch wasn’t quite what i expected… not a lot of fish. no big fish. and LOTS of garbage! unfortunately, they pick the garbage out and throw it along the shore where it gets washed out with the tide to be caught again with tomorrow’s catch!
this lady was possibly my favorite. she didn’t talk to us. in fact, i never heard her say a word to anybody. and she didn’t help pull the nets in either. but she did do just about everything else. she kept all the ropes coiled so that cars didn’t run over them on the muddy road. she quietly sat and sorted all the garbage out of the basket of fish. she coiled the nets up neatly so that they could all fit in the boat, untangled, for the next run. and she seemed to be the one in charge of selling the catch to all the buyers who came. she was always there. a constant in the background of all the motion.
the sorted catch. oh, and look what else they caught!
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