Folks and Fish # 1

This is the first painting of a set of four works, of which I have shown the preparatory sketches in the previous post. Working at them I am conscious of the poverty of the area and the plight of those brave souls, the sustenance fishermen, who face the sea day by day.

My model shows two of the four crayfish he is allowed to catch for his daily quota during the crayfish season. It will be safer for the men to catch the monthly allowance in one single day, and not face the sea so often, but unfortunately such a system will be difficult to control. (Crayfish can become very scarce and must be protected.)

Crayfish holes are marked by experienced fishermen, who will put on diving suits and retrieve their quota. Older people and non-swimmers can catch theirs by netting from the quay that conveniently projects into the sea like it does at Yzerfontein. Everybody keeps a measure handy as undersized specimens must be returned to the sea immediately.

We usually buy crayfish in Velddrif when they are in season and available, so I decided to use the harbour at Velddrif as a background for the painting. New visitors can read more about crayfish on the West Coast in my post: Crayfish Coast.

Crayfish Coast

All along the West Coast you can enter the water and find crayfish! But of course it is appreciated and eaten with reverence. Treat the abundance of the sea with disrespect and one day there will remain nothing! So it is essential to have a licence which allow you a limited quantity. Undersized crayfish are always returned to the sea to breed another day.

One of my first visits ever to Paternoster, we had hardly parked or someone offered us crayfish for sale and asked us to open the car boot fast! These are such nice and amusing people, but their wares you must ignore. Of course the local people had taken from the sea for generations and see rules as something to get around. There are plenty of stories of locals putting out sentries to warn them of the approach of "Fauna and Flora" which is the name for the Marine and Coastal inspectors.

Here is a favourite story, often told: A vendor walks with a bucket of undersized crayfish when an inspector appears suddenly.

"You are selling small ones there!"

"No, sir, " comes the answer, "I am teaching them to swim...I will show you!" He walks to the water and let the crayfish down one by one and they swim away.

"I still do not believe you" says the inspector, "I am fining you for possession of illegal crayfish".

Fast as a flash comes the answer: "Which crayfish?"

The crayfish on our plates are enormous and taken out by a kindly young neighbour (with licence, of course)! Sometimes we buy them at Velddrif or Paternoster and all the restaurants offer crayfish. The painting gave me great pleasure as I longed for colour and have been doing a lot of blue skies lately.