Fish Cove - El Cotillo - Aug 2022

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Noticias:

During the morning of today the traditional fish cove is celebrated in the town of El Cotillo. The fishermen of the area are organized to collect the fish that will then be jaraeado for the holidays.

 

It was always tradition in the northern town of El Cotillo that the seafaring families of the town invited their relatives in mid-August to spend together the festivities of the Virgin of the Good Trip, patron saint of this majorero payment.

 

To feed so many diners on that important date, it was normal to make in any of the many coves on the outskirts of the town a fish puff, a form of fishing consisting of corralling the fish on the shore with a trammel boat.

 

Over the years, this tradition began to be relegated, as it was carried out by fewer and fewer families and by the prohibition established in 1986 in Fuerteventura to use trammel. However, these Events did not mean the disappearance of the Fish Puff, since the town of El Cotillo was organized to make one for all its inhabitants and visitors on the occasion of the festivities of the Virgen del Buen Viaje, for which an exception is granted in the use of trammel.

 

La Calada de Pescado takes place in the cove called El Río, on the outskirts of El Cotillo, in mid-August. Three days before the preparations begin checking that the trammel is in good condition. About two o'clock in the morning of the day in question at high tide, four fishermen, helped by a small rowing boat, put a rope between two ends of the cove to mark where the fishing will be done and begin to sapiently place the trammel boat, an operation in which they take two hours. "Two of us go in the boat and another two through the water ensuring that the trammel reaches the bottom of the sea well, so that the fish do not escape," they explain.

 

The trammel is placed at high tide at the exit of the cove so that, when going down the sea, a large number of fish are trapped between the shore and the net. "Around eleven o'clock at night, with the tide full, there is already all the fish inside the cove, especially salemas, which at dusk approach this rocky area where there is a kind of seba that is their favorite food.

 

In addition, some peje rey or vicúa also enters, in search of salemas", assuring the sailors that "if there is no moon even more fish enters the cove". After finishing the placement of the trammel, still at dawn, they take a break to drink coffee and every 30 minutes they check the capture system again "to ensure that the net is well placed, because if, for example, a dogfish enters and gets stuck in the trammel it moves a lot trying to escape and lifts the net allowing a lot of fish to get out"

 

When it is about to dawn, about 20 people are already in the cove of El Río. They wait patiently for the first ray of light to appear, already at low tide, to start the collection of the trammel. Between ten and twelve people get into the water next to the trammel and, following the indications given by the most veteran fishermen from the small rowing boat, they begin very slowly to push the net towards the shore.

 

It is an operation that requires great patience to prevent the fish from leaving the fence. Meanwhile, on the shore more and more curious people gather to enjoy the beautiful postcard that unites the sunrise with one of the most seafaring traditions of Fuerteventura. When the trammel is a few meters from the shore, a small chinchorro is introduced "with which we can take only the fish we need for the grill".

 

Finally, the fishermen pull the chinchorro to the sand, where one of the most characteristic images of the Fish Puff is produced: thousands of salemas jumping at once.

 

Later, the captured salemas are introduced into a truck and moved to the muellito of El Cotillo, where the elders of the town jarean, are kept in refrigerators and roasted a few days later in a multitudinous barbecue that helps maintain this majorera tradition to invite those who come to the festivities of the Virgen del Buen Viaje.