The beach, the fish, the community

It was a beautiful, calm, sun filled day, hence no other thing to do than getting our bums to the beach, rent ourselves a day bed by the water, sit back and let the day go by. And it looked like all other tourists / visitors to the island had the exact same thought. How could you not, given the sun and beach at hand! As we settled into our daybeds, and let the sun caress our bodies, we only had one activity in mind: look out into the ocean, watch tourists waddle by, and observe the world getting on with its day. It soon becomes apparent that once you remove the layer of tourists from the scene, there is a whole different world! For one, the sandy beach is home to thousands of miniature crabs, digging their little holes in the sand, running out with a little ball of sand in their claws and placing it at the edges of an ever growing field of sand balls around their newly built home and in doing so, creating a wonderful artistic pattern, till an oblivious tourist’s footsteps sends the crabs running for their tiny home and their wonderful work is flattened by each step. When cooling off in the water, suddenly schools of fish appeared in the breaking surf, their bodies glistening as the sun rays hit their silvery bodies, a spectacle for us, a feast for the local birds, as they hover above the ocean and take a skilled plunge into the waves to emerge with their catch. Two of these feathery creatures came to rest in front of our daybeds to what looked like a quick chat about their respective luck in catching fish, and flew off in unison, one to the left, the other to the right: “You take the left side, I go to the right, see you at home!” Maybe the birds are the local’s “fish prospectors” or they just know when to fish, either way, a lone fisherman was knee deep in the water, looking for schools of fish and throwing his net now and then, which opens into a full circle and sinks into the water in matters of seconds. He wasn’t a lucky fisherman. An older local suddenly appeared and started rolling up a long invisible line that went who knows how far into the ocean, till suddenly a net appeared and fish entangled in it. At the sight of the first fish, the local boys, managing their little stretch of beach with the rental of daybeds and providing us tourists with ice-cooled drinks, started running up to the old man, helping with pulling in the net with ever more fish coming into sight. They all walked off following the old man and his net, laughing and chatting. Not soon thereafter, the old man re-appeared, his net neatly folded up, and a young surf-life saver with surf board, walking with him. The net was passed onto the surfer, who swam out into the ocean, whilst the old man unrolled his invisible line for the next fish to catch. It was a delight to see that despite the over-commercialisation of their beach to accommodate us tourists in our hunt for sun, the local tradition of fishing and community spirit seems to still exist, as we guess the locals adapt to having to hook the tourists onto their daybeds and the fish into their nets.