Growing up in East End, I was ays close to the sea. And I always knew what type of fish John Varlack had after he returned from pulling his fish pots.
“Fry and boil,” he bellowed from the top of his lungs after reaching the top of Chapel Hill, his voice careening through the village, letting you know the sizes of the fishes in his basket. He sometimes had a basket on his head and one in each hand.
“Boil only,” or “fry only,” he’d say, giving you a choice, depending on his catch. As one of the young mischievous boys in the village, I formed a beehive behind him echoing his chorus, along with the other boys, until he reached home.
East End has retained its role as one of the major fishing villages in the territory, similar to areas of Road Town, Baughers Bay, Sea Cows Bay, West End and Carrot Bay.
I miss going fishing. For more than ten years and counting, my best friend Sam has been promising for us to go out like we did while growing up. I’m still waiting, even though we visit each other often.
But, just a few days after one of Sam’s many promises, I ran into Cardigan Penn or “Height” as he is referred to, since he is one of the tallest men in the village, well over 6’3”. He was returning from one of his fishing excursions and I inquired when his next outing would be, and he replied, in another few days. I immediately cancelled all my Saturday morning plans. I didn’t have to wait on Sam after all.
With so much excitement, I didn’t sleep well that Friday night. I was not going to be tardy for our 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning meeting. As agreed, Cardigan showed and we made the trek to his boat in the early dawn light. I could not have asked for a better morning. The air was still. The sea was calm like glass or oil had been put on it. No wind blew – a perfect morning to go pot fishing.
By the time we reached the outside of the Northern Reef – the one separating Beef Island and Tortola and visible from the bridge – the calmness and clear waters, had given way to angry turquoise ground seas churning with white caps. Cardigan’s pots, which were often baited with cactus, sage or other bushes to attract fish, were just off Long Bay Beach, in the channel between Beef Island and Camanoe, close to the airport. He had seven there and several we pulled had nothing in them. I know fishing is hard – battling rough seas, getting calloused hands, people stealing pots, facing mechanical failure and the likes – and I was disappointed for him, as we ended up with only four fish that morning. But, for me, it was a wonderful experience, yet again. I couldn’t’ wait to tell Sam.
Cardigan was once a construction worker, but fishing was his love, his passion, and he dabbled in it every chance he got. He had been setting his pots by himself for a while, which prompted me to ask his age.
“I’m 80,” he told me.
“Eighty?” I stammered back in total disbelief. Most men his age were inactive and certainly, not riding solo in challenging seas to pull pots. He even told me of a story when his engine failed. He was stranded for several hours and a search party came looking for him and finally found him at night when he was preparing to sleep on Camanoe. On his return he was surprised to see the number of people from East End who were at the dock to greet him.
Cardigan has been fishing for 45 years. “I used to do line fishing, trolling along with setting pots,” he pointed out. “But I got more gain from the fish pots. It was faster money. However times have changed. The most problem I had out there was people stealing the pots and that’s what stopped a lot of men from fishing – the stealing.”
He noted that after the Fishing Complex opened, more people wanted to set pots, but chose not to make them. Thieves made off with not one or two but almost all his and others’ pots.
“If they were leaving the pots, you would have been happier and be able to keep up with the laws of fishing and these laws were a bit extravagant for us for the type of fishing we were doing,” he explained. “We weren’t getting enough out of it to pay us. I had to do it on a on a smaller scale, come in closer in order to feed my family.” At one time he had 30 pots, but lost all of them. There are other problems as well. Reclamation, which has destroyed many fisheries near shore, has contributed to the decline in pot fishing and the pots have to be set further and further out.
In the early days, he used to set his pots between Tortola and Anegada or Virgin Gorda. Setting pots is a science. Fishermen depend on the moon and tide. The tide or current goes one way for six hours before changing. One’s timing has to be right because you’ll never find the buoy. “You have to know the tide you will have when the moon sets, when it comes back up because the moon controls the tide,” he explained. “Whenever the moon changes, the tide changes.”
Cardigan said that period was a beautiful time in fishing, as reflected in the tone of his fond memories. He recalled lots of fish were caught, but got little for them, because of the economic situation at the time.
“You got a big strap of fish for ten cents,” he noted opening his arms wide, reflecting a distant era from the current $5 per pound rate. “Sometimes you went out and returned with three baskets of fishes, but there was no one to buy them. You either trusted them out, corned them or traded them for cassava, sweet potatoes or other ground provisions. Nowadays, if you go out and get a half basket of fish, you can make umpteen dollars from it,” he noted. “Before you can get them on the bay, people are calling for them. That’s the difference today.”