Last post: "When will October come?"

(Baonghean) - "The last monsoon season has ended. After 4 days, I called Thu, the signal was out of coverage area. The brothers must have gone "besieging" again. I secretly hoped that the "sea plank" would be more generous with the NA-90331-TS ship, which is close to the people of Quynh Long coastal commune..."

"When will October come" - I used the name of a famous movie to describe the fishermen's wait for the main fishing season (starting from the fourth lunar month) to have successful fishing trips. 3.95 tons of fish were the result of a 7-day fishing trip by the NA - 90331 TS. Quynh Long's fishing boats returned to the canal one after another. Thu said that out of 20 boats that went to sea at the same time, only 3 caught fish, which means only about 10 tons. The rest only caught a few tons of fish like Thu's boat.

After sailing for almost a day, the boat finally arrived at the mouth of Lach Quen at 7:00 p.m. The boat dropped anchor and waited for the tide to rise before entering the port. Last year, each boat docked at the port and paid a fee of 50,000 VND, this year it has increased to 100,000 VND. Lach Quen fishing port is overloaded with more than 700 fishing boats from the communes regularly anchoring. The service is developing vigorously. A family that only supplies clean water to boats at sea can also get rich. Every day, a clean water supplier (drilled and pumped from the mountain behind the port) for about 20 boats, each boat costs 300,000 VND, earning more than 6 million VND.

It was past 9:00 p.m. when our ship entered the channel. The atmosphere was bustling and bustling at the port. The ships were parked close together, lit up like a floating city. The women - wives and children of the crew members were waiting along with the fish buyers. Thu let the ship dock on this side to pick up the wives and family members of the crew members. There were only Thu's wife, mother-in-law, Toan and a few other helpers. Usually, when the fish returned, the big customers from Cua Lo, Thanh Hoa and Hai Phong were waiting on shore. This time, there were few fish, so mainly only small refrigerated trucks from Cua Lo came out to "buy" the goods. Only then did the selection and classification of fish come. This step required proficiency, and if a woman were to marry into a fishing village, it would take at least three months to master the job.



Preparing to bring the fish ashore

Each ship returning to port, if it "catches fish", must select thousands of trays of fish, working all night until mid-morning to finish the job. At the port, there is also a team of women who specialize in loading fish onto trucks, and for each ton, they are paid 200,000 VND by the truck owner; plus the money to pay the blue trucks to bring ice to grind on the spot to re-preserve the fish after selection. The fish are marinated and weighed one tray at a time, the buyer and seller both record, and the customer can pay later. The fish arrive but are not all sold at the same price for a type of fish, because it also depends on the freshness of the fish due to the length of the voyage or the quality of preservation.

It took more than three hours for nearly 4 tons of fish from the NA-90331-TS ship to be sold. As always, a valuable amount of fish must be set aside for retail sale tomorrow morning. While everyone was cleaning the ship, Thu quickly grilled some squid and sighed in relief: "Luckily, there were about 2 tons of red-spotted fish, which sold for a good price. This trip earned nearly 70 million VND, so there is still enough left to prepare oil, ice, and food for the next "sea voyage". If nothing changes, we will leave tomorrow afternoon." Thu's wife hesitated: "Honey! We still have to wait for the ceremony...!". It turned out that when entering the port, Thu's ship had touched a mound of earth at the bottom of the creek. Previously, because a person drowned, when he died, his hand was still hugging that mound of earth, the mound of earth became sacred, and any ship that was unlucky enough to touch it had to hold a thanksgiving ceremony before being able to go to sea again. The truth is unclear, but the fishermen always have to face the unpredictable uncertainties of the ocean, so they have to be careful.

Fishing port on the day the boat returns

Tonight, the women did not return home but had to sleep on the ship - a taboo before the voyage. Tomorrow morning, their job was to wake up early to sell the remaining fish. Thu decided to spend two liters of wine on the reunion dinner. Openly, Thu lifted her thick heels, which were as rough as shoe soles, and said: "Perhaps no one in the whole country has feet like mine.

Having been at sea since the age of 12, for more than 20 years I have stood firmly on the boat through the storms, my feet have never been lost...". I suddenly remembered Thu's slouching but steady gait on the deck, and I couldn't help but feel moved... Thu and the "crew" forced me to get drunk. After a week of more than 600 miles drifting on the sea, the simple, sincere fishermen have become so familiar to me.

I was drowsy after a short, tiring nap. It was still not dawn. At the stern of the ship, I heard a man's voice whispering, then getting louder and louder, excitedly saying "you you, I you" very sweetly... I sat up and tried to open my eyes. Oh my god! Old Duong. Last night, his wife was busy looking after the baby and didn't get off the ship. He was quietly drinking and didn't seem to sleep. This morning, Toan's wife woke him up early, so he was taking the opportunity to "accuse" Toan of something? Seeing me awake, he walked out to the deck, his familiar, gentle smile.

On the shore, people were getting busy buying fish to bring to the market to sell. Thu woke up the whole boat. The atmosphere was bustling with buying and selling. Whether the business was popular or not at this time depended on the women's charm. Thu said, she left it to sell retail like this, adding in some extras so that those who needed housework would have cash to pay, the rest would have to wait for the next trip.

The crew members still had to stay on the ship to wait for a decision on whether to go to sea immediately or not. I set foot on shore and for the first time understood what "landsickness" was, feeling as dizzy as when going to sea. The moment of parting was very touching. I received a little "gift from the sea" which was a kilo of dried squid that the crew had carefully dried and packaged on the ship. Old Duong and Toan shook my hand vigorously: "Every full moon, take the opportunity to go to Quynh Long to drink wine!". Thu and her crew members could not make the next sea trip immediately because Thu's grandmother was seriously ill. I always remember the words of Chief Engineer Thuan: "A career that does not bring you an income of about one hundred million in a year is considered a failure!".

Currently in Quynh Long there are a few old fishing boats, lacking necessary equipment so they operate inefficiently, the other boats leave for other boats, so the boats have to stay at the port waiting to be sold. Large boats like NA-90331-TS with purse seine fishing, if not soon equipped with horizontal detectors, will find it very difficult to ensure the fish output, increase the income of workers to an average of 8 million VND/month, higher than the income of labor export to Taiwan, to retain them...

Currently, ships using vertical detectors have a range of only about 30 m; while horizontal detectors have a range of up to 1,000 m and can observe up to 360 degrees at inclined angles. In general, for the purse seine fishery in our country, for ships that have been installed with horizontal detectors, the exploitation efficiency has increased significantly with an increase of about 15% in output, 20% in product value and a significant amount of fuel savings. However, the price of a set of horizontal detectors is currently over 300 million VND, making it difficult for fishermen to proactively install them.

Tran Xuan Thu said that the NA-90331-TS ship is currently completing paperwork to receive 40% of the cost of installing a transverse detector according to the mechanism. According to Mr. Vu Ngoc Chat - Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Quynh Long commune, if the State does not have an appropriate support policy on medium-term loan interest rates to build new and convert ships to go offshore, then along with the increasing trend of gasoline prices, Quynh Long fishermen in particular will be in a long-term difficult situation...

In the midst of difficulties, Quynh Long fishermen still actively go out to sea. The last monsoon season has ended, I called Thu, the signal was out of coverage area. The brothers must have gone "out to besiege" again. I secretly hoped that the "sea plank" would be more generous with the beloved NA-90331-TS ship, with the people of Quynh Long coastal commune, to collect "gifts from the sea", waiting for the main fishing season to come back with a full hold of silver fish.

Sam Temple