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 when it reached the ocean 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 waiting 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 ship. Quynh Long's offshore fishing boats have returned to the creek 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.

The boat sailed for almost a day until 7:00 p.m. before arriving at Lach Quen estuary. The boat anchored and waited for the water 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 one hundred thousand 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 (pumped from the mountain behind the port) for about 20 boats, each boat costs 300,000 VND, has earned more than 6 million VND.

It was past 9:00 p.m. when our ship entered the inlet. 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 of the shore to pick up the wives and families of the crew members. There were only Thu's wife, mother-in-law, Toan and a few assistants. Usually when the fish returned, the big customers from Cua Lo, Thanh Hoa and Hai Phong were waiting on shore. This time the fish returned in small quantities, 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.



Prepare to bring the fish ashore

Each ship returning to port, if it "gets fish", has to 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, each ton is paid 200,000 VND by the truck owner; in addition, there is money to pay for the blue cars to bring ice to be crushed on the spot to re-preserve the fish after selection. The fish is 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 sea trip or the quality of preservation.

After more than three hours, nearly 4 tons of fish from the NA-90331-TS ship were 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 breathed a sigh of 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 trip". 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 in the creek bed. 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 on the next trip. It is not clear whether it is true or not, but the fishermen always have to face the unpredictable uncertainties of the ocean, so they have to be careful.

Fishing port on boat return day

Tonight, the women did not return home but had to sleep on the ship - a taboo before a sea 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 raised her thick heels, which were as rough as shoe soles, and said: "Perhaps no one in the whole country has feet like mine.

Going to sea since the age of 12, for more than 20 years I have stood on the boat with my feet pressed against the wind and waves, my heels are so brave that they cannot be lost...". I suddenly remembered Thu's strutting but steady gait on the deck, and I couldn't help but be moved... Thu and the "crew" forced me to get drunk. A week with more than 600 miles drifting on the sea, the simple, sincere fishermen were so familiar to me.

I was drowsy after a short nap. It was not yet dawn. At the stern of the ship, there were men whispering, then getting louder and more excited, "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 drank quietly and didn't seem to sleep. This morning, Toan's wife woke him up early, so he took 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 charm of the women. Thu said, she left it to sell retail like this, adding some extras so that if someone needed housework, they 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 it was like to be "sick of the land", 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 because Thu's grandmother was seriously ill. I will 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 that lack necessary equipment, so they operate inefficiently. The other boats have to leave and go to other boats, so the boats have to wait in port to be sold. If a large boat like the NA-90331-TS, which is engaged in purse seine fishing, is not soon equipped with a horizontal detector, it will be very difficult to ensure the output of fish caught, 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, an increase of 20% in product value and a significant amount of fuel savings. However, the price of a horizontal detector set is currently over 300 million VND, making it difficult for fishermen to proactively install it.

Tran Xuan Thu said that the NA-90331-TS ship is currently completing procedures to receive 40% support for the cost of installing a horizontal 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 "besieging" again. I secretly hoped that the "sea plank" would be more generous to the sea with the beloved NA-90331-TS ship, with the people of Quynh Long coastal commune, leaving behind to collect "gifts from the sea", waiting for the main fishing season to come back with a full hold of silver fish.

Sam Temple