Nghe An fishing boats 'load' thousands of tons of ice to go out to sea

According to people's experiencefishermenNghe An, from the end of March to June is the most favorable season for fishing at sea in the year, because the weather is calm and the sea is calm. Therefore, at this time, fishing ports in Nghe An are always bustling with the scene of buying and selling seafood and providing raw materials and fuel for ships preparing to leave port.

An old fisherman named Phuc in Quynh Nghia commune (Quynh Luu) said that from March onwards, whenever the radio announced that there was going to be a monsoon, the boats would return to avoid the wind, but in April, even though the monsoon was coming, the boats still set sail normally, because the monsoon was not blowing as strong as before. Therefore, right after selling outseafood, the brothers were busy loading food, provisions, raw materials, and other fuel to go out to sea immediately, hoping to catch a lot of seafood.

Ice is put into the machine to be crushed, then carried onto the boat by conveyor belt. Photo: Xuan Hoang

Each trip out to sea, for ships with a capacity of 500 CV or more, usually stays at sea for 5 to 10 days, so it uses a lot of raw materials and fuel such as: oil, ice... Of which, ice accounts for the largest volume. Ship owner Nguyen Quang Vinh in Tien Thuy commune,Quynh Luu districtsaid: His ship has a capacity of over 800 CV, each trip out to sea, ice alone consumes up to 1,000 trees, total weight 30 tons, costing 16 million VND.

Mr. Son, who specializes in transporting ice for ships, shared: Because of the needs of ship owners, there are days when he works from dawn to dusk. For dozens of hours, he has to carry thousands of ice blocks from the truck to the ice crusher, which is very hard.

Each treeiceweighing 30 kg, is put into a grinder to make a white powder, like salt, by conveyor belt to the bow of the ship and then poured into the hold. After each net, fishermen put seafood in plastic trays, carefully iced in the hold, so the seafood is always kept fresh.

Each fishing boat with a capacity of 500 CV or more must use 800 - 1,000 ice blocks. Each ice block weighs 30 kg. Photo: Xuan Hoang

Lach Quen fishing portis the port where hundreds of large fishing boats dock. Mr. Nguyen Duc Dong, in charge of the fishing port, said: From April 10th until now, every day there are about 10 fishing boats docking at the port, and the same number of boats leave the port to go to sea. Because right after selling all the fish, the fishermen only rest for 1 night, then return to resupply oil, ice and other necessities to go to sea for a new trip. Therefore, the port is always bustling and noisy with cars and tractors transporting ice to the port, along with the sound of ice crushers, drowning out all human voices.

"Each ship with a capacity of over 500 CV must use 800 - 1,000 ice blocks before going to sea. Thus, every day 10 fishing boats leave port, meaning 10,000 ice blocks are transported by stone crushers onto the ship along with the fishermen going to sea" - Mr. Nguyen Duc Dong shared.

Dozens of large-capacity fishing boats are "swallowing" ice at Lach Quen Fishing Port before going out to sea. Photo: Xuan Hoang

Quynh Lap Commune (Hoang Mai Town) is a locality with a large number of large-engined ships specializing in offshore fishing. At this time, fishermen here are also busy with seafood fishing. Along the Quynh Lap fishing port area, fishing boats are always bustling with people and vehicles coming in and out to supply raw materials and fuel to the ships, preparing for the trip to sea. Because there are many large boats, the amount of ice used daily is "huge". Mr. Le Hoi Hung, owner of an ice supply facility, said that because each ship needs thousands of ice blocks, his facility is running at full capacity to supply fishing boats in the area.

After days at sea, the ships return to the fishing port, carrying many different seafood products. Among them are fish used to make animal feed, with low economic value, but there are also seafood with high economic value such as: squid, hairtail, mackerel... Regardless of the seafood, it is well preserved with a huge amount of ice in the ship's hold, so the quality is good, selling at a high price.

Nghe AnThere are currently 3,510 fishing boats., including 1,593 ships with engine capacity over 90CV, with nearly 20,000 workers directly fishing at sea. Every year, Nghe An fishermen catch over 150,000 tons of seafood.