Leila Samodien
MICHAEL Ahrendse often starts his day at 3am with a cup of coffee.
Less than a couple of hours later, he’s sailing through the waters and darkness of the Agulhas Bank in Struisbaai.
As a skipper, he needs to be decisive. If they go all the way out to the 20km fishing bank, they won’t get a chance to test the waters at any other spot – their little “chuckies” aren’t fast enough to get anywhere else before the wind picks up.
They call their boats chuckies, named after the sound they make when they’re started up: “chuck, chuck, chuck.”
Some of the chuckies are up to 40 years old and, according to locals, Struisbaai and Arniston line fishermen are among the last large fishing communities in the Western Cape, and possibly the country, that still depend on them.
Some of the older fishermen – such as Ahrendse’s uncle Alec, 77, who still fishes – are nostalgic about the chuckies.
“At my age, I can’t sit on those speedboats; my bones!” he said, smiling.
But even he acknowledged that “times have changed” and that younger generation line fishermen needed to turn in their old chuckies for faster, more reliable boats to make a decent living.
Most of Struisbaai’s poor fishing community live in Struisbaai North, sometimes referred to as Molshoop (Molehill). Some 80 percent of this community earn a living through the fishing industry, and almost all of the fishermen here believe that the chuckies should be done away with – they’re too slow, chew diesel, are prone to breaking down and are only big enough for eight crewmen.
Worst of all, said Ahrendse, was that they don’t own their chuckies.
They are hired from boat owners, who, in return, ask for about 12 percent of the proceeds of their catch.
In addition, they are usually only allowed to sell their catch to the boat owner, who then sells it on.
Agulhas Bank fishermen thrive on catching yellowtail and Cape salmon.
“Sometimes the price drops. One day, we’ll get R28 a kilogram, a couple of weeks later, we’ll only get R13,” said Ahrendse.
“We’d prefer to sell our fish ourselves.”
Line fisherman Stuart du Plessis, who works on a speedboat, said they are often able to catch more fish because their boats travel further and faster.
It took a chucky at least 2½ hours to travel to the fishing bank – a distance a speedboat could cover in just over half an hour.
“It’s like going to Cape Town with a horse and cart when all the other guys have cars,” he said.
While Du Plessis might come home with R1 000 at the end of the week, his peers who work on chuckies would only get R100, or sometimes nothing.
There were only a few good fishing days a month in summer, and in winter, they could go months without venturing out. During dry spells, they would often try angling or scour rock pools just to put food on the table.
Then there was the competition. Besides speedboats, chucky skippers also contended with huge trawlers and poachers.
According to Du Plessis, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has permitted two local fishermen to use speedboats instead of chuckies.
However, three applications by fishermen from Molshoop were denied – two about seven years ago and the other one about three years ago.
Du Plessis said they were told that the department feared they would deplete the bank’s fish stocks, should all traditional line fishermen be allowed to use speedboats.
Fisheries spokesman Lionel Adendorf said that fishermen who use speedboats in the Agulhas Bank needed permits to do so.
The department, he said, enforced this to ensure that it “keeps the resource populations at a sustainable level”.
“The department is aware of the situation in Struisbaai and other areas. It will investigate the merit of the fishers’ claims and then consider what steps to take next,” said Adendorf.
But, said Du Plessis: “We’re traditional fishermen. We have this saying if we catch a small fish: ‘go get your grandfather’. If not, what do we catch tomorrow?”
Brian Prins, a Bredasdorp teacher who line-fishes in Struisbaai in his spare time, says he has approached the department many times to assist the fishing community.
“People think all we want is quotas, but what we want is some kind of support from the department,” he says.
Prins has been lobbying for a fisheries or ocean bank – similar to the Land Bank – to provide financial support to small-scale and traditional fishers in need of their own boats.
Adendorf, however, said that the department believed there were enough entrepreneurial bodies, such as the Small Enterprises Development Agency and Khula Enterprise Finance, to provide opportunities to fishermen.
In the meantime, most Struisbaai skippers doubt they will ever be able to afford their own boats, or get permits, unless the department comes to the table. Ahrendse is among them.
He is like many men in Struisbaai, a fourth generation fisherman. His father taught him how to fish; his uncle Alec trained him to be a skipper. But, he fears his grandchildren will never aspire to carry on the legacy.
“Young men don’t want to be fishermen anymore,” said Ahrendse, desperate to get home and sleep after an unusually long morning at sea. “It’s too little money and too much work.”