Sunday, November 30, 2008

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Until last week, I was unaware that the sea can be farmed. To date, I'm thinking its genius and I haven't figured out the negatives yet. Difficulties to be overcome were listed for me, but otherwise it appeared completely organic and sustainable.

As usual I found myself asking, "How did I get here?" while I literally hopped from rock to rowboat and headed out to sea off the Peruvian shore in Ancash. I was there to see an economic development project, where a bunch of Peruvian fishermen figured out they could cultivate scallops. By anchoring cables across the ocean floor and hanging mesh cages with the baby seed scallops inside, they could simply wait for them to grow by feeding off the sea plankton already in the water, then redistribute them to bigger cages until they're ready to be removed and cooked up at Red Lobster. They can even capture the fertilized scallop "eggs" to make more.

My rowboat captain happened to be the "president" of his 19 person fishing association. He was the most well-spoken uneducated fisherman I've ever met in my life. Their association had converted into a business in order to compete for a grant and participate in a training program. He was so convincing, he seemed the perfect grant candidate: in need, but completely qualified, positive and dedicated.

In need because he hadn't made any money on his investment in the last two years and believed he would need to suffer just one year more to see profits.

Qualified because he'd been a fisherman for some 30 years. When he listed potential threats to the scallops, it included changes in the current which could affect the oxygen levels in the water; this could be measured by an O2 Sensor, but usually he could smell the change in the sea.

He admitted to making mistakes in the project and expressed having learned from them as eloquently as possible in yellow rubber wading pants.

But what got me, is that this whole time he was rowing. He was individually rowing a big rowboat full of people against the current. And he just kept rowing. It took forever; I am almost certain that had I been captain I would have suggested we all swim and pull in the boat with a rope. But as long as we kept our eyes on him, his even strokes, the rhythm of his movements as equally hypnotizing as the tide, I felt calm. The moment I looked at the shore, I felt we hadn't moved at all and began to doubt we'd make it in with the single man rowing system we had going.

Eventually he said the perfect grant line. After enthusing the grantmaker with all his qualifications and potential he said, "I hope we get the grant, but with or without it we'll get there."

For a second I wasn't sure if "there" referred to "profitable scallop farming" or the "shore". And since I'm writing this from the rowboat, please send funds to the address below:

One Well Spoken Fisherman
Just Kidding, Peru

3 comments:

RF said...

A. What is it that you do exactly?
B. Did you get to eat any scallops?

-Dan

John said...

That made my arms hurt just reading it. Hope you are well Jess! Write when you have a chance, I miss hearing from you.

Sarah said...

i swear your blog entries just keep getting better and better! ps. i finally caught up!