This week at Guinjata Bay it is spring tide (highest high tides and lowest low tides) exposing a rocky outcrop just off the pinnacle of the bay. These rocks are usually submerged and unreachable due to the strong waves that break on them. However, during this stage of the tidal cycle one can walk to the outcrop. Many villages come down to the beach to collect mussels and small copepods (which i am told are eaten like shrimp.) The mussels collected here are very small and not fully developed. Women and children are seen picking the shells off the hard rock face under the sweltering sun as the huge breaker draw ever closer. There are only a few days a month when the best mussels can be harvested so they have to work fast.
The fishermen are not putting the gill net out at this time as the tides are too strong and the net is broken. When asked how the net got so cut open i was told that something big must have swam into it and torn it, maybe a whale shark! Although I am sceptical that a whale shark would a) swim into the net and b) be able to get out of it easily, but it makes a good story and every fishermen likes a good story.
Net (10m x 40m) laid out on the beach whilst it is re-knotted by hand, this process takes a few days.
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