{"id":416,"date":"2011-05-31T09:29:53","date_gmt":"2011-05-31T09:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/?p=416"},"modified":"2025-06-08T02:42:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T01:42:21","slug":"the-fishermen-of-mbour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/the-fishermen-of-mbour\/","title":{"rendered":"The fishermen of M’bour, Senegal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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M’bour, Senegal. Fishermen haul a small fishing pirogue (wooden canoe) up on to the beach at sunset. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In November 2008<\/strong> I spent two weeks in Senegal, living in M\u2019bour, a dusty transit stop and fishing port halfway between Dakar and the Gambia. I spent this time getting to know the fishermen, going to sea with them, learning how they worked, the risks they took travelling up to 20 miles offshore in leaky open canoes without so much as a compass to guide them. I learned how they spent days at sea in tiny canoes, sleeping in the bottom of them, risking storms or being swept out to sea. As there canoes have no lights they also run the risk of being mown down by trawlers at night. Many do lose their lives each year, but economic pressures are causing a growing number of young men to turn to fishing. This brings its own problems; the fishery is poorly documented, but anecdotal reports suggest this is having a significant impact on stocks of some species.\u00a0 Robust data is hard to come by, given the unregulated nature of this fishery, but the Senegalese Directorate of Marine Fisheries estimated that in 2004 a little over 6000 such canoes were operating along the coast of Senegal.\u00a0 The main species caught are small sardinella (Sardinella aurita<\/em> and S. maderenis<\/em>) and horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus<\/em>). In 2008 the fishery off M’bour and nearby Joal Fadiouth was considered over-exploited (source FAO,Fisheries Circular No. 1033, 2008<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Our fishing canoe, or pirogue, being lanched off beach on wooden rollers, M’bour, Senegal.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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 <\/em>Now fully laden, our ancient outboard is securely fastened with bailing twine. Note the well balanced ice box perched toward the stern of the canoe. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"M'bour,
M’bour, Senegal. Two Senegalese fishermen head out to sea in a small pirogue (traditional wooden canoe).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I spent a day at sea on one of these tiny boats. Simply making it through the surf was quite an acheivement; the boat had no ballast and was so top heavy, due to ourselves and the large box of ice we were carrying, that we appeared in imminent danger of capsizing. Fortunately we shipped quite a lot of water quite quickly during a rather sketchy launching. This few inches of seawater inside our boat at least gave us some stability by providing a little ballast, albeit not a recommended way of doing so. Powered by an ancient 15hp, 2-stroke Yamaha outboard engine secured by bailing twine to the transom, we headed out to sea for about three hours, by which time I estimated we were about fifteen miles offshore. For the first 30 minutes or so we saw a few other boats, but they quickly dispersed in different directions; soon we were alone. We had set off in a grey haze that quickly enveloped the land. The sun became a slightly brighter glow penetrating the haze. Both sea and sky were otherwise quite featureless.\u00a0 As we motored steadily along, I watched with growing alarm as the sky changed, growing dark and heavy, with a stiffening breeze springing up.\u00a0 Maybe two hours out we came upon another canoe, similar to ours. This one was drifting aimlessly as their equally ancient outboard engine had died.\u00a0 The delight at our arrival shown by the three fishermen onboard quickly turned to consternation when, Pape, our boats owner and skipper, offered not to towed them to back to shore but to a point at sea where they ‘had a better chance of being spotted’ by a home-bound canoe.\u00a0 So for half and hour or so we towed them further out to sea (or at least it seemed that direction to me) before leaving them to anchor on what appeared an equally deserted and featureless location.as was the spot we had towed them from.\u00a0 We never saw them again. I rather hope this meant that they had indeed been towed ashore.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Our unhappy fishermen drop anchor and start their wait for a passing vessel after we tow them to a ‘better’ location.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At one point Pape asked me which direction I thought M’bour lay.\u00a0 With no visual clues to guide me I based my guess on the heading I thought we had set off on, and pointed on the reciprocal bearing.\u00a0 Apparently I was almost 180 degrees out.\u00a0 I asked Pape how he could tell, with such confidence, with no compass or electronic aids. The wind direction he informed me.\u00a0 So, I enquired cautiously, does it always blow from the same direction this time of year?\u00a0 No, he cheerfully informed me, sometimes we get lost.\u00a0 I rather wished I hadn’t asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually we arrived at the fishing grounds.\u00a0 What exactly identified them as ‘the fishing grounds’ I have no idea.\u00a0 There were no surface features; nothing on the horizon. Hooks were baited with little, frozen prawns from our icebox and handlines set.\u00a0 A small stove was fired up in the middle of the canoe and sugary tea the colour and consistency of stockholm tar brewed.\u00a0 A cup was passed around from which we all took small sips; more than this would most likely have resulted in irreversible damage to my intestines.\u00a0 Tea was supplemented by joints also passed around.\u00a0 Tea, reefers and small amounts of rice and peanut porridge (gosi) were pretty much all the crew had to survive on apart from whatever they caught. \u00a0 Around two hours passed, in which time we had caught maybe a dozen fish, mostly sardinella, horse mackerel and a few bigeye grunt (Brachydeuterus auritus<\/em>).\u00a0 Barely enough to feed us at sea, let alone provide a wage for all three fishermen.\u00a0 Around four in the afternoon, by which time the chop on the sea had risen significantly and little whitecaps had started to appear, we finally decided to head back inshore.\u00a0 Much to my relief, Pape’s sense of direction proved accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sun was setting when we finally reached M’bour, and there have been few occasions when I’ve been quite so pleased to step on to dry land.\u00a0 Pape and his crew would probably go to sea again tomorrow, maybe staying out for one or two nights this time.\u00a0 I thought that night of the meagre catch we returned with after a day at sea, of the broken down canoe we had come across and of the stories Pape had told me of getting caught in a storm and drifting helplessly for three days before sighting land.\u00a0 Overfishing is a massive problem on the West coast of Africa.\u00a0 Much of this problem is actually due to poorly regulated fishing by large trawlers from outside Senegal: Russian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and European boats.\u00a0 It has been estimated that a large trawler will, on one good day, catch as much as fifty pirogues will in a year.\u00a0 Vessels are licensed by the Senegalese Government who argue that if they don’t sell licenses then neighbouring countries will; stocks may still suffer and Senegal will lose valuable revenue (Gr\u00e9goire Allix, le Monde\/Worldcrunch, 2011<\/a>). What is a matter of concern about the long term effects of overfishing for us in the West can be a question of survival for some on the coast of Senegal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of our crew hand lining for fish at the ‘fishing grounds’, waiting for a bite.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Fish salting pans, M’bour, Senegal.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

View more of my images of\u00a0 Senegal and from other regions of the\u00a0 World here<\/a> at my main Colin Munro Photography website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In November 2008 I spent two weeks living in M\u2019bour, a dusty transit stop and fishing port halfway between Dakar and the Gambia. I spent this time getting to know the fishermen, going to sea with them, learning how they worked, the risks they took travelling up to 20 miles offshore in leaky open canoes without so much as a compass to guide them. I learned how they spent days at sea in tiny canoes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,188,187,155],"tags":[189,196,23,143,197,1109,194,192,191,190,1108,163,161,193,195],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-fisheries","category-senegal","category-sunsets","tag-artisanal-fisheries","tag-beach","tag-colin-munro","tag-colin-munro-photography","tag-fish-salting","tag-fisheries","tag-hand-lining","tag-mbour","tag-overfishing","tag-pirouge","tag-senegal","tag-silhouette","tag-sunset","tag-traditional-canoe","tag-west-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":104,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4898,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/4898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}