The Eastern Stars - Mark Kurlansky [53]
They fished in deep-welled nineteen-foot open boats, the old ones made of wood, the newer ones of fiberglass. It was essentially a rowboat, but with outboard engines mounted on the back. They had to go a long distance to catch fish—farther all the time as fish became scarcer, because too many were being caught and because of pollution.
Gasoline for the outboards was expensive, and the only viable fishery within rowing distance had been steadily vanishing since the 1990s. From their muddy shore, fishermen rowed a few hundred yards and dragged a net over the side. They would slap the water with the oars to scare the fish and drive them into the net. These small freshwater fish did not command a high price, but when they were plentiful, a full net—which the fishermen wove together by hand—would quickly pay for the $600 in nylon line used to make it.
This fishery was dying out because it was downstream from Cristóbal Colón and a plant owned by CEMEX, the Mexican cement producer, both of which dumped pollutants in the river. A fisherman named Edwin said of CEMEX, in good New York English, “They kill everything. There is no fish left.” Tony Echavaría, the mayor, recognized the often-cited problem: “CEMEX is a problem because of pollution, but it is very important to the local economy.”
CEMEX provided fourteen thousand jobs. The entire San Pedro sugar sector was now providing only two thousand jobs, and many of those for only half the year. Also, CEMEX brought supplies through the port, one of the few port activities left. They even provided one of the better youth baseball programs developing teenage major-league prospects.
Meanwhile, Edwin complained that although the price of gasoline was rising, the fishermen were forced to go farther every year to find fish. Their engines were small—usually only forty horsepower—but still burned twenty-five gallons in a day of fishing, which meant the first 140 pounds of fish that was caught only paid for the gasoline. Some days they caught less than 140 pounds.
Edwin grew up fishing from Punta de Pescadores but went abroad, becoming a Dom Yor, as Dominicans refer, not altogether kindly, to those who move to New York. He lived in Queens with his father, a former fisherman, until, as he put it, “I did something bad and was sent back.” The reference to “something bad” was not awkward English but a touch of satire that made Dominicans laugh about the patronizing nature of U.S. policy. The U.S. government warned Dominicans with the ultimate threat: if you don’t behave, we will make you go back to your hometown. Drug convictions most often led to deportation, but Edwin did not want to explain or give his last name. However, he came back with investment money and owned five nineteen-foot fishing boats.
Edwin fished the only profitable way left here, by taking his boats sixty miles out into the Caribbean. A line was planted with an anchor in 1,500 fathoms of water at one end and a buoy with a palm tree at the other. The palm, known as the balsa, provided shade, which attracted small fish, which in turn drew larger fish. The fisherman dragged a heavy handheld line with a baited hook through the shaded area and tried to hook a four-foot-long sharp-toothed, sleek, and silvery king mackerel, which Dominicans call a carite. Or the yellow fish with the huge foreheads and tender flesh that are sometimes five feet long and weigh more than fifty pounds, known here as dorado and sometimes in the U.S. as dolphin fish—except by the squeamish and politically correct, who prefer the Hawaiian name, mahimahi. There are also hefty yellowfin tuna, large sharks, and six- and seven-foot-long marlin.