Fish

Then I started studying biology → initially without a plan or any particular expectations (I had no specific interest in marine species). There I had the opportunity to work on/with fish.
And I took it. During the studies → my relationship to the sea became more complicated. I discovered that the sea is a more complex space than I initially thought it to be.

Fish is precious. There is a lot of respect for the space they inhabit. There is almost a religious aspect to my family’s relationship with the ocean: → they want to be protected by it. The ocean has a sacred element to it.

In Portugal you can fish mainly cod and sardines. My uncle used to go out for days and days with big industrial ships to fish. I remember going with my mother to the harbor to see him when he returned.

What is it like to know it so well? To know exactly where the fish are? Sometimes I think that maybe, for him, there is even the thing of dying there. Of finally surrendering to it.

Also throughout my childhood, I would use a thin circular piece of wood to skip, skid and slide over the surface of shallow water on the beach. Surfing is a popular thing to do in Australia but I never really tried it other than body surfing, which is when you use the whole body as a kind of board and are carried by the force of breaking waves. It’s a bit like flying by the force of the sea and reminds me of the flying fish that one sees in the South Pacific.

Six days at sea, you can catch up to → 15.000 kilos of fish, on average. Mainly trout and sole: as they are the fish that live on the bottom of the sea. Each trip lasts about six days, then you unload the fish, for example, in England + they come back on a truck. Then the boat sails again.