The handful of fishermen who had congregated on the Number 44 wharf on Tuesday were sitting under a shed sheltering from a brisk drizzle. They appeared melancholy and it seemed that alcohol had gotten the better of some of them.
These days, Corentyne fishermen talk about little else but the scourge of piracy that has taken the lives of many of their comrades and thrown their respective enterprises into a tailspin. The departure of fishing vessels for the fishing grounds of the open seas and regions close to Guyana’s border with Suriname, are, these days, emotional moments. Fishing expeditions can last for nine or ten days at a time and for the families of the crews that usually number about five the wait for the return of the vessels can be hell.
Piracy is about stripping fishing vessels of their hard-earned catch, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars as well as