9 1.9: The Catch (1/2)

The trio who were at sea about 20 meters away waved their hands to acknowledge that I was there when I whistled at them. I went near the shoreline and found that it was rather prestine and had no other floatsom or driftwood around the edge where the waves were breaking at the shore.

”Maybe it's high tide right now.” I thought to myself and walked back to the makeshift A-frame shelter that I found waking up to the other day. The area was quite clean and there was a smouldering fire quite near the shelter. Most probably it was made in order to ward off the mosquitoes and other gnats.

I picked some dry wood around the shelter and dumped it into the smoldering fire. As the twigs and kindling of the pine trees are dry, it quickly caught fire and billowed whitish grey smoke inland. I gathered some more wood and placed them at the side, occasionally throwing a few pieces into the fire preventing it from being extinguished.

I sat down in the makeshift A-frame shelter and looked around the vicinity and can't help wondering how the sales of the green mussels also known as 'treasures' by the fishermen going to take place.

As it was difficult to tell the time, I took a piece of wood and stuck it in the sand in an upright manner. If I guessed right, the time when I reached the shore hadn't gone past midday yet and there would be a fixed shadow in the middle of the wood to indicate that the sun was directly overhead.

At this moment the shadow from the stick was pointing towards the sea and that indicates it's still in the first part of the morning.

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After some while, I saw Eun rowing back to the shore heading towards my direction and was calling out to me to approach him. I stood up and walked towards the shoreline as he landed his craft deftly near me. He climbed off his craft and dumped a basket on the shore. I saw there's another 3 more such baskets in his craft.

”Aaahhhh..... This one's for us. Let's roast them at the fire now. I can't wait to try them.” Eun pointed to the basket that he had brought ashore.

Inside the basket were the largest shelled mussels I had seen! There were about the length of the palm and had no barnacles attached to it. The shell looked clean and seemed to be glistening in the sun. Only a few strands of seaweed was among the cluster of the shells.

Eun gingerly picked the basket up and headed to the smoldering fire and squatted right next to it while using a stick to spread the embers. He then took some sticks and lay them diagonally on the embers before placing a few shells on it.

A while later the other two brothers, Cheng and Ding also arrived at the shore after guiding their craft and landed at the shore. They had about 3 baskets each in their sampan and walked leisurely towards us. ”You had your lunch already?” asked Ding.

”Nope, just coffee and some fried tapioca,” I replied. ”Same here. Its almost lunchtime though. We rest a bit after this and wait for the merchants to come and collect the shells from us later.” quipped Cheng as he squatted next to Eun and began poking through the embers with a stick.

The sizzling of the mussels states that it was halfway done and when the shells opened up and exposing its juicy and sumptuous fleshy meat inside, Ding then picked up a few pieces and put it on a dry banana leaf that he had picked earlier.