Acapulco - fishing

Gordon and I took our first walk in town yesterday. The city is busy and noisy with traffic, but along the malecon ( the sidewalk that edges the beach) , many trees -palms next to the road and small groves shading old beach side restaurants) softened the noise and provided welcome shade. Together with a constant light breeze, the walk was quite enjoyable.

At this edge of Acapulco's long beach front small fishing boats launch. Some fish right in the bay and display their fresh catch on small wooden tables in the sand near the sidewalk. 

As we walked along, we saw men pulling in the net from one of the fishing boats. This is no small task. A big crowd of men run to the shore to help. First 5 or 6 grab the line, niftily outfitted with slings for their shoulders so they can lean back and brace their feet into the sand for the great, long and difficult tug of war with the sea as they bring in what seems like a mile of net before they get to the treasure at the middle. Then all of the other men who have gathered run to the center of the net to pull it onto the shore and start the process of picking the fish and other stuff out of the net. There is so much net, I can hardly imagine how they keep it all organized.

At the center of the n

et there was quite a pile of flopping fish and there was also quite a pile of - PLASTIC!

Yes, here was another reminder of how our oceans have changed because of our throw away world. I've read there is more plastic than anything else in much of the sea. I wondered about eating the fish from the bay.

The good news is it could be worse.  After decades of explosive growth, Acapulco bay became very polluted. It's been cleaned up since then. Maybe we can clean up our oceans?