Chicken River Revisited

We paid another visit to Chicken River fishing village last Sunday, this time to go out to sea and see for ourselves how Ah Poh and his helper pull in the 18 fishing nets that he had set earlier. To a landlubber like myself, it was a learning experience. Guided not by GPS, but by his years of experience, he could navigate his boat in the choppy sea in the late evening to that part of the sea that he has claimed as his own. How did he map out that stretch of the sea as his own territory? Any attempt to get him to explain was drowned by the growl of the engine as we ploughed through the rough water.

It was impossible to see where his nets were laid out in the wide expanse of the sea, but he was able to guide his boat to each of them.

We cooled off with some coconut water before we set off at about 5.30 in the evening. As we left the river mouth, herons were picking off the mudskippers on the exposed mud bank. A short distance from the river mouth were the nets for trapping shrimps. Ah Poh was apologetic for the poor harvest of shrimps. He kept saying if we had come two days ago, we would have seen a better catch and more varieties of fish. The earlier trips he had made had yielded little and he was not so hopeful on this last trip.

As we moved further out to the deeper part of the sea where fish nets could be found, we spotted a couple of ocean liners in the distant skyline and other fishing boats in the vicinity.

Dear readers, the little knowledge that I have of tropical fish may have led me to identify some fish wrongly. I will leave it to the readers to correct me.

The favourite resting place of Oni Kee

Ah Poh splitting coconuts after draining out the coconut water

Coconut flesh

Oni's grand daughter enjoying her coconut flesh

Some happy children

Two brothers taking a dip to cool off

Learning the art of the lion dance

Going out to sea

The river mouth at low tide

Markers to warn boats of shallow sea bed

Floats that mark the position of the fishing net

Pulling in the net

Note the basket in which the catch is put into after opening the neck of the net

The choppy sea

The "dragon tongue" fish as the Chinese call them

Jelly fish entangled in the net

A close-up shot of a jelly fish

The electric ray

The only prawn caught from the deeper part of the sea

A cow fish?

Note the huge teeth

The catch Ah Poh is happiest with

A giant eel? But it has got a "beak" for a mouth.

The locals call this fish "tongkang"

Coming back from the sea

Shots of the skyline in fading light

Sorting out shrimps from trash fish

Sting rays

Sorted shrimps

Catfish

A side view of the catfish

Sorted white pomfrets

It was, from Ah Poh's point of view, a poor outing. At a government subsidised price of one ringgit per litre of diesel for fishermen, a trip to and from the sea would set him back by about RM 35.00 in diesel cost, excluding payment to his helper.

It was an exhilarating experience with the wind whipping our faces and the salt sprays peppering us as the boat sliced through the choppy water. The only problem was the jarring of bones from the constant vibration caused by the enjine and the ache in the buttocks from the hard planks.