Inhassoro, October 2022

Finally! The beach bum’s paradise again. Not much to write here which would not become repetitive. White sands, blue ocean, cheap seafood, cheap beer and repeat. Repeat for days on end.

The turn off to Inhassoro is like any other holiday town road. The business and imperative of life on the main highway slowly fades away in intensity.

Palm trees increase in number and a shop or two appears nestled amongst houses. The houses on the periphery have real and imagined signs on the gate saying I made my beach home here.

The problem with Mozambique is that the beaches are too good.

Whichever beach destination you arrive in you will find yourself lounging on the white sands, potentially with a rum induced mix of liquid in one hand, and a palm tree nearby. Leaving is not an option.

Everyone has their own favourite people-watching pastime. We enjoy watching the fishing communities on the local beach. In Inhassoro, groups of people gather on the beach most days to fish with large nets. This requires two teams of the strongest to row the net out in two separate boats. The row boats struggle against the waves and the current with the boat springing up and plunging down until the net and the buoys are dropped over the side of the boats a surprisingly far distance off. The row boats make the long voyage back mindful of the current and the current’s effect on the shape of the net until they beach. The watchers on the beach that slowly gather during the net launch then become the second phase of the mission. Each person with a stick, two groups of villagers separately pull each side of the net in by winding the stick on the rope and then walking it slowly back. Up to twenty people might be on a single rope at any one time. When you have walked the width of the beach with your pulling partner, you drop the rope and then rejoin the line at the front.

Teenage kids and young adults are the main participants and there is more often than not an older person who I assume to be the caretaker of the net and row boats. Young teenage lads show off their character and age by the way they bring the net in. The serious characters take the job on with care and co-ordinate with a partner to keep the line stable as well as the distant net in shape when they take on the front of the line. Young children pull as they can and soon learn to wind and store the rope neatly at the back of the line as their job. Women and men take part and there is only rarely a gaggle of girls watching from the periphery at the boys. Everybody here takes part in pulling on the line. If you pull the line you get a share of the catch.

Kids and adults with something to prove stride to the front of the line and glory in their strength of muscle. They pull the net with all of their might sending a ripple of shuffling feet along the line behind them. Sometimes they pull the line too hard and put the line holders in front off balance. The older net supervisor looks on with decades of experience of the same characters but different faces pulling on the line.

The net is dropped hundreds of metres out in the Indian Ocean. So far out that you wonder if they might not catch a swordfish or even a whale. It can take a few hours of effort to bring the net in. All the while, some new kids will join in but they are lesser on the line. They were not there at the beginning and I assume their share of the catch will be less.

Finally, the main net catch begins to appear. Nominated kids, sometimes with masks, step into the water and keep the shape of the net while catching any itinerant fish which might be precariously netted on the edges. The buoys marking the edges of the net bounce on the surface and slide slowly through the water with each pull of the net. With a final heave, the net is landed. Nobody runs to see the catch and everybody busies themselves with their task until finished. The community of line pullers pull the net well up the beach before allowing themselves a glance at the catch and only a few of the group step forward to release any fish from the net. Sometimes there is very little in the net but no-one ever shows disappointment. Sometimes there is more than a little and the group visibly relaxes at the sight but no one leaps for joy. The net needs to be taken out again and today is a long day of effort.

Most of the group stands to the side of the fish catch or helps to organise the net for the next run. The net will be taken out a few times while the tides, condition and current are good. The strongest of the fishing possie again divide into two groups and jump in the boats. The youngest and oldest have been organising and neatening the net for the next journey out.

At the end of the day, each participant is given a small choice of the catch.

All of the above happens over the space of a many hours. Someone much further south in Mozambique told us that there, travellers are welcome to join in and can get a share of the catch if they want.

Inhassoro is a proper small and sleepy beach town. There are a few resorts and lodges along the coastline and a few campsites also. We book into a campsite in the north of the village and enjoy the view for a few nights. Rossha Seafood is nearby so we spend a little and enjoy the fresh calamari and prawns. TALHO Inhassoro Butchery is maybe one of the best meat sellers we found in Mozambique and so we barbeque steak and sausage on most nights with the stars above us and the sounds of waves crashing in front.

Our aim this time in Mozambique is to explore as much as possible so we move to another campsite a little south of the village for a few nights to get a sense of the other side. This campsite is big with plush green grass right on the beach where we watch the fishing people bring in their nets.