The art of working with the sea

Because the Algarve is a land facing the Atlantic Ocean, it is in the sea that Algarvians find their chief sustenance.

The art of drag netting, also called xavega, sacada or chinchorro in Portuguese, is practised with nets being thrown out of a boat, and fishermen pulling the seine full of catch back to the beach.

Line fishing with different kinds of hooks is also practised.   This form of fishing includes dredging the sea bed with trays and large hooks, and also involves the use of barb hooks and tail hooks for catching small fish.  To catch octopuses, a clay bucket is used, while sea bream and snooks are caught by wire traps called murejonas.

In deep sea fishing, motor boats go out to catch shoals of fish.  Trawl nets are thrown from the trawlers.  With the help of a chalavar, a round wire net basket, the fish are collected in round baskets and loaded onto small boats.

Tuna fishing is today only a memory, but it has left its mark on the history of the region by the original practice of fixing fishing tackle to the shoreline, which the Arabs called almadravas, and by its canning factories.  Spear fishing, referred to as the “bullfighting of the sea”, involved circling the tuna with nets anchored on the sea bed, and fishermen harpooning them.