Back To the Small Fishing Village In 1982 - Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Plenty of Seafood on the Lonely Island’s Reefs

They planned to trawl a few nets in the surrounding waters during the morning, hoping to get lucky with a big catch like yesterday, and then go beach combing on the lonely island when the tide started going out in the afternoon.

They didn’t plan to venture into distant waters – this wasn’t serious trawling after all. Serious trawlers would set out at one or two in the morning, no later than two or three o’clock.

Because it took over an hour just to reach the fishing grounds, and another hour to pull up each net.

If they went too far out, they couldn’t make many trawls in a day, and would just waste fuel going back and forth.

They just wanted to try their luck like yesterday, and if that didn’t work out, they’d beach comb on the lonely island. With so many people, if everyone found a little something, it wouldn’t be too much of a loss.

As the boat left the shore, Ye Yaodong no longer felt fear in his heart. His expression was completely relaxed, and when they reached the middle of the sea, he shouted at the ocean, “Ocean, I, Ye Yaodong, am back!”

“Haha, Dongzi is too excited!”

“I’m excited too! Ocean, I, Pei Guang, am back too – send us lots of seafood!”

“Oh man, you better not say your name, the sea god definitely won’t send us any seafood after hearing that!”

“Get lost!”

“Come on, stop talking nonsense, let’s cast the net quickly. How do we do it? I don’t know how!” Fatty urged excitedly.

“No rush, this is the shallow area, too close to shore, there’s not much catch here. Let’s go further out first,” Ah Guang said with experience.

His father ran a big boat, and his aunt’s family had a small boat. In previous years when his cousins were too young, his aunt would call him to help out at sea, so he was very familiar with all this.

Ye Yaodong was very familiar too, but didn’t want to show it yet. He said with a smile, “Let’s see how our luck is today. If we get a big catch, we can all happily share the money. If not, we can at least get some side dishes for drinking.”

“Just don’t let me come out here for nothing!”

“If we can’t catch anything with the net, we’ll definitely find something on the reefs. We won’t go back empty-handed. In our village, those without boats can’t reach the lonely island, and those with boats all go trawling. Who would waste time taking a boat out just to beach comb? It would be wasteful. The reefs on the lonely island must have lots of shellfish.”

Villagers with boats hoped for calm seas every day so they could go out and make money with their nets.

Ah Guang still took the boat to the area not far from the lonely island. Having caught so many horse mackerel here yesterday, he fantasized about finding another big catch here.

“Haha, let’s stay here! Everyone, let’s get to work~”

“Let me do it, let me…”

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it…”

Everyone eagerly competed to help cast the net…

As the boat sailed, the weights pulled the fishing net down to the seafloor. Fatty impatiently asked, “How long before we pull up the net?”

He was the only novice here; everyone else knew at least a little bit about fishing.

“Let’s wait an hour. I’ll circle around the area a few times to see if we can catch more.”

“Let me try driving the boat,” Ye Yaodong said enthusiastically.

Ah Guang looked at him doubtfully, “Can you handle it?”

“How can a man say he can’t? You’re underestimating me.”

Ah Zheng said with a grin, “Haha, Dongzi already has two sons, none of you have as many as him, so he must be more capable!”

“What’s so great about having two sons?”

“Better than not being able to find a wife at all!”

“Damn!”

Feeling discouraged again, Ah Guang looked gloomy.

In this era, rural areas emphasized having sons to continue the family line. Having two sons was indeed impressive…

Moreover, now you couldn’t have a second child unless your first was a daughter, and even then you had to wait five years.

Unless you hid and gave birth secretly, but you’d still be fined when registering the household.

With so many people, joking was inevitable. Everyone chatted and laughed on the boat for quite a while. When Ye Yaodong felt enough time had passed, he told Ah Guang to pull up the net.

As he expected, there was no massive catch – after all, big catches weren’t an everyday occurrence, it was all about luck.

This net only caught some mantis shrimp, swimming crabs, rock crabs, small shrimp, and miscellaneous fish, just a few jin in total. Everyone was a bit disappointed.

Ye Yaodong consoled them, “It’s normal to not get much here, we’re too close to shore. Getting enough to take home and eat is fine too.”

Fatty said somewhat reluctantly, “Should we go further out then?”

“Sure, we’ll trawl one more time, it’ll be low tide soon anyway. Let’s go further out, make a circuit and then pull up the net.”

The boat’s engine made heavy thumping sounds as several people sat rather bored on the deck.

Ah Wei said listlessly, “If only we’d brought cards to play.”

“All you think about is playing cards, aren’t you tired of it? Besides, under this big sun, how could you play?” Ye Yaodong rolled his eyes.

“Well, it’s better than just sitting here getting sunburned!”

“Better to bring a pot than cards. After we get off the boat, we could dig a fire pit and cook fresh seafood right there.”

Ah Zheng’s eyes lit up, “That makes sense, we should have brought a pot.”

It’s a pity gas cylinders weren’t common yet, otherwise they could have brought a small gas cylinder on the boat and cooked their catch right away – that would have been incredibly fresh.

“We didn’t think of it earlier, it’s too late now. Next time then.”

After another boring hour of waiting, everyone had lost their sense of direction at sea. Only when they pulled up the net again did they realize they’d circled back.

This net also didn’t yield any big catch, just the same things as before, just in slightly larger quantities.

“Still just this much! Won’t even cover the boat rental.”

“Ah, I came along shamelessly, but why don’t we have any good luck today?” Fatty said regretfully.

“This is normal! If the shallow waters had lots of catch, why would anyone go further out? Fuel isn’t free, you know?”

After catching so many horse mackerel yesterday, Ye Yaodong and the others were quite content. They weren’t expecting to encounter such luck again today, they were just trying their luck.

If they got something, great; if not, it didn’t matter. At least they could get some food and do some beach combing.

“Alright, no catch is no catch, it’s normal. The tide is starting to go out, I’ll head to shore directly.”

After mooring the boat at the reef, they jumped off one after another like dumplings into soup, each carrying their tools and buckets, while helping to tie the boat securely to the reef.

“Holy shit, the reef is covered with seafood everywhere!”

“Dongzi wasn’t wrong, there really is a lot of stuff on the lonely island’s reefs.”

Ye Yaodong smiled, “Of course! The reefs near our dock get visited every other day, how much could be left there? No one comes to this lonely island, so of course it’s full of seafood!”

As far as he could see, the rocks were covered with dense clusters of seaweed and clams, all impressively large, along with numerous young shellfish, and all sorts of sea snails attached to the reefs.

“Damn, this whole area is full of turban snails!”

“There are so many sea cucumbers here…”

“Wow, wild abalones…”