– Knight Ridder Newspapers

BERUWALA, Sri Lanka – Heels driving into the sand, backs bent against the growing tug of sea catch against surf, the fishermen heaved on the net.

A few joined in a soft sing-song chant. Others just grunted.

Sri Lankans recognize the work of such fishermen is difficult. It’s customary for passers-by to help pull in the last few hard yards. For their help, they usually get a fish or two.

But when the men finally landed their catch Thursday – it was the first time since the tsunami they had cast their nets – there were no fish given last-minute helpers.

Instead, the fishermen picked through their net to toss aside clothing, a plastic doll, pop bottles and pounds more of other rubbish that the Dec. 26 wave pulled into the sea.

As for the fish – they were few and smallish. They might bring $5 at market, to be split among the net’s three owners and two dozen fishermen who helped drag it in. In normal times such labor means $3 a man, with several times that much for the owners of the net.

“We will do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next,” Wellington Fonseka said. “But it doesn’t look like the fishing will be any good.”

For a time – when bodies were still washing in from the sea where fish were feeding – there was a post-tidal-wave ban on fishing in this country. That was lifted when the country’s doctors said any danger had passed. Yet fishermen recognize that the Sri Lankan appetite might stay with chicken a while longer.

They probably won’t have much to sell anyway.

The small harbors such as the one at Beruwala are filled with boats sunken in shallow waters. That limits the range where the nets can be cast without running into disastrous snags. Even in that smaller surf, the nets seem destined to harvest more garbage than fish.

“It’s like the ground is in the ocean and the ocean has washed up on the beach,” said Saranga Fernando, another of the net’s owners. “We have so much dirt in our net and not enough fish.”

The fishermen want the government to clean their fishing grounds. Those who used fiberglass trawlers want the government to buy them new boats.

“I don’t know any other way we will be able to fish again,” said Godamadanage Chandana as he salvaged wooden planks for his uncle’s beached boat in Kahawa. “A fisherman never has enough money to start over. I don’t think this is a good place to be a fisherman now.”

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(c) 2005, The Kansas City Star.

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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

AP-NY-01-13-05 2138EST

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