The Mystery of the Fish of Atlantis

“Here it is, on the right!”, Gaetano’s shout brings me back to the coast of San Vito. We are 16 miles from land, the sun is high, two hundred meters in front of the bow the first cane of the series is swinging peacefully, the lines lowered to the stern with the red and blue plastic octopuses escort Oscar ’s wake.

We pass by the palm branches held afloat by empty bottles of detergent and distilled water, the plastic thread that holds the trap anchored is lost in the deep blue, twelve hundred meters away, the boat makes a tight turn around the reed , at the stern Gaetano and Enzo with the lines in their hands shake their heads, nothing, they haven't even felt a touch, Rosolino curses and directs the bow towards the other float, eight hundred meters further north.

Oscar has just started to circle the palm trees when Gaetano shouts “Pigghiai!”, the 18-arm long line comes to life, at the end a flash of silver crosses the sea, Enzo immediately pulls in his line and in the meantime Gaetano has moved almost to the bow of the boat pulling the fish towards him which is now struggling not even ten meters from Oscar . Rosolino knows that the entire school is unaware following their captured companion, and orders the purse seine to be lowered ready at the stern, the net flies away quickly dragged by the boat which now at full speed runs along a circumference whose radius is made up of the line with the fish attached, until it picks up from the bow the buoy that signals the start of the net. On the sea as calm as oil the dark red floats draw a perfect circle two hundred meters long, below you can see the walls that descend for about twenty meters, there in the middle there should be the school.

The purse seine is fixed to the bow, and at the stern they begin to haul in the net with the hydraulic winch that does the work of three men, no point in looking at the sea, if there are fish they will only be seen at the last moment; the net rises slowly and is placed on the deck so that it can be lowered again without a hitch; now the circle is very tight, even the bow end is brought to the stern, the large nylon rope that encircles the net from below is passed to the winch and pulled on board, the lower part of the purse seine closes, the fish have no escape. Rosolino looks overboard, two or three flashes in mid-water reassure him, “Ccà sunno …”. The sack is grabbed by hands cracked by the salt and the cold, an effort and off they go, the fish are on board, “There must be six boxes” says the captain. While Oscar runs towards the other cannizzo, Gaetano places the capons in the wooden crates, eight at a time, weighing eight to nine kilos, then puts everything in an old ice cream refrigerator half full of ice.

The fish are all the same, they weigh from 900 grams to one kilo and two hundred, there are no smaller ones, there are no larger ones. Every now and then you catch a huge one, even twenty kilos, but it's just a coincidence. They arrived in droves in the last days of August, when they weighed a couple of hundred grams each, even then all the same, then little by little they grew and the man prepared the shadow traps for them; at the beginning of December they will no longer chase the plastic octopuses, they now weigh almost two kilos, but they will disappear within a week. The following year they will reappear at the rendezvous with the palm trees kept afloat by the plastic bottles, and they will weigh two hundred grams each. Where have the adults gone? Maybe they really do dance in the sea for just one summer ...

One trawler after another, some full of fish, some deserted, a couple of empty hauls (“Coppola!” Rosolino then shouts) because the caponi had time to escape before the purse seine enclosed them, on board there are just twenty-eight boxes of fish, too few because these are mass fish, to make money you have to catch a lot of them.

The sirocco arrives when Oscar is 22 miles from land, better to go back. The high and short waves hit the bow and make navigation difficult, but the boat is solid and the engine a clock, in the stern in the shelter of the cabin Gaetano and Enzo catch up on some of the sleep lost during the night, the captain on the radio speaks with the other fishing boats that are returning to port, then calls his wife and reassures her “I’ll be back on land in three hours” …

When Oscar docks it is almost dark, on the dock other fishermen are railing against the refrigerated truck waiting for the caponi fleet : the offer is thirty-three thousand lire per box, four thousand lire per kilo. “Scandals, we’ll give them away instead!” shout the sailors waving bunches of gold and silver fish in their hands.

The sun sets behind the Piana di San Vito, the smile of the Fisherman of Thera is just a mirage while the tired, salt-encrusted men threaten to throw all the day's fish back into the sea.