PESCATOURISM DOMENICO & SALVATORE: SEA-RELATED EXPERIENCES IN FAVIGNANA ISLAND – ITALY
With a great deal of enthusiasm and curiosity towards the surrounding environment, let’s immerse ourselves in the activities of local fishermen, discover sea life and learn to enjoy the marine and coastal heritage.
Fishing tourism offers and promotes knowledge of the biological, landscape and socio-cultural heritage related to the professional fishing, enriching the range of the local offer of ecological and experiential tourism – unexplored field for many tourists.
Tourism changes because needs change – more and more tourists desire to return home with experiences and not just souvenirs: this is what is known as experiential tourism, thanks to which tourists ‘totally immerse themselves’ in the place they are visiting, become travellers who are more aware of their surroundings and feel, at least temporarily, a participant in the activities associated with their holiday destination. After all, there is no more lasting souvenir than returning home having understood and learned something new.
Domenico&Salvatore abord of the Marcella fishing vessel
My experience of fishing tourism on the island of Favignana began through a search on the internet and specifically on Facebook I was intrigued by Domenico&Salvatore‘s page, and after a brief phone call I agreed to go on board with my son to experience together a day of professional fishing.
Personally, I love fishing and I spent my childhood fishing with a variety of gear and on board professional fishing boats – transferring these emotions to the new generation is fundamental, and transferring the values and sacrifices necessary to catch fish, respect for the sea and the people of the sea.
Domenico is an “old sea wolf”, he has been fishing around the Favignana since the age of 8 – I discovered a little while ago that Salvatore is his son and after his diploma from the nautical school, he continued to fishing with his father and be ship’s cook during tourist trips.
The fishing day experience from the port to the other side of the island
We leave quite early, the meeting point is at 9am at the harbour where the small fish market takes place, in Favignana.
After about 1 hour of navigation in the fantastic scenario of the Marine Protected Area of Egadi Island, once off coast of the lighthouse, it was time to pull up the nets which were lowered into the sea the day before.
Domenico explained that in agreement with the other fishermen in the marine protected area, he respect the following principles:
– use of a cotton multifilament net and not nylon monofilament, to avoid relevant impacts on fishing and the risk of ghost fishing;
– use of nets with a larger mesh size than allowed by the regulations to give smaller fish a chance to escape;
– not to lower the net in the same fishing zone on consecutive days, in order not to over-exploit the fishing area;
– several daily rules of respect for the sea and the preservation of the seabed, waste management, releasing undersized fish to allow them to reproduce, and always valorizing what the catch of the day.
With the use of a winch, we pulled 1 km of trammel net with the thrill of seeing bright red scorpionfish, coloured peacock, bream, and other fish come aboard – we caught almost 10 kg of high value fish.
All the crew on board worked together to remove the fish from the net and Salvatore gutted and prepared the fish for the grill, the incredible catch of the day.
Now add to all of this the pleasure of a day at sea: a jump in the clear and crystalline water of the island, an amazing tasting of some local bread with red tuna in oil, tomatoes, olives, wite wine and the catch of the day cooked by Salvatore as tradition requires.
After lunch and enjoying the wonderfully coloured bays and crystal-clear waters, it’s time to go home, but first it’s time to lower the nets again – the fishing must go o
Traditions, skills, values, colours, fragrances and flavours… discover the sea and you will fall in love.
Going out to the sea with the fishermen, listening to their stories, watching them while they haul in their nets and collect the catch: all this is pescatourism – a day spent onboard a fishing boat and becoming a skilled fisherman.
It’s a different and unusual experience, suited to whoever wants to live sea as only its connoisseurs do – the fishermen – pretending for a day to be someone who has always lived and worked there and is part of the wider context of marine ecotourism and involves the embarkation of tourists to be part of the crew members on fishing vessels.
PESCATOURISM DOMENICO & SALVATORE: SEA-RELATED EXPERIENCES IN FAVIGNANA ISLAND – ITALY
