A day with the fishermen of St. Benedetto del Tronto (Italy)

They leave by night and come back by night: the fishermen have just the time to unload the fishes and they have to sail again. In the meantime the parents are occupied selling the fishes in the fish auction sale.
They make 6 catches a day, 3 or 4 hours long each: when the fishermen are selecting the fishes, the net is in the sea again, and as soon as the boxes with the selected fishes are stored in the refrigerator, is it already time to casting the net. A no-stop work which has not time-table and can not be stopped by the rain, the wind, or the cold. Fishermen have just a short time for sleeping on shifts, between a catch and the other. The only time for resting is during the lunch and the dinner, based on simple and tasty fish recipes. Nowadays, as well as once, every time fishermen have to sail, the parents are worry until they return, and always go to dock to greet the leaving and the return of the fishing-boat and its crew.
The fishermen of St. Benedetto del Tronto, on the Italian east coast, in the Marche region, carry every day the fish which most of the Italian people eat, although only few know how much hard work and risk there are behind their tasty fish meals.
Everyday in the fish auction sale of San Benedetto del Tronto, large quantities of fishes are sold and leave for the national and foreign markets. The fish auction sale works exactly on the contrary respect to a normal auction sale: that is the fish price go down until a buyer is found.
In the XVII century St. Benedetto del Tronto was a small fishermen village with only 600 inhabitants. In 1912 an engine-fishing boat was made for the first time in Italy, changing finally the way of fishing. The audacity and the courage of the fishermen who have arrived up to the African coast and to the Greenland, make nowadays St. Benedetto del Tronto to be one of the most important Italian and European fishing-port and fish industrial market.
Today San Benedetto del Tronto has 50.000 inhabitants and it is also an important bathing tourism town.

To know more:
www.sanbenedettodeltronto.it

Reportage: 84 photos on CD-Rom