Picking mussels

June 24, 2014

The day began like this ..

… and then it turned cloudy and miz, not enough however to stop me nipping down to the beach for my ‘daily-dip’! Later that morning hubby and I sat on the rocks watching the sea, birds, surfers, and mussel pickers

One such couple of mussel pickers is a local pensioner and his wife who come down at low tide – no matter the weather it seems – to collect their quota of mussels. They make sure they pick the correct, legal size and collect far less than the quota per person (apparently in South Africa the quota is 30 per person per permit). She says they come down to the rocks at full moon (and new moon I think she said) when low tide is at its lowest. She also said they freeze well – a wonderful stand-by when family come to visit

He was interesting to chat to. While she was busy cleaning them, he was telling us how the sea has changed over the years. He used to come, as a child, on annual holidays and he and his wife then retired here a several years ago. The abundance of fish, lobsters and crayfish has diminished drastically. Even the daily sightings of large pods of dolphin often don’t come so close to shore as they used to ..