I took this pic on my recent visit to Cochin. The Chinese Fishing nets are found in the beaches at Fort Kochi and date back to the 15th century. Fort Kochi is a small little sea side town near fort Cochin. The nets are suspended into the sea upto 15 feet deep and are used to catch fish in the deep sea. The nets are counter weighed by huge boulders weighing more than 1000s of kilograms. They are still manually operated. Normally one net requires 6 fishermen to pull through. The people who work on these nets don’t own them. The net owners operate on a 70 to 30% profit ratio with the fishermen. A net like this costs about 10 lac rupees. They let me pull the nets for some catch but all that came up was some crab and some little fish.

It is a busy occupation for rest of the year but in the Monsoon most of the fish move to the deep sea to breed so the fishermen survive mainly through tourism. The fishermen sell some of the catch at the beach itself. I noticed mostly little prawns and some very little fish and some crabs. Tourists buy the fish from these fishermen and take it to the local hotels where they clean and cook it for you.

The sunsets and sunrise create a beautiful saffron hue around the nets. I went in the monsoon so was not so lucky to get the hues. It was more grey and dark. But visiting the nets was an experience by itself.