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When the tide recedes
The hill in Adoki Impedi village
The hill in Adoki Impedi village.
From a hill in Adoki Impendi village, Biak Island, a woman gazes at the ebbing sea surface of the beach underneath. With her grip on a spear, she and other villagers wait for the best time to reap trapped fish on the revealed seabed.
Located in the southern part of the island, the coastal hamlet experiences receding tides during the dry season from March to August, where four-meter-deep water remains only 10-centimeters high. Compassion in the heat is the day-time fish catching fiesta, locally known as Snap Mor, which can last up to three hours.
On one of those days, people of all ages and sexes take their spears, daggers and nets to the beach. No great luck is needed to make a good catch. Fish are abundant in the shallow waters, stretching 300 meters from the coastline.
Most of the catches are groupers, rabbitfish, trevallies, mangrove snappers and other coral fish. Some even collect sea urchins. 'I take the urchins because nobody wants them,' said 63-year-old Sofia, 'the flesh tastes really good.'
By the end of Snap Mor, residents grill their catch together.
The fish-catching attraction was a tourism activity offered at the Munara Wampasi II festival last month.
' Photos and text by Arief Suhardiman
