Travels thru Life: 10/2 -- Shell Fishing and a Winery

We headed to Cambados this morning to meet a woman, Lucia, who has worked at shell fishing for the last 21 years. She showed us the traditional shell fishing boat used by men and the LONG-handled rake used to dig up the clams and talked about shell fishing on foot at low tide. We donned tall rubber boots and headed out to the beach to try our luck. It is back-breaking work -- bending down to dig in the rake and crouching to run your hands through the stirred up water to scoop up and assess shells. There is a size limit to consider and different prices for different varieties. The number of days fishing is allowed is controlled as well as the areas to be fished to ensure that the industry is sustainable. This is largely women's work. There are 208 licensed shellfishers in town, of whom 201 are women. Although a kilo of some varieties can bring 45 Euros, others were only 9 Euros per kilo. Average pay is about 1000 Euros per month.

Lucia at the waterfront

Two shell fishing boats -- traditional on left, modern on right

Scoop for collecting clams. Connected to a combination of
as many 6 foot poles are needed to reach the bottom.

Children's band parade through the streets while we talk.

Some homes are weatherized with shells cemented
to exposed walls.

Remains of one of 4 towers used to alert locals to invaders.

Lynn with stylish clam fishing boots.

Jim looking dapper in boots with clam rake
to the right and collection basket on the left.

We also saw a half dozen women further out than we were, barefoot, and picking up something -- young eels that are sold to fishermen for bait. An interesting looking tube-shaped clam was caught by adding salt to the water, which made them move to avoid it and then they were scooped up by hand from below as they made their position known. Our handsome bus driver, Helder (pronounced without the H) said his dad in Portugal also fished for these and they would insert a slender stick into the long clam when it was driven to move by the salt, the clam would clamp onto the stick and be pulled from the water. However, that technique was not employed in this part of Spain.

Barefoot lady searching for bait eels.

Don and Helder ready to fish.

Jim and Lucia digging for clams

Small crab we dug up

Closeup of the bait eels

Bucket of bait eels.

Helder holding the clam his dad hunts.

A shell wall that needs work.

Back in the bus, we headed to a nearby palace and winery. The owners now only use a few rooms for themselves and we were shown through the public rooms, which are also used for the owners' family reunions. We migrated out to the gardens, which are divided into 3 sections. One hectare immediately surrounds the palace and has grape vines on a high trellis, like a living pergola roof. The vines were planted a hundred years ago and some of the branches were amazing thick. A road divided the second 2 hectares from the main house and a lovely stone bridge provided a safe crossing. The second section had more grapes as well as camelias, several varieties of fruit trees, and an enormous magnolia tree that was set for us to have lunch under. The last hectare and a half was woods, that looked very natural and minimally tended.

Pazo de Fefinans, home of the Gil Armada Winery

Door into the public rooms

Drawing room with original wallpaper

Dining Room

View to the grapes and gardens from the
dining room

Underneath the canopy of grape vines, which
are up to 100 years old.

Walkway over the road

Entry to the woods


Oldest tree on property -- 500 year old chestnut tree

Back at the magnolia tree, we sampled the albarino grape that made the wine, then tasted the wine which was quite good (we bought one). Lunch was 4 courses -- bread, meats, cheeses, cherry tomatoes, and sardines with accompaniments, followed by a salad with tuna slices, then clams. Then came dessert -- some sort of cake to celebrate our anniversary today as well as a chocolate mousse cake.

After lunch, they brought out a cake for our
anniversary.

We walked around the village for a bit and discovered a grownup play area with a wide variety of weather-impervious exercise equipment and tried several of them. Then it was time for our ride back to Santiago to prepare for our departure to Portugal tomorrow.