Keep COVID out! - Fisherfolk want Pedro Cays coronavirus-free
Published:Saturday | May 2, 2020 | 12:20 AMPaul Clarke/Gleaner Writer
A careful review of Ministry of Health data indicates that there is no case of COVID-19 on Pedro Cays, the popular fishing hamlet, off Jamaica’s south coast and the fisherfolk based at the Old Harbour Fishing Village in St Catherine want to keep it that way.
“Because of how things are on the Cays, any single positive case of the virus will decimate the livelihood that so many people have built over the years and we cannot afford for that to happen,” said boat captain Paul ‘Pim Pim’ Blackhood. He heaped praises on the Coast Guard for maintaining vigilance to keep travel to the Cays in check during the period of lockdown which ended yesterday.
Pedro Cays is located some 161 kilometres from Kingston (approximately 96 nautical miles) from the fishing village and is home to nearly 800 people.
Blackhood, who has more than two decades experience at sea, travelling between the waters of the Old Harbour Fishing Village, Rocky Point Fishing Village in Clarendon and the Pedro Cays, said that his livelihood has been interrupted by the coronavirus.
“It has affected me really badly. The little savings I managed to put together, I have to be spending now. I have a family, my little son and my common-law wife and they look to me for financial support.
“So from this COVID-19 thing, every minute I have to be drawing down on the little savings to buy food and some other things,” he said while admitting to being relieved at the lifting of the lockdown in St Catherine.
St Catherine residents were initially placed under lockdown on April 14 and restrictions were extended twice, owing to the sharp spike in COVID-19 cases in that parish stemming from an outbreak at the Alorica call centre in Portmore.
Income lost
On a good day, Blackhood said he makes about $15,000 just to captain a boat to the Cays and that his usual “hussle” brings in an additional $50,000 or sometimes $60,000.
All that income, he said, is gone for the time being.
David Bloomfield has been fishing since he was 10 years old. He said barring one other occasion, he has not witnessed things this bad.
Bloomfield never ventures near Pedro Cay to fish, noting that he was among a group of “nearshore” fisherfolk who have also been hit hard by the restrictions that come with COVID-19 as well as the unrelenting high cost for petrol for his boat.
He said that each day for the past week it was announced that gas prices have tanked globally, because of the COVID-19 impact. However, he pointed out that it was a different reality in Jamaica with high petrol prices.
“How come gas and LNG are to get cheaper, according to them, but we still paying an arm and leg for it. I pay about $6,000 per day and because the cost is high sometimes, we get less gas in our tank but have to fork out more money,” Bloomfield said.