Christmas is two weeks away, but at both the Berinda Cox Fish Market in Oistins and the Bridgetown Fisheries Complex, the usual bustle is noticeably absent.
Instead of the lively crowds and steady business typical of the season, vendors are facing slow sales, scarce catches, and rising concern. Many say this is shaping up to be one of the most difficult holiday periods the local fishing industry has seen in years.
Across the markets, prices remain fairly consistent: marlin around $11 per pound, swordfish at $13, barracuda at $14, and snapper at $15.
At Oistins on Tuesday, longtime vendor Antonio Millington noted that the season has been unusually quiet.
“The fish ain’t coming in yet,” he said, arranging the limited stock he had available. “Mostly getting like barracuda… you get some red snappers in between, but not a lot of dolphin, no, nothing ain’t coming as yet.”
Millington said it appeared as though customers had shifted their Christmas preferences as well, choosing ham rather than fish this year.
For those still looking to buy fish, he said choices were slim.
“We be getting like marlin, swordfish, tuna, them kind of fish that ain’t got in the bone,” he pointed out.
But behind the slow sales, vendors say the deeper issue is what’s happening out at sea.
Victor Drayton, who fished before turning to vending just over three years ago, said this December is unlike anything he has experienced.
“We have a very great fall in our catch,” he said with concern. “Especially in the main fish, flying fish, the size is small; the dolphin gets smaller.”
According to him, the decline is unprecedented. “Right now this is December, and we only have maybe about two to three thousand flying fish catch and this does not happen. This is a record that’s going down for Barbados.”
Drayton shook his head at the idea that visitors might arrive only to be told that the island’s signature fish is unavailable.
“Imagine Barbados and you cannot… you don’t have no flying fish to give a person that came from Italy or United States or Canada or England. We supposed to be the land of flying fish,” he contended.
Drayton highlighted the lingering effects of recent storms, including Hurricane Beryl.
“People saying Beryl only pulled the sheet off of how badly the fishing industry is suffering.”
“Even turpits… fellas don’t see them in the ocean. Sometimes you’d have to run from one area to the next. With lower supply, prices inevitably rise. They get scarce and people get to like them… so the price rise,” Drayton explained.
At the Bridgetown market, the situation is much the same. Ryon Codrington, who has been vending for 20 years, described a season where costs keep climbing but customers remain scarce.
“Sales not good… because the price is going up,” he said. “Popular species like marlin, swordfish, dolphin, snapper and tuna, are coming in slower than usual.”
Even tourist sales are limited. “Not the ones off the cruise ship because they can’t carry the fish,” he explained, though hotel guests continue to buy small amounts.
Codrington said he tries to steer customers toward lesser-known species such as jacks, with turpits, once overlooked, also gaining interest simply because the usual favourites were scarce.
Across the market, Alison Cyril, 53, who has spent half her life selling fish, said the shortage of dolphin and flying fish is the clearest sign of how unusual this Christmas has become.
“Fish, you ain’t get a dolphin,” she said. “It is the most popular fish that will sell… you’re getting like marlin and tuna and billfish… red snappers still… enough jacks. But the more selling fish you’re not getting — flying fish and dolphin.”
With few alternatives, Cyril said customers have little choice but to accept what the ocean provides. “Ain’t a fish to recommend… they gonna get marlin, billfish, tuna, red snappers or jacks.”
laurynescamilla@barbadostoday.bb
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