The night is quiet and gentle, but the sea at night looks majestic and surging. However, in the depths of the darkness, countless secrets are also hidden.
The silvery-white waves on both sides behind the fishing boat became clearly visible under the moonlight. The waves spread out layer by layer, sparkling and forming a white luster.
After their boat sailed some distance away from the fishing village, one or two spots of light would appear on the sea from time to time. They were boats that were also out at sea to fish, large and small, some as bright as the sun, some as faint as fireflies. They shuttled through the night, moving forward silently.
Ye Yaodong looked ahead intently to determine the direction of the boat, while his father was baiting the longline fishing line.
That’s right, the sticky nets have been taken back and they plan to continue longline fishing and trawling for a month or two, then focus on catching squid.
After he drove the boat to the "responsibility field" that was previously used for longline fishing, he also helped to hang the bait, and then they cooperated with each other, one driving the boat and the other casting the fishing line.
Still 1,000 hooks and ten bamboo baskets.
After placing them, he stacked the baskets one by one to reduce the stacking space.
By the way, they have a lot of bamboo baskets at home, because they are so useful. It takes ten baskets just to organize the longline fishing line, not to mention the ones used to carry fish on the boat.
His father usually had nothing to do, so he would sit at the door and work all the time. All the baskets in their house were woven by his father when he had nothing to do.
In the past, we would hand over the weaving to the production team, and occasionally take them to the market to sell, but now they are all used by our family.
When Ye's father saw that he had let out the fishing line, he sped up the boat and prepared to go to the place where he had put the shrimp cages yesterday to collect them.
In fact, they could have waited to collect them on their way back, but they were excited about catching two lobsters yesterday, so they thought of coming early in the morning to collect them and see if there were any more.
Moreover, Ye Yaodong was thinking of collecting the shrimp cages early in the morning and moving them to a better place later.
At this time, the sky was already a little hazy.
From a distance, they also saw the buoy floating on the sea. Father Ye slowly slowed down and moved closer.
Ye Yaodong had a hook in his hand, and when the fishing boat approached the float, he hooked the float with the hook to make it easier to reach it.
However, his luck was not very good today. All the shrimp cages were collected without a single small blue dragon and not many sword shrimps. However, there were quite a few red shrimps, estimated to be more than 20 kilograms.
However, these red shrimps are small in size and not very valuable, so they can only be used as bait or peeled and dried in the sun.
Father Ye was also a little disappointed, "It looks like there's nothing here today."
"If there's none, then there's none. We should be able to sort out five pounds of sword prawns, and take the red prawns back to peel and dry the shrimp meat. These shrimp meat will definitely sell well."
Father Ye nodded. Shrimp tastes good no matter how it is cooked. Dried mustard greens are always selling well, so there is no reason why shrimp would not sell well.
However, he was puzzled when he saw that he had piled the cages in the corner and did not put any more there.
"You're not going to put out the shrimp cages? Put them down together."
"I'm going to move the shrimp cage to another place. You can drive the boat to the reef. Be careful not to hit the reef."
Father Ye's eyes lit up when he heard this. "Yes, we can take it to the reef and see if we can put more lobsters and sea cucumbers there. We were able to catch lobsters a few days ago, so there must be more around the reef."
"That's what I thought. There were quite a lot of shrimps underwater last year, but they were hard to catch because they were in the water for a short time. Now the weather isn't hot yet, so it's hard to get in the water. I can just use a shrimp cage to release them. If they get stuck and I can't pull them out, forget it. I won't spend any money anyway, so I don't feel bad."
"That's fine. If these are used up, we still have a few rows of traps at home. We can use them when the weather gets hotter." Father Ye said as he steered the boat towards the reef.
It looks like it will be a cloudy day today. The sky is already bright, but there is not a single red glow in the sky, and it still feels a bit foggy in the distance.
Father Ye kept gazing into the distance, and he always felt that there was a ship docked on the island, but it was a bit foggy and he couldn't see clearly.
"Dongzi, come and see if there is any boat on that island?"
Ye Yaodong was originally resting against the cabin. When he heard his father shouting, he quickly stood up and walked over in confusion.
"What's the matter? The wind is so strong that I couldn't hear what you just said."
Father Ye pointed towards the Oarfish Island and said, "There seems to be a ship over there."
It was just dawn that day and the fishing boats were not operating at sea, but were directly docked on the isolated island, which was a bit confusing.
"It seems like there really is a ship. I wonder why the ship is docked on the island? Why don't we move it to another location?"
"Could it be from our village? Send women to the isolated island and let them go down to dig for shells?"
"Ah?" Father Ye thought it was possible. "Then forget about it. Let's just put our own cages there?"
"Just put your own cages there. There's nothing in them when they're just put down, so we don't have to worry about them being stolen. We can just work nearby later."
"Well, don't worry about it for now."
On this nearby island, Ye Yaodong picked up an oarfish two years ago, buried a corpse last year, and also picked up two gold nuggets.
It's not that he didn't think about going to the isolated island again to see if he could find anything. It's just that the island looks small from a distance, but it's quite big when you walk around it. There are even pheasants and rabbits on it. He later ran around the island and only picked up a bunch of seabird eggs. He didn't find anything else, so he gave up.
Thinking about the trend he has started recently, many women in the village are eager to go out to sea and dig for sea shells.
Although he only accepts those from his brothers and neighbors, they have many relatives. They can secretly bring the ones dried in their relatives' homes to their own home and then sell them to him together.
Ye Yaodong has weighed it three times and seen the quantity increasing each time. He knows the truth, but it doesn’t matter. This is a win-win situation. If more comes, he can sell more.
With this in mind, the father and son didn't care about it. They put their own shrimp cages there and just looked over there from time to time.
However, after they released all the shrimp cages, the fishing boats on the island remained motionless.
"Drag out the big fishing net in the cabin. Don't worry about it. Let's just do our own thing." said Ye's father.
"Um."
The father and son cooperated with each other and continued to cast the net.
Although they had set out many and varied nets, it would be a waste of time for them to go back and collect the nets tomorrow, so they would rather drag two more nets at sea.
However, the father and son found that after they had dragged the two nets back to the surrounding area, the fishing boat was still docked at Oarfish Island, swaying with the waves, and had not left.
Father Ye frowned and said, "Dongzi, it looks like that boat is not from our village. If they sent women to fish in the sea, they would return to the sea to work right after they were sent down. Why would they waste a whole day just staying there?"
"Maybe they are just sailing to fish in the sea? It's not like we haven't done this before."
"Then when we brought your mother and your in-laws here, they also docked every once in a while, and they were hauling the nets when they should, and they didn't stay there waiting all day. Maybe there was a problem with the fishing boat."
"If it was a call for help due to a malfunction, the other party on the ship must have seen our ship nearby. Why didn't they wave the flag to ask for help when they saw it?"
He felt that his father was overthinking it. Didn’t he also take Ah Qing out to fish in the sea once during the fifteenth day of the lunar month
However, we didn't run that far. We just chose a small island nearby along the coast.
Father Ye thought about it and felt that it made sense. "Then let's collect the longline fishing and go back. The shrimp cage was just put down not long ago. Let's collect it tomorrow."
"OK."
But in the early morning of the next day, when they finished casting the longline and came to collect the shrimp cages, they found a boat approaching the Oarfish Island and it soon stopped.
The father and son paid attention to it and thought that the boat that went to the island yesterday had not finished fishing and continued today. They were attracted by the sea cucumbers and small green dragonfish in the shrimp cages, so they didn't take it seriously and just focused on collecting the shrimp cages.
"It still has to be placed in this area. There is another sea cucumber in this cage."
Ye Yaodong untied the net in his hand and poured the contents into the bamboo basket. When the fat black sea cucumber fell into the basket, it bounced twice.
Father Ye smiled and took out the sea cucumber first and threw it into the bucket. "I collected two rows, caught four sea cucumbers and three lobsters. It's pretty good."
“This location is a Feng Shui treasure land.”
"There are still a few rows that are almost finished. After that, we will continue trawling. There are not many catches these two days. I don't know if they have all migrated back. It's a good time to put a few sea cucumbers and lobsters in the shrimp cage to supplement them."
"Um."
Ye Yaodong tied up the fish collecting bag again, then threw the shrimp cages aside and handed them to his father to sort out and put them down together later. He now had to collect the remaining shrimp cages.
However, he pulled the buoy several times but failed to move the shrimp cage.
"It's over. We lost a row on the first day of putting it down. Dad is stuck."
"its stuck?"
"Well, there are reefs underneath. Maybe the position where it was placed was not flat, or it got caught by the waves underground and couldn't be pulled up."
"Let me try." Not giving up, Father Ye took the rope in his hand and tried it, but he still couldn't pull it up.
"Forget it, stop pulling, don't break the line. Tie the buoy and continue throwing it here. If you're lucky and it's not washed away by the waves, wait until it's warmer and see if you can retrieve it by going into the water."
"Well, I'll try the next two."
Unexpectedly, when Ye's father tried to pull one, he couldn't pull it out because it was stuck.
"No again?"
"It doesn't work again. It's stuck again." Ye's father frowned. He had just distributed them yesterday, and today he lost two at once. Isn't this loss too big
Ye Yaodong was also speechless. He was so unlucky that two rows were stuck after just one day. It was a huge loss. Fortunately, it was a no-cost business.
"There's still one row left. I'll try. If I can get it up, I'll change its position and move it to the side, so it won't get too close to the reef and get stuck."
As he spoke, he moved the boat forward a little further. The last buoy was washed away by the waves.
Fortunately, this one was not stuck and was successfully pulled up, so that three rows could be saved. In addition, two sea cucumbers and two small green dragons were poured out from the ten shrimp cages in this row.
"It's a little consolation."
"You go and drive the boat, but keep it to the side, not too close to the reef. I'll take care of it."
"OK."
Ye Yaodong did as he was told and started the boat, but as he sailed forward, he looked around and noticed the boat on the island.
As soon as his father had released the remaining shrimp cages, he said, "Dad, why don't we get closer and see which village the boat is from?"
"Well, let's go take a look out of curiosity. Anyway, if the signs are not right, we can run away first."
It's fine to stop at an isolated island for a day or two, but if the boat stays in this area every day, how can he place branches to catch squid next month? There will be another fight.
And how can we go into the water when it’s so hot
Since it was docked there on purpose, it wouldn't be a big deal for them to sail over to see which village the boat was from. If anything happened, the ship docked there would definitely not be as fast as theirs.
I thought so in my heart, but I didn't expect it to come true.
When they drove the boat over, before they got close, they immediately turned around and left after a short distance.