It’s an ice-cold morning in Burano as I slap arms across my chest to keep warm, pull-start the outboard, and veer out of the canal. The hour is bright and sunny, with seasonal low tides. Rows of tidy houses vanish behind me as I pass the gas station and wave at Emiliano helping the fishermen. I head north.
With my untouched coffee in one hand, I admire a bank of swans taking flight and the tiny heads of grebes bobbing out of sight as I pass. The fisherman had called while I was just about to have breakfast; he’d wanted to get an early start. “Sei pronta?” He asked if I was ready, in a voice that made it seem like he was half-asleep.
“Quasi,” I lied, telling him "almost" as I transferred my coffee into a Thermos and pulled gum boots over three pairs of hand-knit woolen socks.
Helping the fisherman catch sand smelt in January is high on my list of favorites; the icy green waters are still and transparent this time of year, and there are no leisure boats anywhere. It’s the most poetic season of fishing, when a rare sense of real life in one of the world’s most visited cities is ours to savor. I moor the boat and walk across Isola Santa Cristina, calling to the fisherman like a sounding line: “o! pescaor!”
“Ehi,” he calls back. He’s working by the northeastern door of the traditional fishing valleys. A serajante, he is of the few remaining net fishermen of Venice and is skilled at getting fish when others are pulling up naught.
We stand motionless and observe the water. A cloud of silvery smelt wiggles at the surface. I pick up one of two poles, and we silently drag a net across the bottom of the valley, careful to scrape the sides so none can get through, dumping them on the table for sorting. My hands have reached that point of intense pain before the mercy of numbness sets in, and I remember the old adage of my childhood: the rich man has his ice in the summer, and the poor man gets his in the winter. I slap arms across my chest and pick up a small blue bucket with a portion of fish for our own fry tonight. The rest will go to market or get served up at Trattoria al Gatto Nero on the island of Burano.
We load the boat, and the fisherman speeds on while I flop down on cold grass and take in the sweet smell of late winter, wishing it would last.
