So, a trip to Tombo is on the cards to source the fish for our four Christmas parties; along the beautiful Peninsula Highway - part highway, part dirt track - to the main artisan fishing community in Sierra Leone. We took our time to talk with some of the fishermen in from their long day at sea and sorely suffering from overfishing by international trawlers, often operating without licences, diminshing returns for this traditional fishing community.
As well as the fishermen, we made some friends with market women who help us find plentiful ocean bounty for our parties - some 12 dozen small fish and 4 dozen large (including some fine red snapper and beautiful blue mackeral) and a couple of huge ones! We pay 9,000 Leones per dozen for small fish and 100,000-170,000 per dozen for the large - totalling around £70 / €77 / $ 90, not bad for some 70kg of fish!
The ladies help us lay and ice the fish for the journey back.
And with plenty of cheese balls, candy and lashings of fizzy pop it looks like we can get our four parties started!
