Chilly weather, sea water inertia and ebb tide, short days, besides fish and shrimp scarcity inside territorial waters make the fishermen toil nocturnally off the coast to minimum beyond 12 nautical miles with insufficient protections against the winter weather.
The tide surge begins to vanish from October 17 every year with exodus of fish and shrimp from coastal belt to minimum 12 nautical miles. This turns the seafarers' routine voyages into abnormal ones of night-time. Although Karachi is a city of mild weather whole year, winters sometimes with northerly winds from Siberia through Quetta create difficulties for fishermen on the seas.
Almost all seafarers lack proper protections, which include warm clothes and dresses against the weather in winters, and do not change the mode of their jobs from the ones in summers. Detailing how the seafarers have to labour to catch fish and shrimp, a veteran fisherman, Gulu Mian, said that they turn their operations from days to nights in winters, for catch is available far away from the coast which could be exploited properly in longer nights.
Days in winters shrink significantly and sunlight becomes dim which do not help the fishermen stay afloat for maximum catch. Instead, they opt for night-time catch and remain for minimum four days on the sea, as a short trip. This is unlike the summers, when they leave the coast at dawn and return just before sunset, he said.
The long tripper boats unmoor for about 25 days to voyage far on the seas adjacent to Balochistan-Iran waters because fish and shrimp there are larger in sizes than the ones found in Karachi waters, only because of strict restrictions on undersized catch there, Gulu said.
"Shrimps near Gwadar, Pasni and other coastal areas of Balochistan are in good larger sizes because of Balochistan government's strict rules banning their undersized catch, whereas such rules lack here in Sindh's coastal areas".
With the start of northerly winds, the prices of seafood would go up on the local market, while their catch would start reducing for a few months, he said, adding that the small hella boats are always expected to catch about Rs 300000 worth of seafood in three days' operations in winters. Gulu said that the Arabian Sea remains calm for about four months in winters, while it dangerously rolls in summers with high tide and big waves, smashing the coast.
Regretting the rising level of pollution at the sea-linked areas, he advised the people not buy and consume seafood caught near the coastal area because the industrial chemicals have poisoned it and will create health problems for them. Mangroves and mud crabs of the coastal area are in deep peril from pollution, he added.