The night air was calm, cool and not too humid as I ventured out to Caleta Portales (Portales Dock) in the port city of Valparaiso, Chile. My watch read 6:30 a.m. as I waited for a bus to take me to the docks in hope of catching the fishermen unloading their catch of the day in sweet golden morning light. I asked the bus driver if he could alert me when I we arrived at the dock, since I’d never been there before, and sure enough, the bus stopped and he bellowed “Caleta Portales!” I stepped off the bus and saw a large concrete overhanging structure near the water and beside it, a beach with a few street dogs playing in the glare of orange sodium vapor lamps. I walked down to the beach and noticed a fleet of dozens of fishing boats, all sitting on their trailers and parked in a somewhat random yet organized way. I wandered through the lifeless forms and found a few dock workers and fishermen hauling boats around. Stepping closer to a man doing nothing, I asked him if any fishermen would be leaving or coming back within the next few hours. A nod from his head and a few words suggested that some boats were being prepared to leave, although I saw no activity indicating haste. So I climbed the stairs leading to the top of the overhanging cement structure and waited for the sun to reveal itself. At 7 a.m., there was enough light to know there would be no glorious dawn; the sky wore a thick layer of dense cottony clouds stretching all the way to the horizon where the sun would be rising. With that cloud cover, there would be no rosy sunrise followed by a warm golden hour of light that raises the heart rate of any photographer. Instead, I would be treated to saturated colors due to the flat, even lighting of the white skies. Twasn’t a complete loss!
The men began to schlep their trailers towards the various cranes at the end of the long dock. I wandered out with them and they regarded me with sideways glances and ignored my attempts at greeting them with “Buen dia.” Rather, they focused on working the small crane and dropping their boats into the cold waters of the Pacific, hoping to find the schools of big mackerel that had been found earlier in the week. A handful of boats launched and one last lone fisherman called out to me as I looked out upon the bay, attempting to figure out where the boats were headed to. “Johnny,” he exclaimed, “Come help me!” Quickly, I stashed the camera inside my hip bag and looked to him for direction, while he connected the hook to the system of anchors on his boat. We traded names and we pushed the boat out over the water. He shoved the crane controls in my hand and said, “Push this button to lower the boat. After I’m down, pull it up a bit.” So I sent the man down with his boat and he prepped his motor to catch up with the rest of his colleagues out into the open sea. “Wait for me when I come back in an hour. I’ll give you a few mackerel,” he barked at me as he left the dock. I had no idea what I would do with mackerel, or even how I would get them back to the apartment where I was staying, but I had all the intentions of being there for the return of the fishermen.
I recorded some environmental audio and watched the seagulls fight for food on the beach while more dock workers and even a well-dressed man in a suit arrived as 8 o’clock slowly rolled around. The faint sound of growling motors cut like a razor across the bay as a single boat beelined towards the end of the dock. Soon, a half dozen boats appeared and circled like sharks while a loosely organized line formed, waiting to be picked up and hauled in. To my surprise, the man in the suit who appeared to be a restaurant owner did more than just joke with the sea-hardened men; he helped swing the boats onto the dock, not minding that his hands became covered with gasoline and oil. A man who appeared to be a dock authority prohibited me from passing a certain point and ordered me to wait with the small multitude of families who had come out to buy fresh fish. But when Señor Fredy was dragged up to the dock, he called out my name and asked me to fetch him his trailer. Mr. Dock Administrator couldn’t say anything as I pushed the trailer snugly under the boat and Fredy directed me to pull it back on shore. Señor Fredy readily conceded to an interview, although I had to pause several times as he made transactions with dock workers and customers.
A real nice guy, Fredy invited me out to join him fishing to the open sea the next time I was in Valparaiso. There’s no doubt that I’ll take him up on the offer. After all, these photographs and interview present only one of the many faces that is Caleta Portales.
Gabriel "Morty" Ortega is a visual journalist.
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