On December 23rd, port authorities issued a communiqué announcing the closure of 14 ports in Yucatan, due to the passage of the cold front number 19, so small boats and ships were forced to return to take shelter in their ports.
It was the State Coordination of Civil Protection of Yucatan (Procivy) that notified through its social networks and official channels, that due to the presence of the meteorological phenomenon affecting the region since Thursday night, it was necessary to close the ports.
More than 12 thousand fishermen
However, more than 12 thousand Yucatecan fishermen had to stop fishing and, consequently, stop receiving income from the fruits of their labor, the closing of ports, came along with the closure for the octopus catch which, although authorities of the fishing sector assure that there was a good catch, the fishermen deny that this has happened.
Mr. Arturo Santos, better known as “Canchetes”, from the municipality of Dzidzantún and who has been doing these activities for several decades in the Port of Dzilam de Bravo, pointed out that “the octopus fishing was not as good as we would like, then they close the ports, they were very difficult days for us”, he said.
On the other hand, Don Nicanor Angulo, known as Nico, acknowledged that the octopus season began very well, some of them even earned up to three thousand pesos, “but now we end up with at most 500 pesos a day, from going from early morning until night,” he said.
Meanwhile, for Edgar Rodrigo Jiménez Angulo, a fisherman from San Felipe, he maintains the hope that with the opening of the ports they will once again take advantage of the fishing brought by the natural phenomena.
“We have to see it on the positive side, this cold front will bring us the product and it will not be necessary for us to go so far away“, he commented.
It is worth remembering that the ports that were closed for several days were Celestún, Sisal, Chuburná, Yucalpetén, Progreso, Telchac, Dzilam de Bravo, San Felipe, Río Lagartos, Coloradas and El Cuyo, due to the risk posed by the weather for navigation.
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