Pesqueres de Cingle

The town’s coastline is characterized by a high-altitude cliff façade. The steep coast makes fishing activity difficult in the area, so traditional fishing – now extinct – focused on «pesqueres de cingle»: small artisanal constructions hanging on the steep coastline.

The fishermen who used the fisheries were mainly farmers with economic shortages, who were forced to look for more resources in the sea outside of the agricultural season. Their knowledge was based on tradition inherited from parents to children and acquired through experience.

Currently, you can still see different fisheries from the sea or from the cliffs. All of them are in an advanced state of deterioration due to the impact of the sea but you can still see the danger they entailed and the value of the people who out of necessity came there to fish. This endemic fishing activity continues exclusively through what are known as Penya-segats de la Marina.

Structure and Typology

The fishing structure was located at a point close to the base of the cliff and whose access was made by installing a set of ropes and ladders with which one descended the cliff and from where fishing was done at night using light to attract the fish. The fishing boat was located on a projection of the same rock or, more commonly, on a reed, which as a platform was attached to the cliff by four rope stays. They also used to have shelters made by fishermen.

It was the fishermen themselves who «set up» the fishery, they built it. They fixed the system of ropes, ladders and other fastening elements, and prepared the fishing place to establish a minimum work space.

In this sense, fishing over rocks and fishing over reeds can be differentiated. The inhabitants of El Poble Nou de Benitatxell in particular used reed fishing boats almost exclusively, set up at the end of the 19th century. XIX and early XX.

This type of fishing is also known as «encesa» because it used light as an attractive visual element. «Encesa, candil, wind axe, candlestick, carburero» are words that refer to the use of artificial light as an element for fishing. Light was obtained through the combustion of materials that were collected in the same natural environment, and later, through chemical combustion in containers designed for this purpose.

Fishing day

The fishermen used to walk to the fishery from the town and it took them about an hour and a half to get there. They had to leave early to take advantage of the light before nightfall, because once there, they would go down to the shelter and, before dinner, they would prepare the necessary instruments for fishing: they secured the reed, fixed the light and prepared the rods and other utensils.

Fishing time began late at night and it seems that the largest catches were made after dusk, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., and before the next dawn, between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. Before sunrise they began to remove the fishing equipment, remove the reed and tie it to the rock, to return home with the fish.

Back home, the «encexeros» waited for each other at crossing points called «fumadors» (they received this name because at the time it was common for them to smoke a cigarette while waiting for their companions). Waiting was also a way to control accidents when someone did not return or took longer than necessary. When they returned, they sold the fish on the town’s main street.

Latest fishing

The «encexeros» of El Poble Nou de Benitatxell stopped selling fish on Calle Mayor between 1955 and 1960 and therefore stopped going to fish in the fisheries. Around the 1970s, fishing assistance was more a matter of tradition and hobby than of necessity. Work in the fisheries was decreasing for various reasons such as new economic activities linked to industrial and urban development; the aging of the generation that had been fishing throughout their lives and the decrease in the amount of fishing due to the overexploitation of resources.

The work in the fisheries was very hard and dangerous, which cost the lives of several residents of El Poble Nou de Benitatxell. Currently, the work in the fisheries is known for its historical documentation and oral references from older people.