Miguel Covarrubias burrowed through traditional Balinese religious mythology to extrapolate and paint a cultural portrait of an isolated, island land mass haunted and tortured by impure fish and profane seas. Subsequent historians, cultural anthropologists, travel writers, and chefs echoed Covarrubias’s thesis that the omen-vigilant Balinese eschew fish in their diet. Although the sea is universally regarded with deep suspicion, the Balinese take full advantage of the rich protein bounty of their surrounding oceanic resources. Thousands of tons of edible fish are netted each year in Bali: ninety percent of the catch consists of ocean fish. Seventy percent of this ocean catch consists of one single species—the eight-inch-long, Indonesian oil sardine, or lemuru (Sardinella longicaps). Pengambengan Bay (on the southwest coast ten kilometers from Negara) is Bali’s largest fishing and fish processing port--reeling in 25 percent of Bali’s entire annual fish harvest. Pengambengan and Kedonganan village fishermen plumb the rich sardine treasure trove in the Indian Ocean (Bali Sea) in between Bali and Java. At the height of August sardine season, one hundred tons of sardines per day are carried ashore at Kedonganan in large baskets from early morning, water-bobbing prahus anchored close offshore. Purchased on the spot by buyers either whole or as cleaned filets, most sardines are packed in salt and ice, trucked directly to local canneries, and processed for export. Kedonganan’s beachside, fish meal production facility also refines sardine heads, guts, and off-cuts in huge vats into coarse fish meal used as chicken feed, fish oil, and petis—a popular, salty fish sauce. Kedonganan’s fishermen present simple offerings to a beachside guardian shrine every day before setting out to sail to invoke and ensure safety for the voyage. Offerings are also placed on their jukung outrigger boats and on the nets used to snare fish. Further safety-oriented offerings are made out at sea before commencing any fishing activities to ask for permission and blessings from the god of the waters and the marine inhabitants. The fishing community carries out larger temple ceremonies (entailing complex offerings) on the full moon of the fifth month in the Balinese calendar. The customary village of Kedonganan also stages an elaborate, annual ceremony on the new moon of the seventh month in the Balinese calendar: spectacular food offerings are fabricated to accompany prayers for the continued well-being of the fishing fleet and community.
Twenty percent of Bali’s ocean largesse consists of substantial (three to five kilogram, ½ to one meter long) tuna (eastern little tuna, skipjack tuna, yellowfin tuna), striped mackerel, and frigate mackerel caught by Jimbaran Bay’s fishing fleet (a consortium of Jimbaran, Tuban, Kelan, and Kedonganan villages). Jimbaran Bay’s small, wooden, traditional jukung have a fishing range extending seventeen kilometers northwest to Soka near Tanah Lot and Yeh Gangga in Tabanan and as far south as the Uluwatu cliffs thirteen kilometers to the south. Shortly after sunrise, various wooden fishing vessels (the larger prahus anchored offshore are serviced by smaller row boats offloading and transferring their catch in relays to shore) and one or two-man jukung pull in at Kedonganan-Jimbaran (the epicentre of southern Bali’s main fresh fish market). Waiting men rush the boats to hoist bursting, fish-laden bamboo baskets two by two to shore suspended on traditional bamboo shoulder poles. This (mainly Javanese) fishing workforce heaves gill nets full of red snapper, squid, mahi mahi, octopus, clams, crabs, tuna, and the odd, gigantic marine specimen (an individual shark, swordfish, billfish, sailfish, large shrimp, or lobster) sandwards to their wives (squatting down with round black buckets between their legs) at the water’s edge. The wives carry the blood-fresh fish on their heads straight to the makeshift Jimbaran market (corrugated tin roofs and plastic tarpaulin walls) one kilometer away. A bustling auction system and groaning weighing scales regulates buyers and sellers: prices are negotiated, calculators click, and Styrofoam coolers of fish are iced, salted, and quickly trucked away. Other women bypass the official, flea-market-style auction and carry their own fish to market, or display and sell them to local Balinese customers already positioned on the beach. Hotel and restaurant chefs are also on the sand before dawn waiting to meet the colorful, rag-tag, fishing flotilla as they come in with the night’s catch after fifteen hours at sea. Here, the sorting, weighing, bargaining, and selection process for ocean-fresh fish begins right at the low tide mark before the fish can cross over to the nearby established market stalls. The waterside seafood pandemonium is over by 8 A.M.—the returning fleet’s pirate’s capture has been fully secured and sold. Jimbaran’s jukung boat operators and prahus will set sail again in the late afternoon at three to four P.M. (remaining afloat all night if the fishing is good).
In smaller ports like Padang Bai, the fishermen go out twice a day—from two to eight in the morning, and again from noon to six in the afternoon. In Jembrana regency in western Bali, fishermen in traditional prahu boats or sampan canoes leave their families behind to fish at night, rerturning home early the next morning. When they are not working, their prahus are parked on the beach to be repaired and painted with the colors and shape of the beautiful goddess of the south sea, locally known as Nyi Loro Kidul. Their lucky swag of fish, crab, shrimp, and lobster is sold at early morning fish markets, the public market in town, to restaurants, and the fish canning industry. A fleet of government-owned, deep-sea fishing boats and large trawlers ranges further out over the waters from Benoa Bay--scouring the bottom, middle, and top of the Indian Ocean for yellowfin tuna, big eye tuna, albacore, barracuda, and giant black marlin destined for the Japanese and Italian markets. Each year the boats press further and further afield to come home with a profitable catch as Balinese waters become increasingly depleted and market demand expands exponentially. Additional, massive diesel ships from Taiwan and China are permitted to operate in the Benoa Harbor area, catching large, nearby offshore tuna species for extradition to their countries. The remaining 10 percent of Bali’s ocean catch is comprised of Balfour and hammerhead sharks and shallow, coastal water, coral reef fish (red snapper, grouper, hairtail shrimp, large shrimp, prawns, and spiny lobsters). Sharks are soaked in salt, sun-dried, and spirited away to covetous customers in Java. Baby sharks caught up in boat loads of tuna and mackerel are dumped on the beach and grabbed by restaurant owners. Over-harvested, top-quality reef resources like red and white snappers are becoming scarce, and maintaining a continuous supply is difficult (much fresh fish is now caught in the waters off Java and shipped over to Bali).
