Only Lost Tuna. 1999: A Year of Mounting Concern and a Trip Around Zimbabwe with My Daughters.

Plenty of tuna were seen this week, none in the boat. The bluefin has gone from endangered in Portuguese waters to sustainable

John in the chair

I am writing this blog later in the week, in fact, on Tuesday afternoon, after a vain attempt to catch bluefin tuna. This was our fourth such trip for these giant fish. Last year I had just come out of the hospital following stomach surgery, not an uncommon occurrence for me that year. So, my daughter Storm and her fiancé, Duncan took my place, catching a two hundred and fifty kilogram fish. The year before that, João, our favourite restaurant owner, took the place of John Tidy and caught a three-hundred-kilogram one. So this year John, Rozanne and I had high hopes of catching one of these monsters with the pulling power of a crawler. As luck would have it, after a number of sightings of feeding tuna, we hooked into one. John, first in the fighting chair, fought it for an hour and then Rozanne for a further twenty minutes before sadly the fish got wrapped around one of the many cables. There are numerous creels and nets attached to anchored buoys, making fishing extremely hard.  Finally after about an hour and a half, the reel shaft broke, but by then we were sure it had wrapped on a cable. Out with the knife, line cut. Sad for us losing the fish, but sadder for the Captain, João Melo, from Ocean Fun and Fishing, with a €1,300 reel to replace. 

Rozanne in the chair

I do not know what the bluefin tuna numbers are worldwide but they seem to be plentiful in the sea south of Portugal. We observed fish feeding, including frenzies involving a large number of large fish. So much power in evidence. Just at the end of the day, we hooked onto another, but unfortunately, it broke off when Rozanne got into the fighting chair. It was nearing six o’clock in the evening by then, and I think we were all silently relieved as my fishing partners were feeling the effects of their earlier battles. If it remained hooked, it would have probably taken one to two hours to land. So no fish landed, but some fought which once again left us in awe of their power and speed. Only fish that die can be taken to shore, and even then, you are not allowed to sell them commercially. I know the ‘greenies’ say catch and release kill most fish, but the tuna do seem to be prospering under these rules in Portuguese waters.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

 - The second verse of my favourite poem since childhood, John Masefield's Sea Fever

A moody Loch an Keal looking from just below where we lI was brought up. Ben More on the left. Photographer unknown

As I was brought up at the head of Loch na Keal on the Island of Mull, I have always yearned to return to living by the sea. Circumstances have precluded this, and holidays have had to suffice. For fifteen years, our annual family holidays were spent in Inhassoro, in Mozambique, where we would spend our time fishing in the Bazaruto Archipelago. Prawns and piri-piri chicken were our staples while there, washed down with 2M beer. During the civil war in Mozambique, Kariba and the Zambezi had to suffice as a good alternative, but not the ocean and its many wonders. Of course, much of the attraction to the Zambezi and Kariba was not only the fish but some of the best game viewing in the world. 

As I recorded last week, I entered 1999 with a heavy heart, as my rainfed tobacco could best be described as a washout due to the continuous heavy rain. At the same time, any hope garnered from the September 1998 donor conference on land was fast disappearing. It had been a last-ditch effort by the Government to raise funds for land purchase and resettlement. Mugabe was furious with the British when they stopped funding the purchases of land for resettlement. The reason being that it was often ending up in the hands of politicians or the ZANU (PF) party members, and if not, the resettlement was so badly implemented it was an abject failure. Nothing would raise Mugabe’s ire as much as telling him it was a failure so his ministers kept him poorly informed, but I am sure he was more than aware of this. Land was now a political instrument of the present, rather than a tool for redistribution and resettlement, or righting historical wrongs. Mugabe never got over the rebuke in Clare Short’s letter, likening her family's Irish background to colonialism in Zimbabwe. With some 1,470 farms now listed, Mugabe and his cronies hoped that other donors would be stupid enough to fund the land redistribution program. Nick Swanepoel had returned to the Presidency of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), to the discomfort of many of us past Presidents, I think, shortly following this conference. Nick firmly believed funds would be found, by this time he was very much relying on the advice of John Bredenkamp. Bredenkamp was even claiming to have found the funds in America if we would voluntarily give up land. Just another dark alleyway with no exit. Long after the donor's meeting, Nick remained positive. I remember him telling me it just needed Mugabe’s sign-off and the money would come. 

In hindsight, this does not seem to be an accurate reflection of the event from the donor’s viewpoint. They were demanding exactly what the British had demanded, the transparent legal purchase of the land in a fair manner with compensation paid, preferably by means of a willing buyer, willing seller. Also, the resettlement should be suitably funded to enable its success for the betterment of the country as a whole, not just for a few greedy, politically connected ‘chefs.’

“The money for resettlement never came, nor will it until the rule of law is restored. Our only hope is the return of democracy, which will enable us who are still alive to receive our due compensation. It seemed the degree of failure in resolving the land issue only increased self-importance of some representing us.” - Peter McSporran

All this was happening in the background, a new political party was emerging, the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC). This further agitated the President. By September, this new party finally emerged with Morgan Tsvangirai as its leader. For many, it gave hope, but what it achieved was to heighten the sense of loss of control for Mugabe. This paranoia about his own security of tenure as president contributed to the decisions he made to ensure his political survival, despite being advised that mass land expropriation would harm the economy. I often wonder if he even thought about the economy or the man on the street, not just seeking work but food for his family. Once again, with hindsight, he did not, nor did he care what happened to the majority of the people in the country. In his fight for survival, only his close political allies were comfortable, but woe betide you if you felt out of favour. Nothing like a vehicle accident involving an army truck to remove someone troublesome. So it can be said that as 1999 progressed, most of us farmers were uneasy to the extent that many, within their democratic rights, were seen to be supporting the MDC and happy to be seen funding it. Mugabe was also planning a referendum in 2000, which he hoped to win, allowing him to become the life President. His advisers, unbeknownst to us at this time, were busy telling him that the commercial farm workers, some three hundred thousand with their spouses, making some six hundred thousand voters, would vote against him—all the more reason to look at us with baleful eyes. Yet we were farmers, and that is what we did: we carried on farming, despite the gathering storm all of us could see fast approaching.

“If I am honest, by mid-1999, I had realised that we would in every likelihood lose the farms. I am the first to admit I did not give my farming enterprises the oversight they required in my search for alternatives.” - Peter McSporran

Storm and Janine under the statue of Livingston at Victoria Falls in 1999

My eldest daughter Storm was now completing her final year at the AAA College in Cape Town, while our youngest, Janine, was about to leave school in the following year. I felt it was a good time for the three of us to get together on a holiday. I decided this would be a driving trip around Zimbabwe, first heading to Victoria Falls via Bulawayo, stopping to say hello to our friends Cedric and Gay Wilde. From there, we would take the Sea Lion overnight up the lake to Kariba, staying at Caribbea Bay, where, as very young children, we had many a happy holiday there. That is, we had to rescue Janine about three times from the Round Bar pool before she learnt to swim.

“I will always remember Janine smiling up at me from the bottom of the pool at the Round Bar, completely unconcerned she was likely to drown.” - Peter McSporran

Later, we would buy a share on the Shenga, a mono-hull forty-five steel boat, making that thereafter our holiday of choice. I admit now that young girls may have enjoyed holidays other than those consisting of fishing, game viewing and drinking beer. Admittedly, we had one holiday in Portugal in 1987, which was our first visit there and in fact abroad as a family. A country I never imagined in my later years, I would take up residence in. From Kariba, we headed to Nyanga, then to Troutbeck Inn, and finally to Vumba, where we stayed at the Leopard Rock Hotel. In trying to get some details from the girls to write about the trip it turns out their memories of events are worse than mine. They could not remember the year 1999 or 2000? Storm struggles to recollect the trip at all, despite me having the photos to prove it although Janine has a more vivid memory of the trip. At that time, I had a used red Mercedes 300D, which I had purchased second-hand from my brother-in-law, Michael Belinsky. Anyway, on the road from Hwange to the Milibzi, where we were to board the ferry, the car started overheating, requiring me to add water every thirty or so kilometres. There was no sign of a radiator or hose leak, it just kept overheating. Despite this, we managed to get to the Sea Lion on time and had a very uncomfortable trip back to Kariba. I had spent many nights on the ferry on Micky Tanner’s fishing trips but this time the ferry was full, people did not respect other people's spaces and importantly, instead of being able to use two mattresses due to the amount of passengers we had one thin mattress on our metal beds, which were in fact metal sun beds.

Once again the girls on the same trip in the Vumba

The car got us back to Harare, where I swapped it for my older one and headed to Nyanga and the Vumba. I remember it was quite poignant, as it was on that trip that I suggested to my daughters that Zimbabwe was unlikely to offer the same opportunities it had in the past for young people, and they should consider, after college, at least trying to live elsewhere in the world. If I am truthful, we were, or at least I was, hoping for a solution to the land problem. It did not help that the British seemed to have little appetite to do anything positive in resolving it with Blair and Short becoming embroiled in a personal feud, only attacking Mugabe without thinking what his irrational actions if pushed too hard would have to their ex colonial citizens and descendents let alone the indigenous people of that country.

Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.