Don Fermín Canul was born in Dzilam González in 1939, but he has been living in Dzilam de Bravo for more than six decades. Although he has not been able to go fishing for a year, he maintains the same routine as always: he gets up at dawn, gets on his inseparable bicycle and pedals to the main park of the port.
There he meets other fishermen like him: men who faced storms, hangovers and sunrises on the high seas, and who now, within or outside the fishing pattern, with ailments that do not allow them to get on a boat, meet every morning to remember the old days, share what they heard about the weather and, if lucky, find some fun that would allow them to complete their income.
Older adult anglers get together to remember anecdotes. Source: Natalia Cocom.
A few months ago, he survived a motorcycle taxi accident after returning from a ranch where he still works sporadically. “My bike broke down, otherwise I don't even get on it,” he says. At 86 years old, the Welfare pension is their only fixed income. But his hope never wanes: “The sea doesn't go away, but it doesn't wait either”, he repeats as if it were an old saying from the coast.
In Yucatán, one out of every four registered fishermen is over 60 years of age. According to data from the 2025 state register, of the 12,364 fishermen who make up the registry, 3,018 are over that age. The average age of the guild is 49, in contrast to the state's overall median age of 30.
Extreme cases attract attention: there are 989 fishermen over 70 years old, and the oldest is 94. Among women, although they are a minority — barely 143 female fishermen compared to more than 12,000 men — the oldest has 71.
These numbers reveal more than just longevity: they show a coastline where the elderly are still active in fishing out of economic need and because of the deep relationship they have with the sea. Although many no longer fish as before, they retain routines, knowledge and forms of presence that are indispensable for understanding fishing sustainability from a community and human dimension.
Researcher Gina Villagómez warns that old age in Yucatán faces a paradox: “Life expectancy has increased, but the quality of life has decreased in recent years.” Many older adults worked in informal jobs, without access to social security, which today leaves them without a safety net. The main vulnerabilities he observes in this group are access to medicines, mobility difficulties, inside and outside the home, and the impossibility of stopping working even in old age.
And these vulnerabilities take on another dimension in the fishing sector, since Dr. Villagómez also points out that the fisherman in Yucatán is “the ugly duckling” of public policies: a social subject that has failed to place himself on the agenda, unlike other rural sectors such as peasants or rural women. Its activity, which is highly precarious, informal and risky, has historically been marginalized.
Don Fermín travels the coast on his bike. Source: Natalia Cocom.
I. “My boat was already heavy”: Don Alfredo's retirement in San Felipe
At 84 years old, Don Alfredo sits outside his house in San Felipe. “I fished until I was 70. At 80 I already sold the boat. My wife told me: 'You're already grown up, sell everything you have, don't let the mouse eat it here, stay at home. '”
Don Alfredo was not born a fisherman. He started out in the field, where he earned five pesos a day plating or composing wire. It was years later that he accepted an invitation to try his luck at sea. “The first day a man took me, he gave me 20 pesos. The next day another 20 and so I started to earn more than on the field.” The equation was simple, back then, people earned more at sea than inland.
Little by little, he made his own small wooden boat, then out of nets, hook, equipment for diving and fishing for black and white snails. He learned to his lungs. He even received a fiberglass boat thanks to a federal program. “We went to Progreso, they gave us a boat. It's yours, make good use of it. We became tools and everything we needed.”
That ship accompanied him for three decades. But one day it weighed on him. Literally. “I told my wife: I'm going to sell the boat and buy a boat because all my classmates already had it. Well, I also sold the boat and bought my boat.”
Finally, age imposed its limit. “So far. You're already 80 years old, you get dizzy, you fall. I won't see you again,” his wife warned him. He sold the equipment, but kept a chalana (a smaller boat used for fishing in shallow waters) as a trophy: “I have my chalanita. They tell me 'sell it' all the time. But I don't sell that one, not for all the money in the world.”
Don Alfredo longs for the sea, but he understands that it is now difficult for him to sail. Source: Miguel Cocom.
Don Alfredo did not leave the sea by his own decision. In fact, he misses it. “I do want to go, but they won't let me.” Sometimes they give him 'little bites' or octopus. He greets them with gratitude: “I am seated and they give them to me, they are companions who know me from fishing”.
It's still on the state fishermen's register. He charges seven thousand pesos a year, his welfare pension and another six thousand for the ban on grouing. But he doesn't just receive the money: he participates in community work. “We're going to paint, we're going to pick up garbage, we're going to clean colanders, we're doing something.”
To survive, most older people rely on a network of formal and informal transfers, explains Gina Villagómez. These include financial or in-kind support, instrumental help (such as taking them to a doctor), emotional support, and teaching or cognitive aids such as learning to use an ATM or a mobile phone. These transfers come from families and the community, as evidenced in the parks of Dzilam, San Felipe or Rio Lagartos, where older fishermen still meet every morning to share what they have, know or can do.
With humor and pride, Don Alfredo says he doesn't spend on vices. “I'm not one to drink or smoke or burn my money. I grab it and put it together. With what little the government gives us, we know how to manage it.”
Fishing, for Don Alfredo, was school, sustenance and a passion that he now remembers calmly, but not without a firm criticism of the present: “San Felipe was a place of grouper. Today there is almost nothing left. Today, no one eats grouper here.”
II. “Now it gives a lot of cloth”: Don Ramiro and the sea that is no longer the same
At 86 years old, Don Ramiro still has the strong voice to remember the routes of the past. He lived all his life in Rio Lagartos and although he started out in the countryside, like many, the sea ended up adopting him. “My dad had two ranches, but I married the daughter of a fisherman. They were taking me fishing and I started to like it.”
It began in my twenties, when there were no outboard motors. They adapted old engines to wooden boats. This is how they crossed San Felipe, before the current dredging existed. “It was longer the delay to go out to sea than the hours spent fishing itself,” he recalls. But it was worth it: “In two hours we would fill the caches with grouper. So there was.”
Don Ramiro wasn't a diver, but his children were. They are three men, all dedicated to fishing. They have their own boats, parked on the family plot, on the banks of the estuary. They fish with nets, they dive for lobster, they work with the sea as their father did, although now under other conditions.
“Five years ago I retired,” he says, with some relief. Social Security retired him through his fishing cooperative. He received a single amount of 35,000 pesos and since then he has been living on his pension and support for closure and welfare. “As long as you're alive, support comes.”
Don Ramiro is well known for all the fishing convenience. Source: Miguel Cocom.
In the cooperative “Manuel Cepeda Peraza” in Rio Lagartos, 35 of its 200 members are over 60 years old. Far from being retired, most are still out fishing or participating in key tasks such as filleting, selling, surveillance or administration.
“It's 100% common, because they've been fishermen all their lives and that's their only job,” says Rommel Alcocer Díaz, one of the most experienced members of the cooperative.
The permanence of older fishermen in the productive cycle responds to their vocation and also to the need: many have no other sources of income other than public or community support.
According to Alcocer, all members over 60 years of age in his cooperative have an IMSS pension and, in addition, when they retire after more than 30 years as active members, they receive a bonus amounting to 7,000 pesos for each year of seniority. They also have access to economic support such as Veda and Bienesca.
Beyond the economic aspect, their role within the organization remains active: “They bring a lot of experience, they are recognized, they have leadership roles, they share their knowledge and experiences,” says Alcocer. In a sector, historically, based on practice, this mentoring is key to the continuity of the profession.
The sea continues to call Don Ramiro. “Yes, I miss him. But the insurance is not responsible if something happens. That's why I don't go out anymore.” You don't need it either. He knows that his children inherited his vocation and his efforts. It's not all nostalgia. There is also criticism and disenchantment. “You used to go fishing out of pleasure, out of emotion. Now it gives a lot of cloth.” In his day, a mere person who did not weigh at least a kilo and a half was returned to the water. Today we bring “whatever”.
Remember abundance as if it were yesterday: “We fished for chernas, big groupers, lobsters, even the nets burst from the weight of the shoal”. Today, he says, they throw away nets and “they don't even take anything out anymore”.
In spite of everything, he has no regrets about stepping away from the countryside to embrace fishing. “It was more fun. You saw money every day.” For him, the sea was school, work and family. Their grandchildren grow up watching the boats in the yard. And although today's young people face more difficulties, there aren't many other options. “There's nothing else to do. They have to go, even if it's because of what little they bring.”
III. “Fishing allowed us to become a heritage”
At 66 years old, Aura María Cortez Almeyda is an exceptional figure in Celestún: one of the few women registered in the fishing register of the state of Yucatán and, in addition, one of the oldest. Her story is that of a woman who decided, together with her partner, to make fishing her entire life. “We wanted to be someone in life,” she recalls. And they succeeded.
For several decades, Aura woke up early in the morning to go out to sea. He was actively involved in the assembly of networks, in the classification of the product and in the sale. She was neither an assistant nor an observer: she worked side by side, with the same responsibility.
They fished for shrimp, crab, octopus. She went to the estuary, her partner to the sea. Together they woven a routine and a way of life. “Everything we have is thanks to fishing,” he says, with the assurance of those who do not forget their origins. His story was not a simple one. While raising her three children, Aura combined household care with days at sea, in wineries or waiting for the product to reach cities as far away as Guadalajara, Monterrey and Tijuana.
Doña Aura is one of the few women who are on the Yucatan Fishermen's Register. Source: Natalia Cocom.
His direct link to the sea was interrupted when he was diagnosed with pancreatitis at the age of 50. Since then he has not fished, but he has not ceased to be present. She supports product classification, manages the warehouse, coordinates shipments and shares her knowledge with other women and her own family. One of his granddaughters, barely three years old, is already following in his footsteps. “She classifies octopus at three years old. He helps us and he loves it.”
In a mostly male guild, Doña Aura managed to get her participation recognized and to be on the fishing list. However, he knows that most men prefer to keep women out of business. She, on the other hand, believes that this legacy should be shared at home and with new generations.
Gina Villagómez argues that older women who have been fishermen or fishermen's wives experience intersectional discrimination: “To be a woman, Maya and older in a town is to have four intersected hells”. They are those who have cared for, supported and worked with their husbands, but they are rarely recognized in the standards or as holders of knowledge of the sea.
With roots in Champotón, Campeche, and decades of residence in Celestún, Aura María represents a different way of being at sea: with perseverance, pride and awareness of what it means to have opened a path. “I miss the sea. It's not the same to be here, on the shore. But I'm still close.”
IV. “And the old man kept dreaming about lions”
At Dzilam de Bravo, just ask for “La Gorda” for someone to point to a chair on the sidewalk, in front of the Social Security clinic. There, every afternoon, sits Cándido Candelario Calderón, born on February 2, 1937 in Holbox, Quintana Roo. His full name, with a powerful sound, appears proudly in the 2025 state register of fishermen. He is 88 years old and has been living in the port of Dzemul for 75 years, the same years he has been fishing.
Don Cándido arrived in Dzilam at the age of 14, when his father decided to move in search of a better horizon. There, in Holbox, “there was nothing,” he recalls. Here, on the other hand, everything was movement. Since then he hasn't left. Here he married, had eight children, four boys, and all of them were fishermen. Even today, at almost 89 years old, he continues to go out to sea with one of his children when he can, although he admits that he no longer as often: “The last time was a few weeks ago”.
Don Candelario says he survived storms and shipwrecks. Source: Miguel Cocom.
He still remembers everything: the nine fathoms deep, the sharks caught with a hook, the lobster fishing “pure lung”, without a compressor, going down as far as his breath reached. “You killed two or three and left them there, went down again and raised them.” On one of those dives, he ran into a cat shark that caused him to abort the mission. On another occasion, he fell into the water and it was his son, barely a teenager, who maneuvered the boat to rescue him.
Throughout his life, Don Cándido also worked in freezers and fishing companies, helping to fillet, pack and load products to the Mérida market. But his vocation was always fishing. Today he says with sadness that it is no longer like before: “Before you used to go and fish grouper, Canaané, little face, everything. Today, you don't even take it out to eat.”
Every morning he meets other veterans of the sea in the park, where they remember the exploits of the past, the dangers, the adventures, the companions that are no longer there. Sitting in front of the sea, a few steps from his house, Don Cándido looks at the horizon. The body can't handle it like it used to, but his memory and love for fishing are still as alive as when he was a teenager. “I have a lung,” he says proudly.
V. “Because I dreamed of going very far”
Don Aurelio Ortiz Chay, better known as “Pescado”, was born and raised in Celestún. From the age of 12 he started fishing, and he didn't stop doing it until he was 76, when his eyesight and two operations prevented him from continuing. For more than six decades, Don Aurelio witnessed the transformation of the sea and the profession. When I was young, I fished for everything: bass, croaker, shark, charal, sardine, whatever the season offered.
He went out with others and also alone. “I was even going to go fishing alone. I put my light on and that's it, with peace of mind,” he says. Fishing was part of their routine, of their freedom, of their identity. Today, from home, he still feels it as something that belongs to him. He misses the sea, yes, but even more so the pace of life it gave it. “Of course it makes me want to go. I even explain it to my children. But right now there is no more. Scuba diving has ended everything here on the shore.”
Don Aurelio says that years ago fishing was very abundant. Source: Natalia Cocom.
Their testimony confirms a constant among older anglers: the perception of an accelerated ecological decline, associated with new practices such as chemical diving, which alter the behavior of species such as octopus and sea cucumber. It also mentions violence at sea. “Right now you can't get one out because they steal everything from you. They steal your network, they steal your engine, they threaten you with death.”
At 88 years old, Don Aurelio doesn't see. The ophthalmologist told her that her cataract problem is already too advanced for surgery. For now, he depends on the support of his children, all fishermen who are still living in Celestún, and on the welfare pension. “They give me and the pension, but it goes into medicines. There's nothing in the health center. My wife has high sugar, I spend it on eye pills. That's where everything goes.”
In contrast to their generation, their children must go as far as 20 or 30 nautical miles to find something worth fishing for. He, on the other hand, remembers that when he went sailing, the most they arrived was 12 fathoms away, and if calm caught them, they woke up on the high seas.
He didn't dive. He never needed it. “Pure fishing,” he says. It is enough for him to remember his childhood among sack flakes on the shore, fishing for charalitos or sardines. It was another time. Another coast. Another sea. When asked if he would return to fishing, he answers without hesitation: “Mom! It would be nice. Of course it makes me want to, but in this life you don't come back.”
VI. Don Galo: the sea in memory and in bones
At 79 years old, Galo Ambrocio Aké is one of the many faces that reflect the silent transformation of fishing on the Yucatecan coast. He was born in Dzemul, the coastal town with the highest average age in the entire coastal strip: 56.8 years.
Although now he doesn't go out to the high seas much, Don Galo continues to live on what the sea gave him, his pension as an ejidatario, the Welfare pension for the elderly and the support he still receives because he is on the fishing list.
Don Galo recognizes that there are now fewer species in the sea. Source: Natalia Cocom.
Its history is not anchored to a single port. For decades he fished in El Cuyo, in Progreso and in his native Dzemul. He learned in the saltwater ponds, then traveled on larger boats. He never learned to swim, but he survived a fall because he managed to hold on to a ramp in the middle of the night while fishing on the high seas. “I like fishing, but they won't let me out,” she laughs, referring to her family, concerned about her health since she became ill with COVID-19.
Don Galo remembers how they fished grouper with a longline and up to 100 hooks, how they anchored” and how large specimens gave signals along the line. “Now there is almost no mere,” he says with resignation, “they go to Isla Contoy to look for it.” Although he has moved away from the sea, he never ceases to miss it. “It's nice... right now it's being earned,” he says, referring to the fishermen who went on a trip and returned with more than 500 kilos of octopus. One of his sons has his own boat and is a skipper, another one travels to Progreso. The sea is still in the family.
Epilogue
The testimonies collected concur in the same lament: the sea is no longer the same. There is less fishing, more risk, more spending, more competition, more pollution. Traditional methods are displaced by invasive or predatory techniques, such as chemical diving. Artisanal fishing, once sufficient to feed a family and sustain a community, has become an uncertain, fragile and solitary activity.
Don Alfredo, in San Felipe, said it with resignation: “I used to reach you with a little bit. Today, even if you've been around long enough, it's not enough.”
Doña Aura María, in Celestún, is still resisting, clinging to the life of the sea, but she warns: “Fishing is no longer what it used to be, it's tougher. You have to figure it out.”
Don Perfecto and Don Ramiro, in Rio Lagartos, compare the present with the past and nostalgia always wins.
Don Aurelio, 88 years old, sums it up without anger but with truth: “Diving has ended everything here on the shore. But it makes me want to go back.”
And yet, everyone is still connected to the sea. Some from the coast, others through their sons and daughters. Some still come out when they can. Others no longer see, but they remember every channel, every stream, every moon and every sign of the water.
In a world facing a global ecological crisis, the case of Yucatán is not an isolated one, but it is especially valuable. Here, thousands of people have lived off the sea for generations. Not only as an economic activity, but as a way of life, as a culture and social bond. And among them, at least a quarter of the fishermen are over 60 years old. It is a generation that knows when to come out according to the wind, what bait is appropriate in which month, where the species nest, when the water “bursts” and when it is time to give rest.
Despite some institutional abandonment, the lack of specific pensions, the programs that exclude them or the health systems that arrive late or never, they have not let go of the thread that unites them to the coast.
Beyond the deficiencies, Villagómez warns that older fishermen carry “cultural, practical and ancient knowledge” about the sea, species, winds, tides and natural rhythms. However, being considered “non-productive”, their knowledge is ignored, unlike other sectors where the experience of the elderly is respected. Rescuing this knowledge can be a concrete tool for designing coastal policies with a community approach, real sustainability and intergenerational dignity.
Reclaiming the sea will not be possible without listening to those who have inhabited it for generations. Instead of relegating them, we should listen to them. Include them. Learn from them. Link their knowledge to community programs, schools of the sea, surveillance brigades, ecological monitoring, coastal interpretation centers. The sea that we have left could be the sea that returns, if we know how to learn from those who are still waiting for it from the shore.
*This text was written by Miguel Cocom, a member of the Network of Journalists of the Sea.
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