At the bottom of the long fishhook shaped bay that makes up Puerto Viejo Bay in Mazatlan, Mexico lies a different kind of beach. This is not a beach for swimming. Nor is it for sunbathing. In fact, with its hard cobbled sand, grey water, and algae covered rocks, Fisherman’s Beach is not even a particularly pretty beach. Yet is is a beach that’s worth a visit when in Mazatlan, for it is here that fishermen gather before dawn each morning and drag their their brightly painted traditional wooden boats across the sand and into the bay.

Relaxing after a hard day at sea on Pescadero Beach

By noon the fishermen have returned but their work is far from done. Once the boats have been hauled out of the water, nets must be mended, fishing lines untangled, and gear cleaned. This is a self-sufficient, industrious community; it is not uncommon to see fishermen tearing apart huge outboard engines or painting boat bottoms right on the beach. Some take on the duties of fishmonger, cleaning and gutting the day’s catch and laying it out on rough wooden benches for sale to the public. Even the pelicans are eager. They’ve learned the returning fleet means fish guts and other treats, and they boldly congregate around the fishermen, jockeying aggressively for their share of the booty.

Choose what you like from the day's catch

Unlike the rest of Mazatlan’s beaches, Fisherman’s does not have beautiful white sand and clear turquoise water, but it has one distinct advantage over those other picture-book perfect beaches: it offers up the freshest fish in town for astonishingly low prices, and the cultural experience is thrown in for free.

Photo credit: Barbara Weibel

Article by Barbara Weibel of Hole In The Donut Travels