Beachcomber Magazine 03

 involved in the fishing, walk together along the foreshore gathering shell- fish, crustaceans and sea urchins or catching octopus with pikes. This documentary, filmed in the sea off Anakao, a Vezo fishing village and port of call for pirogues from all along the coast, focuses on the customs and traditions of this sea- based people. The first stage of the journey takes the small flotilla to the island of Nosy Ve, a few kilometres from the village, where copious quantities of rum are drunk in honour of the spirits of the ancestors whose benevolence will ensure the success of the expedition. “ I was struck by how harmonious the group was, ” says the photographer Pierre Perrin. “ The contrast between the meagre life in Anakao, one of the most polluted beaches in Madagascar at the time, and the paradisiacal appearance of the peaceful sand- bank with its sparklingly pure colours, took my breath away. I understood that these people with a semi-nomadic life were at one with the world there, and the sandbank in the middle of the ocean was their real land. ” UNDER PRESSURE TO CHANGE Legend has it that the Vezos are the descendants of a fisherman and a mermaid who was said to have taught the man the secrets of the ocean so that he could always fill his nets. A son was born of their union before the fish-woman returned to the depths. She had made her hus- band promise that on their deaths her son and his descendants would be buried along the shoreline where the two parallel universes met. LEGEND HAS IT THAT THE VEZO PEOPLE ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF A FISHERMAN AND A MERMAID. LA LÉGENDE FAIT DES VÉZOS LES DESCENDANTS D’UN PÊCHEUR ET D’UNE SIRÈNE.