Kerala four logger, not even a nail!

Here’s some “what’s on board” perspective: this ‘boat’, technically a raft, is made of just four logs lashed together each day that it’s used. As you fish, the logs soak up water and the ‘boat’ loses freeboard, so when you get ashore you undo the lashing and lay the logs on a rack to dry in the sun. I have no idea how many centuries (millennia?) old this design is, but I saw the type in use all along the south coast of India, sometimes even in surf. No electronics, of course; hell, not even a nail! I took these pictures in October, 1999, a little after dawn in the fishing village of Vizhinjam, just a short walk from Kovalam, in the beautiful state of Kerala. I can still hear the babble: hundreds of fishermen messing with loggers, coming in from a night at sea in an outboard (with one kerosene lantern), and hauling a huge net that had been set into the harbor for the night…all while a mosque at one end of the beach and a cathedral at the other blasted amplified morning prayers. If you ever get a chance, go to this beach at dawn.