I watched as the sardines were thrown from the belly of the ship into the van. Passed laboriously, but fluidly, like mechanized players, bucket load by bucket load. From there the vans take the sardines to the local markets and further to Agadir for processing, probably into our tins in Europe. The sardines run along this part of the coast from December to April, and the ones in Sidi Ifni, according to Moroccans, are about the freshest you can find. While looking around we had been given a bag of sardines. We were ready to pay, but there was no way to hand over dirhams for a tiny amount of fish in this wholesale sardine madness. So we took our small bag up to the worker’s café and handed them over to the man grilling sardines over a small barbeque on the deck. The tables were full of sardine debris. We chose a table overlooking the work still going on. I marveled at the bustle of the experience. A bare chested boy is covered in fish scales, taking on the appearance of a merman. The seagulls swoop and dive overhead, their shit narrowly missing our heads. While waiting for sardines, the tea arrives. Our Moroccan friends add sugar and pour and re-pour to get the required taste. Once savored, our sardines start to arrive. Perfectly salted and cooked, we eat them hot straight off the paper sheets with our hands. No lemon, no sauces, just simple, honest food, as fresh as possible. The Moroccan’s technique is perfected; they slip off the skins with a deft movement of the fingers eating just the white flesh, while I prefer to savor the barbequed oily and salty skin. It can also be grabbed with a hunk of bread to form a small sandwich. I avoided bread though and managed seven huge sardines. I felt a little over indulged, and the pile of sardine carcasses in front of me was testament to this. But quite obviously we had enjoyed the most authentic and freshest possible way to enjoy sardines in Morocco.
Effortless days started with pumping swell. When it was too big for the points, we made an easy decision to drive out to the harbor. Finding that locals and surf camps only ever seem to surf once a day, it left those sunset sessions open for the takings. The wind calmed and currents mellowed for special sunset sessions, with a whole harbor for ourselves. The swell maxed out on our last day. We watched a Moroccan crew on jet skis launch from the beach in front of our hotel and make their way over to harbor wall, where the protection for the harbor also produces a barreling right. We had been watching this right go off every day, and it was great to see it surfed on out last morning as it afforded a scale of the size of this wave – definitely triple overhead on the larger sets.
There is only one drawback to Sidi Ifni and it applies to the whole of Morocco (and the world, really): the rubbish. The beach is covered with debris. Mainly fishing nets, lines and plastic bottles and bags, discarded on land, ending up at sea. Fishing nets and polystyrene crates from the port make up a lot of the flotsam washed up. I found treasure, though, such treasure amongst the rubbish. A ‘performance enhancer’ called Black Penis, small black pills with MAN stamped in white on the outside. It will make someone an awesome Christmas present.
