Carli Bay Fish Festival, which comes off on Saturday in one of central Trinidad’s most popular fishing location, is much more than a community event.
In fact, the festival—the result of a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the Couva Point Lisas Chamber of Commerce and the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation (CTTRC), is aimed at stimulating economic development in the area by boosting tourism and creating more opportunities for the area’s fishing community.
“This is a pilot project that we are doing and we hope to get support,” said festival co-ordinator Angela Gouveia.
While the event has an estimated budget of $100,000, the only financial support so far has been from the Ministry of Tourism which contributed $20,000.
However, for Gouveia and the other event organisers, the festival can yield economic benefits well beyond the financial outlay for the staging of the day’s activities.
The event, which also celebrates St Peter’s Day, a major religious commemoration in fishing communities across the country, takes place from 10 am to 6 pm.
The food component alone should attract a crowd, as there will be sales and sampling of a variety of seafood dishes, including local favourites like bake and shark, crab and dumpling and even fish pelau, more commonly known as warap. For those interested in getting fresh-from-the-sea ingredients, a variety of fresh fish, shrimp, conch and oysters will also be available for purchasing.
These offerings should be appealing to seafood connoisseurs in particular, given Carli Bay’s reputation for bountiful catches. In recent years, that location has become known as the best place for cutlass fish. So abundant is the supply, that it is being exported to China and Miami.
Of course, it helps that the cutlass fish is regarded as a delicacy with medicinal properties. Also known as the largehead hairtail, it is a marine fish which has a band-like silver body which is elongated and compressed.
Although it is just two days to the festival, Gouveia is appealing for T&T’s corporate community to provide sponsorship.
Not only is the festival poised to develop into a major tourist attraction, she said, but there is also potential to being in much needed US currency for the country.
This is not the first time the festival is being held.
Fishermen have been staging the event on a smaller scale but did not have the resources to market it well. With the involvement of the business chamber, they are anticipating a bigger and better event on Saturday.
Gouveia hopes the significance of the fishing community as “a sanctified area where the Hindus do shaving and the Baptist do their rituals” will also draw visitors.
“This is a pilot project that we are doing and we hope to get support. The Couva Nalis library is playing a big part. A lot of people are doing things in the area, so we are trying to empower the community.
Entrepreneurs from the community will also be featured,” she said.
Couva-Point Lisas Chamber president Ramchand Rajbal Maraj said the festival is was part of the business group’s economic development programme for the area. He said it is aimed primarily at encouraging the growth of the local fishing industry.
