A Guarda, Sea Port

Overview

“A Guarda, sea port” is a route that shows the intangible and material heritage of the town of A Guarda, in Galicia (Spain).

The River Miño, Mount Santa Tegra and the Atlantic Ocean watch over the municipality of A Guarda. The salt waters of the Atlantic provide the food needed for life and the arghazo used to fertilize the farms; they bring words that are used to name the wind and to nourish the seafaring lives bound to a sea that gives, but also takes.

Over time there has been a settling of knowledge, arts, crafts, songs… linked to the seafaring world. A culture, nourished for thousands of years, that has experienced a profound change in recent decades, fruit of the industrialization process experienced by the whole world but especially by the fishing industry. Today, the old knowledge lives alongside the new ways of the modern world; they have become woven (or blurred) together.

On this journey, we can appreciate certain cultural elements that show the seafaring history of these lands. By making them known, we hope to appreciate the past by nourishing the present and caring for the future.

The route begins with a walk among shellfish, through old family-built constructions that were traditionally used as breeding beds for lobsters, spider crabs, small crabs and other crustaceans. Constructions that became commonplace in the 19^th century, they fell into disuse from the 1960s on.

We continue by entering the A Guarda Harbour, where we can see gamelas, fishing boats that still go out to work, and, if we are lucky, the volanteiro “O Piueiro”, an old vessel reconstructed by the Traditional Boats Association. We can also move into the Lonxa (fish market), a meeting place where fish and shellfish captured by coastal fishing are traded.

When walking through the port, pay attention to the balconies of the houses because you may see fish drying in them. This is one of the oldest conservation techniques.

We then enter into the shed of the Baixo Miño Netmakers’ Association “Atalaia”. Here we will weave knowledge on the manufacture, assembly and repair of different nets and fishing gear. They will show us their ancestral wisdom, which has passed from mother to daughter and has been reinvented and complemented by the creation of other craft products that they now sell in their own shop.

On this route, we will also walk along the sands where algae are still collected to fertilize the crop fields or sell to the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry.

Take a look at the outer harbour wall, you can see various symbols drawn there. They are an age-old code used by the seafaring families of A Guarda to mark their belongings. The cuts were traditionally etched with the cutting tools used to carry out their trade and domestic tools.

Travel with us through these lands, where the arts of the sea weave nets and carve boats from timber to the sound of tavern songs.

Highlights

• Shellfish farming (“cetáreas”), old constructions used to enclose crustanceans.
• A Guarda Fish market, meeting place for trading fish and seafood
• “Atalaia” Baixo Miño Netmarkers’ Association, craftworkers who make and essemble nets and fishing gear.
• Dried Frish, one of the oldest conservation techniques.
• Algae harvesting or “arghacería”, for agricultural and cosmetics uses.
• Seafaring marks, an age-old code used by seafaring families.