The wind blowing from the Tyrrhenian Sea repels the waters of the Tiber inland, diverted into the navigable canal, close to the Fiumicino dock, where the Eternal City meets the sea.
Ph. Ludovica Baratta
At the end of the pier, in the shadow of the old lantern, some insatiable lover of the sea lets himself be bathed by the splashes, with the waves apparently irritated by not being able to drag the rocks away. With their backs to the dock, the anglers, sated with optimism and brackish air, insist on looking for the sea bass and the sea bream that have arrived under the cliff, even when the clouds seem low and promise showers.
Ph. Ludovica Baratta
The promenade where the canal sticks out of the profile of the coast is a choice for gourmets: there are no white beaches, the water is that of the ports. But it is enough to breathe deeply to understand why there is always movement on the piers, passersby jumping between the stretched nets and the drying hawsers, fishermen stacking boxes of squid and mullet, children looking interested in the movement of the crabs still alive.
The right moment, the one able to make you savor the almost incomprehensible magic of the dock, is the return of the fishing boats, with the sky turning pink. The unhurried arrival, the water splitting in front of the prows and crashing into the concrete, the mooring operations have now become routine, on the salt-eaten bollards.
Ph. Ludovica Baratta
The soundtrack is unmissable: cries of birds excited by the prospect of some fish scraps, shouts of greeting, orders in Roman and Arabic - as most of the crews come from Tunisia - a few ship sirens every now and then, and the chatter of negotiations for two boxes of prawns and one of octopus.
It only takes a few minutes and the dock gets crowded. Ali, a Tunisian fisherman, improvises his stall directly on the concrete, but does not give in on the price of the fish because - he smiles and jokes - an old saying goes that the first customer should not discount, otherwise nothing is sold.
Ph. Ludovica Baratta
Sometimes the most unscrupulous fishermen bring in boxes of sea bass all the same size, trying to convince naive visitors that it is the prey of a lucky day. But now even the most inexperienced people recognize farmed fish, so the bargaining ends quickly, and even the seagulls that watch the comings and goings from above, as if they were the guardians of the port, seem to have sarcastic looks.
Ph. Ludovica Baratta
But the mystery of the sea is also there, in the dimension of a frontier life without rules. It is an unbridgeable mental distance, it is the distance from what is hidden under the waves and that attracts, because no one will ever be able to fully understand it.