By Cynthia Robertson

New dockside market nets renewed interest in local fishing industry

Every Saturday morning just beyond the south end of the Embarcadero in San Diego, local fishermen literally tie up their boats at the Fish Harbor Pier in Tuna Harbor and sell what they caught that week at the new open-air Tuna Harbor Dockside Market.

Open since the first Saturday in August, the venue has been welcomed by everyone from customers, to fishermen, and the Port of San Diego. The new Dockside Market has netted a renewed interest in San Diego’s fishing industry, and people crowd in to buy everything from albacore to razor crabs to wavy turban-top snails.

On the day the market launched, County Supervisor Gregory Cox welcomed the new enterprise.

“For consumers, this market will bring food straight from the ocean to their table. That’s good, because by promoting locally caught fresh seafood, we can reduce our dependence on imported seafood, reduce the carbon footprint of the seafood we eat, and support the local fishing industry,” Cox said. “The market will also turn what was a quiet, unused pier into a vibrant, attraction for local residents and tourists,” he said.

Cox has championed the region’s Blue Economy, a phrase used to refer to maritime related industries. A 2012 study sponsored by the San Diego Workforce Partnership, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation, and The Maritime Alliance showed that the Blue Economy in San Diego is worth $14 billion in direct revenue and includes more than 46,000 jobs across 1,400 companies.

Commercial fishing is just one of several sectors in the Blue Economy that Cox supports.

“The opening of the new seafood market on Fish Harbor Pier is a milestone that our fishing community, the Port of San Diego and the County of San Diego have worked very hard to achieve,” said Jennifer Windle, director of marketing and communications for the Port of San Diego.

A $550,000 study commissioned by the Port and funded by the Coastal Conservancy pointed to a revitalization of the fishing industry. Direct marketing and improvements in fishing infrastructure were the two most important issues related to revitalization, according to Peter Halmay, member of the San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group (SDFWG), a nonprofit organization comprised of local fishermen. SDFWG represents trap, dive, net, and experimental, as well as hook and line fishing, and was established to protect the interests and traditions of commercial and local fishing.

“A key element of the Port of San Diego’s mission is to promote our working waterfront industries that provide 11,000 direct local jobs,” Windle said.

Halmay, a San Diego-based commercial fisherman for more than 40 years, said the new market helps increase awareness of the long history of San Diego’s thriving commercial fishing industry. People moving to San Diego from across the world all helped build the fishing community.

Arnold Fernandes, who is more than 90 years old now, was just a baby when his family emigrated from Portugal at the end of the First World War and settled in Gloucester, Massachusetts. There his father continued his career of commercial fishing, which he had begun when he was just 12 years old. He fished as a dory man off the Grand Banks in the North Atlantic until, like many other Portuguese fishermen Fernandes said, he moved to escape the ruthless weather on the North Atlantic.

“My family moved to San Diego in 1926 when I was only two years old, where we continued fishing, and building boats up until the late ‘70s,” he said.

With regard to the new open-air fish market, Fernandes said that he thinks it is a great idea both for the fishermen and consumers.

“I don’t think that I or my children will ever see the tuna industry come back to San Diego, which once was the tuna capital of the world,” Fernandes said. “All top canners like Chicken of the Sea, Bumble Bee, and Starkist have gone foreign due to environmental pressure, rising costs, and foreign competition.”

But the fresh fish industry will survive, he believes, as do other currently working fishermen, due to demand by residents, markets, and restaurants for fresh seafood.

One such local restaurant is Puesto, a modern Mexican restaurant located two blocks from the Dockside Market at the new Headquarters at Seaport District. Luisteen Gonzalez, Puesto’s executive chef, is partnering with the fishermen and offering a special Mercado Fish Taco, featuring catch straight from the boats. Each Saturday, Gonzalez finds out what kind of fish will be brought in and then orders up to 30 pounds to create the special tacos. Some recent catches have included yellow fin, dorado and red snapper.

San Diego fisherman Dan Major said that the new Dockside Market has made his fishing ventures much more interesting.

“It used to be a grind to have to catch tonnage to satisfy the wholesalers, enduring all sorts of weather for days on end,” said Major, who spends as much as five days a week out in the Pacific on his boat, Plan B.

“Now we can bring in 200 pounds of this or that, a whole variety. The market has brought the fun back to fishing,” he said.

The Tuna Harbor Dockside Market is open every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more information, go to thdocksidemarket.com.

—Cynthia Robertson is a freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].