Phuket Fishing Port

While on a drive around Phuket and by chance, we stumbled on the Phuket fishing port, early in the morning when the boats were unloading their catch. The port was buzzing, people everywhere, trucks picking up passive quantities of fish and lots of buyers. Very interesting scene but more particularly one section of the port caught our eyes where a yellow fin tuna wholesale market was in full activity. This depot was not advertised and partly hidden from view behind large industrial curtains. The tunas were unloaded from a Chinese fishing boat and selected by 4 or 5 buyers for the local and Bangkok market. Each fish was tested for quality then cleaned and packed in large cardboard boxes to finish in the truck freezers. Here are some photos of this interesting scene.

These are typical fishing boats found on the andaman in Phuket. These boats are quite large but not the biggest and generally used for fishing squids or laying nets.

Burmese workers go through the morning catch, selecting by hand the fish to sort them by size. This particular worker was not looking at the camera but at a scene between buyers and sellers. His face is covered with a white paste to protect him from the sun.

This old man was going around the fishing port picking up plastic boats and other recyclables to sell to recycling centers. The port is quite dirty and a lot of trash floats around. People going through trash to find plastics and metals to sell is quite common in Thailand.