De­spite the threat posed by Hur­ri­cane Beryl’s pas­sage through the South­ern Wind­wards, fish­er­men in South Trinidad say they will be stay­ing at the coast­lines to mon­i­tor their ves­sels in case the storm surge sweeps the pirogues away.

At Ota­heite Bay yes­ter­day, over 50 boats were an­chored. Some fish­er­men were seen wad­ing through the chop­py wa­ters, se­cur­ing boats and in­stalling ad­di­tion­al an­chors.

Fish­er­man Vi­jay Kan­hai said the fish­er­men were tak­ing all pre­cau­tions.

“The weath­er is bad, and we have to make sure the boats are se­cured. We have to stay here. Yes, that is a risk, but we can­not let the boats go fur­ther out or get dam­aged on the shore,” Kan­hai said.

He men­tioned that if the weath­er be­comes dan­ger­ous, some of their ropes might snap be­cause not every­one was able to re­place them with new ones.

An­oth­er fish­er­man, Sher­az Gaffoor, ex­pressed ap­pre­hen­sion about the ap­proach­ing hur­ri­cane but said they had no choice but to mon­i­tor their boats on shore.

“This is our liveli­hood. We do not know what will hap­pen to­mor­row, but we are still tak­ing pre­cau­tions,” Gaffoor said.

“Most of the fish­er­men have pulled up their boats be­cause they are scared. You could leave your boat, go to sleep, and wake up to find the boats gone then what will you do?” he ques­tioned.

Gaffoor said the seas were al­ready rough.

“But based on what we see com­ing to­day, we know there will be some re­al prob­lems for us in the com­ing days,” he re­marked.

With the new aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gin­ning in a few months, Gaffoor said fish­er­men had to buy books for their chil­dren.

“Some peo­ple can­not stay off the sea for more than a week; we have fam­i­lies to take care of so peo­ple will still go out to sea,” he said.

Mean­while, at King’s Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, fish­er­men ex­pressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments.

Mitchell Noel said peo­ple were find­ing it dif­fi­cult to find a safe spot for their pirogues.

“We have no se­cure place to an­chor all the boats. We need some space,” he said. He not­ed that some fish­er­men were still out at sea.

“We’re watch­ing to see what will hap­pen with this storm, and then we will know what to do,” he said. “I se­cured my boat, and I’m not leav­ing it to go any­where. With the weath­er, I am not go­ing out to fish,” Noel said.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have warned peo­ple to seek shel­ter with a Hur­ri­cane Warn­ing in ef­fect for To­ba­go and a Trop­i­cal Storm Watch in ef­fect for Trinidad.