“I think this is the Arabian Sea,” Dan said as we ate dinner on the beach. “The Arabian Sea!” I didn’t know what body of water this was, but–the Arabian Sea!? “Isn’t that where the Somali pirates operate?” Dan looked out at the water, frowning as if he might bring those pirate ships into focus. “Is it?” It’s amazing, really, what we don’t know about geography. “I think,” Dan said, pushing his food around on his plate, “that we’re a long way from Somalia.” But as soon as we got back to the room, we checked. Yes, the beautiful sea we were on the edge of is indeed the Arabian sea, but it’s over three thousand miles from Kerala to Somalia as the crow flies, which is, presumably, also as the pirate ship swims. This seems a safe enough distance. I decided not to worry about it. Despite a vanishingly small risk of pirates, we slept soundly. With a long drive ahead of us, we rose before the sun. In the ocean in front of our hotel–there was a boat!

In fact, there were similar boats all up and down the coast as far as we could see.

The boat landed…

…and soon the familiar tug-of-war began again. And so we came to understand that the fishing activity we’d observed yesterday was the second catch of the day, and that these fishermen are hard at work even before dawn.

Not everyone cared to watch. They’ve probably seen it all before.

The fishermen were still hauling in their catch when it came time for us to go. And even today, weeks later, they probably still haul in a couple of catches a day–undisturbed by pirates.