Future Fades for Fishermen of Northeast Brazil : Lifestyle: Trawlers, shrimp and lobster boats pose outsized challenge to men aboard small log rafts.

In the light of the dying sun, Reinaldo Cavalcanti guided his raft into Recife harbor with the day’s catch of moray eel, whiting and red snapper.

Cavalcanti emptied his wicker basket of fish on the sand and vendors shouted bids.

A woman held out a few bills, worth about $15, and the barefoot fisherman took them. He grunted, stashed the money in his shirt and walked slowly away.

“In the old days, my raft was heavy with fish after just a half day,” said Cavalcanti, a gaunt, sun-browned man of 48. “Now the sea is empty, and I go hungry.”

He speaks for thousands of men on Brazil’s northeastern coast who have fished from log rafts called jangadas and see the end of their way of life approaching.

Shrimp and lobster boats kill tons of fish coincidentally in pursuit of their quarry and huge commercial trawlers leave little for the jangadeiros . Some have even gone to work on the trawlers, or on land.

About 150 jangadeiros still put to sea from Recife’s beaches. Ten years ago, there were five times that number.

“It was all different then--no pollution, no beach lights scaring fish away, and no trawlers,” said Antonio Bizerra de Araujo, head of the fisherman’s union in this city of 1.2 million people.

A trawler takes about three tons of fish every 10 days. Araujo said a jangadeiro would need four months to catch that much.

Shrimp boats often bring in thousands of unwanted fish, tangled and dead in their nets.

“Every day, the trawlers toss hundreds of pounds of dead fish overboard,” said Jose Geraldo de Araujo, a jangadeiro for 53 of his 64 years. “It pains me to watch.”

Making a living on a jangada , a bed-sized raft with a sail and rudder, is risky even without the trawlers.

Jangadeiros must catch enough fish in six months to feed their families and keep them over fall and winter, when stormy seas swallow the rafts and sometimes hurl them onto reefs.

Their resistance to modern technology compounds the danger.

Most are illiterate. They rely on fishing techniques and knowledge handed down the generations, scorning motors, compasses, oxygen tanks and nets.

“A true jangadeiro must love the sea,” said Cavalcanti, who has fished from jangadas since his father took him out at 13. “He cannot hurt the sea. He needs her. He is part of her.”

Intimate knowledge of the ocean gives Cavalcanti an almost sixth sense. The wind, ocean currents, phases of the moon and stars, the color of the water, all guide him to the fish he seeks.

Water the green of emeralds means a reef below, where tasty moray eels might be found. Morays fetch a good price because the trawler nets cannot reach them.

Blacker, deeper water can mean tuna, marlin, even shark.

“We go out farther now because the fishing boats come through and take too many fish,” Cavalcanti said one day as his jangada rode rolling blue hills of water 12 miles offshore.

Jose, his wiry, 16-year-old helper, had a line in the sea.

Suddenly there was a spout of snowy foam, a school of bonito jumping.

“Fish!” Cavalcanti shouted to Jose. “Fish! There he comes!”

A dark shadow rose through the water and a tuna broke the surface with a boiling smash, shooting his full 5-foot length into the air. The fish gleamed silver in the sun, and threw up a column of spray when he hit water again.

“I hooked him! I hooked him!” the boy yelled. He leaned back hard. The heavy pole bowed and line whizzed out.

“Break him!” Cavalcanti called back, clutching the rudder. The raft listed drunkenly on a swell.

The boy reeled in, pulled, then reeled the taut line again, his forearms sweating. The fish made a sweeping turn and a wild leap. It hung in the air for a moment, and nearly took the boy along when it splashed back into the sea.

“Line! More line!” Cavalcanti shouted, but Jose hit the fish more.

He lifted, stretching the line. It held for a moment, then went slack. Jose had lost the battle.

The winner dashed away in a series of jumps like a speedboat, splashing up curtains of spray, and disappeared into a white-crested wave.

“He is gone,” Cavalcanti said, and wiped the salty spray from his eyes. “God, how he could jump! He is a beautiful thing to fight.”

Jose sat quietly, gazing at the waves along the path his lost fish had taken.

As the red sun settled under the horizon and the seas darkened, the jangada turned back to shore.

Cavalcanti looked into the basket. About 20 pounds of fish. Not bad for a day, but not the way it used to be.

“What else can I do?” he said, staring blankly at the harbor lights. “I know the sea. I could not leave her to work there, on the land.”