Captains face squeeze as fuel costs bite into catch margins

Captain Andrés Morales stood at the wheelhouse of the Esperanza del Mar before dawn, watching the fuel gauge and doing arithmetic. A thirty-year veteran of Costa Mar's inshore fisheries, Morales knows the ledger by heart: diesel at 2.14 florins per litre, a quota of eight tonnes per week, a crew of four to feed, and a boat that burns through 180 litres on a three-day run to the deep-water grounds. The math no longer closes.

Across Puerto Azul's harbour, the story repeats in dozens of small boats. The Costa Mar Fishing Cooperative Federation reported this week that fuel costs have risen 34 percent since January, while the average catch value per tonne has fallen 8 percent. Federal quotas, set in Meridian to balance conservation with harvest, have held steady at regional levels that made sense five years ago but now leave captains with shrinking margins and crews questioning whether the work is worth the risk.

The pressure is reshaping the working week and the calculus of survival for families who have fished these waters for generations. Some captains are shifting to shorter runs, others are experimenting with cooperative fuel-buying schemes, and a few are exploring work in the eco-tourism sector—a pivot that would mark a quiet end to a way of life.