Con Co island acts as a buffer for the northern (Tonkin) gulf, shielding it from storms and rough seas.
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Fishermen from Vietnam’s northern provinces have long treated Con Co, situated 30 kilometers from the mainland in the central province Quang Tri, as a base while fishing in the gulf.
Sometimes, when they feel homesick, they can look southwards through their binoculars and see this green strip of land jutting out of the blue sea and console themselves that they are not far from home.
On the island, nowhere is busier than the wharf as fishing boats constantly enter and leave the island. Around Con Co is a vast fishing ground of 9,000 square kilometers.
During bad weather, the otherwise sparsely-populated island turns into a heaving mass of bodies as hundreds of boats come to shelter and a thousand men sit around to drink and chat.
Locals can hear all kinds of Vietnamese accents – from those spoken in Quang Ninh and Hai phong down to Quang Tri.
It is a happy and relaxed time, a fisherman jokes.
“Whenever a storm hits, locals enjoy the fun with the fishermen and their singing,” Nguyen Quang Thanh, the chief of the island, says.
“We all drink alcohol brought from the mainland.
“Before starting a drinking party in Con Co, the senior fisherman at a table always performs a brief ceremony to commemorate those who died at sea,” a local named Nguyen Van Dieu says.
The man pours alcohol in a cup and takes it to the edge of the water. There, he scoops up a handful of sand from the beach and pours the alcohol in it before throwing it into the sea.
The soil is meant to relieve the departed souls’ homesickness for their motherland, Dieu explains.
Only then does the party begin.
“Some fishermen come to the island just to feel land beneath their feet or relieve their homesickness before resuming their work,” he says.
Ten years ago only ten families lived on the 2.2-square-kilometer island.
But since then many people, mostly from the Volunteers’ Forces, have moved in here, taking the permanent population to 300.
Le Quang Lanh, the island district’s party secretary and chairman of the people’s committee, says his biggest concern is building schools.
Now there is just one school – the Hoa Phong Ba kindergarten.
“It is not an unusual sight to see a fishing boat set anchor and some men walk straight to the school to see their children,” Hoang Thi Tham, a care giver at the school, says.
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