By Mark Yokoyama
St. Martin’s ponds are rich. They are alive. They are always changing. They are a cornerstone of both human and natural life on the island.
Ponds concentrate life. Rain falls in the hills, washes down the guts and flows into the ponds. Leaves and dirt come with it – nutrients, the stuff of life. In the pond, this matter settles down into a rich mud. It gets trapped in mangrove roots. It becomes a concentrated richness that feeds life on the pond.
This filtering also keeps the sea clean and clear. It gives coral reefs a chance to grow at their own measured pace. The sea is beautiful, vast and empty. The pond is small, messy and alive in every drop.
Salt ponds were always important to the people of St. Martin. The ponds were used to concentrate sea water until it became salt to harvest and sell. This was done all across the island: The Great Salt Pond, Grand Case, Orient Bay and Chevrise. But people can’t survive on salt alone. The ponds were also a valuable resource for food: fish, shrimp, crab and birds. Sometimes, salt production and fishing went hand in hand.
In Orient Bay, the salt pond was managed at the point where the Salines d’Orient meets the Fish Pond. When it was opened to flood the salt pans, fish were caught as they rushed through the channel. In Simpson Bay, shrimp were caught at night when they passed beneath the bridge. In the Lowlands, fishing on the pond was crucial during high seas when fishermen couldn’t take their boats on the ocean.
In Grand Case, Roland Richardson remembers fishing in the salt pans as a boy. As the water level got lower, fish would be just below the surface. He could hit them with a stick and pick them up from the water. Though the fish were trapped, he never took more than he needed because there was no refrigeration.
The simplicity of those times is gone. In her poem, “Spirit of We Fish Pon”, Laurelle “Yaya” Richards laments the loss of local culture, and the many foods that were once harvested on the pond: shrimp, crab, mullet, bass, 10-pounder and cremole. The life of the pond was the culture of her people and the food in her bowl.
Today St. Martin’s ponds struggle, but survive. Many have been diminished by filling. Most are tainted with waste. But they still remain remarkably alive. Young fish and lobsters still hide around the roots of mangroves. Birds still come from thousands of miles away to pull crabs from the mud. We buy our food from the store now, but animals still feast on the pond.
What do St. Martin’s ponds mean to you? Tell us by writing in to The Daily Herald or to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
