Playa de Ondarzabal
20 April 2010
Playa de Ondarzabal is a wooden hull fishing boat built in 1966 in the Murelaga dockyards in Lekeitio. Since 2001 it stopped being used for inshore fishing, and it was turned into a museum dedicated to the life of the high-seas fishermen.
ADN DESIGN and Espiral Ondarea have now performed a thorough internal remodeling in order to bring the fishing systems and the life on an inshore fishing ship closer to the visitors. Likewise, the teaching contents and the quality of the pedagogical information have been reinforced, including topics regarding the protection of the maritime and environmental legacy.
“The expository speech on the ship -said Carlos San José, Project Manager at ADN DESIGN- is focused on the fishermen, but also, on the ones that stay on land, although it has a merely introductory role: Women, children, and all the unions related to the fishing industry. By introducing these characters, we talk at the same time about Lekeitio: its crowded streets, its stores, the market, the church, the ice factory, etc. Therefore, once the visit to the ship is finished, it is an invitation to visit those places that are relevant in the fishermen’s life. A strategy to relate all the legacy and touristic resources available in the villa.”
“Nevertheless,–continues Carlos San José- the main topic is the fishermen that worked on the Playa de Ondarzabal, their experiences and their testimony.” The expository speech is based on three theme blocks: The fishing systems, navigation, and finally, the daily life on the ship. The positive experience acquired and assessed in other visits has served as a starting point to suggest a participative visit where the visitors have experiences related to the resource being explained. In other cases, they are invited to verify something complex with their own hands, for example: how much strength is necessary to get a tuna from the sea? 
The internal organization works have included the adaptation of spaces under deck that until now the visitors could not have access to, such as the greenhouse and the machine room. «For this, the entrance through the forecastle has been allowed," said Carlos San José. He explained that: “The wooden partition separating this compartment from the cellar has also been eliminated, and the separating wall of the greenhouses has been removed to get to the machine room.”
The plan has also included the remodeling of one of the greenhouses to show its actual operation, and the reproduction of the sounds heard aboard an inshore-fishing ship when it is fishing. “An inshore-fishing ship is not a conventional expository space, and therefore, it has required innovating expository resources according to the space and the suggested type of guided visit.” The renewed offer of the Playa de Ondarzabal includes the collection of ethnographic objects, such as educational resources, bait boxes, traps and fishing arts, explanatory panels, and a plasma screen in order to inform the visitors about the fishing activities performed by the ship while it was active, as well as its legacy value.
Labels: Spaces
