Gysen – Dominique Pouliezou (Mrs. Nomiki in Greece) is 55 years old. She was born in Belgium, but in 1991, she decided to quit her job in Brussels as a secretary in a law firm and follow love. She came to live in the island of Patmos with her husband. He husband is from Patmos and comes from an old fishing family. Just like that, it all started, as well as her involvement in coastal fishing. She worked on her husband’s coastal boat for 5 whole years. After that, she began to learn how to clean, defish and set nets to help with the family business. Later, for a short period of time she was working in the family’s beach seine and in the purse seine.

“See what love does, they can make you switch countries and professions. Even if there are signs that show you that you are going to a wrong direction, I was never scared to change my life and I was not afraid of the sea. I didn’t feel good with my suit, now I feel like myself”.

“We used to start at sunrise to cast the nets, but I didn’t mind, I was in touch with nature and the sea. I raised my family from it. Today, I don’t go fishing anymore but I manage our boats administratively, since we have a dinghy and two wind trawlers”.

“The other captains on the fishing boats always treated me with respect, from the moment I came to the island”.

“The sea equals life, and its protection is the continuation of our lives and our children’s, since now they too are engaged in fishing professionally. “We have to take care of what we have, in order to keep it”, as we say here in Greece and that’s what we have to do with the sea”.