The mussels grow on the raft, hanging from ropes, for a year and a half.
Xiana Otero is thirty-six and has two mussel rafts in the Ría de Arousa. Her father set them up in 1974. She is the first woman in her family to work the rafts and one of the few on the island.
As a child she got seasick on the boat. She studied business in Santiago and worked at a bank in Vigo. When her father said he was selling the rafts, Xiana asked for them to be put in her name.
She says you do not feed the mussels: the estuary does. If the estuary is healthy, the mussels are healthy. Every tin sold abroad is a raft that does not get sold to a fund.
