Located at 'La Casa del Mar', Paseo Juan Carlos II, Ibiza
(This is the road that runs from the Pacha roundabout along the port front towards the entrance to Marina Botafoch) this little gem of a museum takes you on a journey back in time to the days when fishing was one of the primary occupations available to Ibicencos - up until the last half a century.
It opened in 1984, a year after the Retired Fishermen & Mariners' Club was founded, and is run by members of the club. In fact they own most of the exhibits on show and are happy to show visitors around their collection, whilst regaling them with the stories associated with each artefact.
The museum is open Monday to Friday, but if you should find it closed - ask for one of the retired fishermen in the bar next to the museum. There's always a club member available and happy to show you around.
The items on display cover a vast range and are fascinating: be they an instrument, model, document or photograph. From hand made contraptions designed to catch different varieties of fish, and other denizens of the deep to shipbuilding tools from the beginning of the last century and beyond. Draft construction plans for the first seaplane to cross the Atlantic (which visited Ibiza in 1925) stand alongside a gas mask found in Figueretas after the Germans had bombed the island during the Civil War of 1936!
The museum is small, particularly if you take into account the number of exhibits on display, but it has a very special charm and -after all - there's not normally much room below deck onboard the average boat?
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