In the beginning of July, the preparation begins: the boats are painted, cleaned, the engines and compressors are fixed, the crews are gathered and another season of underwater reaping of algae begins. During three months one of the hardest toils performed at sea in some points of the Portuguese coast will be carried out.

Work begins ashore, early in the morning, at Carrapateira and Azenha do Mar. It is near the "wall of sorrows", the name given to the wall facing the sea at Azenha do Mar, that the algae reapers look at the sea and decide whether or not to work that day. It is also the place where they gather when the weather is bad and where they talk about the future of their activity and remember past harvest times. When the sea allows them to proceed, they use small punts to reach the larger yellow boats they use to gather the algae. The yellow colour of the boats, together with the blue and white flag, are immediate signs of the activity and presence of divers in the area. There are two types of boats. The larger ones have a crew of eight men, six divers and two "moleques", the name given to the men that stay on board to pull the net bags full of algae reaped by the divers. The smaller boats, actually punts equipped with a compressor, usually have two divers and one "moleque".

It is an extremely hard work. During preparatory work, the divers have to pay attention to the smallest details regarding their suits and accessories, as they know that any problem with the diving suit or with the equipment they use to breathe may condition their performance under water and increase the risk of hazards. They also have to be very careful with the consequences from a prolonged stay under water. Before diving, the algae reapers put improvised bandages around their wrists to facilitate the work and minimize the pain, cover their bodies with oily substances to make it easier to put on and adapt the diving suit to the body and use ladies' stockings under the suits. some even use two pairs of stockings, one for the legs and another one for the trunk. They make a hole to put them over the head and then let them slip over the arms and the trunk. The stockings make it easier for them to move and avoid cuts in the skin near the joints. These cuts, sometimes very deep, take long to heal due to the daily contact with the salty water and the diving suits. There have already been cases where those cuts became severe wounds that forced the reapers to quit from this activity. They cover their hands with rubber gloves (such as those used in the kitchen) and sometimes use finger-stalls made of cloth or rubber to protect the fingers from the sea-urchins hidden among the algae and from the sharpest lumps of the rocks where the algae are fixed. They also put on their back a plank, which will help to keep their trunk in an upright position while they are under water, so as to avoid the pain caused by a prolonged and forced position. All these are empirical solutions that, to a certain extent, reduce the effort.

The noise made by the compressors announces another day of work under water. The air is gathered by the compressor and sent through the hoses (some of them 50 meters long) to the divers. The hoses connect them to life and to the surface. They use them to breathe and to be pulled to the surface when their bags are full.

After all the preparatory work is done in the boat, the time comes to dive. With a jump, a somersault or, in more professional cases, with a backwards dive, they begin another day of algae reaping. They descend quickly towards the bottom, starting a cycle that will last from six to eight hours. A net with a hole with an iron loop is tied to their waist to be used as container for the algae they reap. They perform the same repetitive movements, until filling the bags with the so-desired algae they call "erva" or "limo". Then they pull the hose once of twice, to signal the "moleque" that he has to pull them to the surface. They hang the bag on the hook of the pulley mounted on the boat and receive another empty bag. They repeat this cycle fifteen, twenty or even more times a day. They may take fifteen to thirty minutes to fill a bag, depending on the quantity of algae and on the diver's skill, motivation and strength.

Most divers are aware of the dangers inherent in a prolonged work under water (usually between six and ten meters), but this does not avoid accidents. Sometimes they need to risk to go deeper, which may cause embolisms. When accidents happen, the divers have to use a decompression chamber (there is only one in Portugal, in Almada, at the premises of the Navy at Alfeite) or to dive far deeper and stay there for some minutes to free the nitrogen accumulated in the blood vessels. This is a very risky option that may lead to more severe consequences than strong pains in the joints - lifelong damages or even death. The work performed by the "moleques" on board is also very hard and exhausting. They have to pull the bags filled by three divers - each "moleque" is in charge of one of the sides of the boat - and to arrange the bags on board to keep the boat balanced and to find space for as many bags as possible. The "moleques" also pull the hoses connected to the divers. Among so many bags covering the deck one could be confused as to who owns each bag. This does not happen because each diver as a small rope of a specific colour to identify the bag.

Around 1 p.m. the compressors remain silent for a brief moment. It is when the divers go on board to a quick and meagre meal: they cannot lose time with the digestion as it is under water that they earn their living. There are even stories of more greedy divers who, in the beginning of the season, when the algae are more abundant, do not even come on board to eat, rather grabbing something to eat in water.

Unloading the algae is another stage that requires a strong effort. In some places with fishing ports, the effort is minimised by the use of mechanical instruments (such as pulleys or small cranes) mounted on the peer. Those machines convey the bags full of algae from the boats to the tractors or trucks that will transport them to the places where they will be unloaded and dried. At Azenha do Mar and Carrapateira, however, this work has to be made by the same men that have already been working for six to eight hours at the sea, under the pressure of the water. The bags are unloaded from the boat onto a punt and from the punt to the tractor, all by the force of the men's arms. On the whole, sixty to eighty kilos of algae, wet and slippery, borne on men's backs, while walking on an irregular and wet ground, with the sea water flowing under their feet. It is a unique succession of efforts.

The drying of the algae turns this activity into a familiar one. Actually this task is usually performed by the diver's relatives, who take the algae out of the bags and spread them to dry and later turn the on to dry uniformly. Here too only the most experienced have the know-how to avoid that the algae reach the factory too dry (Iberagar, at Coina, is presently the single algae-processing unit operating in Portugal). It they get there too dry, their weight will be much smaller and the diver will lose some money. On average, the algae have one third of their weight when dry. Therefore, it is necessary to discover the optimal degree of dryness, to balance profits with the risk of the algae being rejected by the factory. The most experienced are generally the elderly. It often happens that the volume of a heap of algae is not in direct proportion with their weight, depending on the expertise of those who treated them.

The underwater reaping of algae is, in all its stages, an activity where man's physical effort reaches ultimate heights. Those involved have to undergo long hours of draining work, with a constant repetition of movements in an adverse environment and under varying atmospheric pressure, often without compliance with diving rules. It is a huge effort under circumstances to which human nature is not used that makes this work one of the hardest, toughest and riskiest performed in Portugal.