Chôco (Sepia officinalis)

The chôco is a cephalopod mollusk, not uncommon, especially in the summer, in the coastal waters of Madeira. It is edible and tasty, being caught with a hook, more commonly in trawl nets. Its inner shell, called 'silba' (a corruption of 'siba'), often washes up on the beaches, pecked at by seabirds. The seagull is one of the enemies of this animal, swooping down on it with speed when it approaches the sea surface. The dark liquid that the chôco ejects, clouding the water and thus hiding from its enemies, is called 'ferral' by fishermen, naturally due to its deep rust color. This same liquid is used elsewhere in the manufacture of a brown ink used in painting, known as sepia. Sometimes, when the fisherman raises the boat's anchor, he finds it entwined in a strange object, similar to a bunch of grapes, whose black, soft, and somewhat pear-shaped berries have the flaccidity of rubber: these are the chôco's eggs, called 'sea grapes,' dyed by the ferral itself. They were deposited around the anchor rope while the boat was anchored, or 'apoitado,' in the characteristic expression of seafaring men.