I’ve only gone fishing a few times in my life, most recently just over a year ago on Lake Taupo in New Zealand, where I caught and promptly released a trout or two. It’s safe to say that I’m no fisherman – and yet I’ve been looking like one by way of my footwear. The fisherman sandal – and I know I’m not alone in this – has become my go-to summer shoe. I wear it not on the docks nor out to sea but on the streets of New York City, where random fluids and stubbed toes on ascending subway steps are prevented from bringing me down by the security of their semi-closed toe.
The fisherman is a lot more functional than your average summer sandal, featuring a toe that is closed by interwoven strips of leather, so that the foot is secure but can still breathe, while drainage (of seawater or rain) is possible. The heel may be closed or there may just be a strap. In the case of the particular model that I’ve taken to – the Sabah Porto – it’s a strap, such that even the heel can say hello. The reason the Porto has fallen so much into my favour has much to do with its fine and supple leather. It’s thin like a sock, meaning that it is oh-so-comfortable. Breaking them in took but a few days. I got a couple of blisters on days one and two, nothing a sock barrier couldn’t reduce the pain of, and by day three they were comfortably moulded to my feet. It’s a flat shoe, so if you’re all that interested in support for a ton of walking, you may want to look elsewhere.
Truth be told, the fisherman sandal was on my list of desired souvenirs for a trip to Colombia taken earlier this year. It was a river cruise, from Cartagena to Barranquilla, and I envisioned myself picking up a pair at the top of the trip and drifting downstream with them on. But the place where I really should have been for such shopping was Bogotá – the parts of the country I was traversing were better known for such crafts as palm weaving, and I did take a lot of that home in the form of bags and earrings and tchotchkes. Katalina Mayorga of El Camino Travel, who had helped me with some other recommendations around Colombia, instead suggested I invest in the Sabahs and I am most grateful to her.
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Where and how does one wear the Sabah Porto? In my case, it’s almost every sunny day of the summer so far, although even now as I write this I’m wearing them and it is raining. At weekends and in the evening, my feet are bare within them. When I wear them to work, it’s always with a sock – white, brown, or green for contrast, or matching black to really take things into sock-boot territory. They can be dressed up with Oxfords, peeking out of trousers. They can be worn to the beach – on the crowded sand at Rockaway is where they’ve gotten the most compliments, one guy even chasing me to ask what brand they were. “I thought so,” he said when I told him they’re from Sabah. That’s right.