Landing the Golden Harvest tonight, George on the winch...
Dan the sardine man on the forklift...
Tom on the brail...
Jolyon on deck...
manning the landing winch controls...
it all adds up to another 10 tons of fresh Cornish sardines...
coming ashore...
the Vesta was the last boat in the fleet to land...
a few hours earlier...
the Pelagic Marksman...
became the first UK fishing boat to land a bluefin tuna in years...
which oddly feature several rows of small yellow fins between the dorsal fin and tail...
under a new MMO/Cefas scheme which allows for licensed vessels to land one fish per day at sea as a by-catch - however, despite being given advance notice over three months ago, none of the entitled vessels being given a new variation on their licence to fish for sardines none has actually been issued - this, despite weeks of being told by the MMO that the changes would be made, "by the weekend" - skipper Stefan's frustrations at the lack progress stems from the MMO's publicly expressed intent on reducing discards through licence variations which are designed to stop the current practice of dumping these huge creatures, dead, back in the sea - MMO knew well in advance that this year's Cornish sardine fishery would get underway in early July...
at two metre long, the fish weighed in at 285 kilos...
