Brixham market opens with fish from an Angel.

Brixham market opened the bidding in its new market last Friday with fish from the beamer Angel Emiel. The fish made near record prices as a the dearth of fish continues thanks to one of the longest spells of prolonged gales for many years. Dover soles made £21 per kilo - thats over £120 a stone in 'old money' - almost £8 a pound on the market!

Also available on the BTA website is this very useful page that lets boat owners and merchants see at a glance what boats and fish are due for auction - a feature 'Through the gaps' is looking at introducing here.

It would seem illogical for a port like Brixham to have spent over £17 million on a new fish market to serive their fleet while in Cornwall there is talk of doing away with such a facility for the sake of a centralised depot somewhere on the A30. Newlyn's proposed market cost is less than a third of Brixham for a greater annual turnover.

Week four, the poorest run of weather for many years.

The lights are on but no one is at home, once again Monday's market was almost devoid of fish....
with the biggest landing coming from the Padstow netter Charisma who along with the Berlewen had managed to get away on Wednesday last week to work in the Channel......
in and out over the weekend, both the Crystal Sea and the Tranquility are back in Newlyn......
full steam ahead!

Antarctic heads south

Spotted on the AIS, the big Irish mid-water tank boat Antarctic headed south.

Saturday's forecast update - Cyclonic 10s.

For the first time in nearly three weeks the Crystal Sea II makes her way out to sea.....
passing the coaster Settina at anchor in the Bay.....
possibly Banksy's Cornish cousin Bashy........
as the Crystal Sea disappears into the heavy rain shower the Prospector ventures forth for a look......
to the untrained eye the Bay might look calm enough, a closer inspection of the horizon several miles distant reveals a different story, with 'hills' of ground sea visible.....
which is what forces Roger aboard the Imogen to head back in through the gaps after a look.......
in front of Newlyn Green, the early stone workings have been revealed again by the heavy seas - the purpose of these is unknown.......
running until the 30th of January, the Marcus Coates exhibition at the Newlyn Orion Gallery.

Child of Brittany - further inquiry into the loss.

The case looking into the loss of the Bugaled Breizh, a regular visitor to Newlyn over the years, has been re-opened again following an appeal in France. All five hands were lost when the boat was thought to have been pulled under by a submarine during a huge NATO exercise off the Lizard in 2004. Michel Douce, the boat's owner and regular skipper was ashore at the time. The original Bugaled Breizh featured in yesterday's post.

What is 40 foot long and floats?

Plenty of characters to name - taken around 1980 when the market had not long introduced plastic boxes - aluminium 'kits' can be seen - they held 10 stones (around 65kg) of fish and were used for ling, cod, ray, skate, gurnards and dogs......
although there were notices (and still are) on the market wall about not spitting, it was common practice for the buyers (and anyone else) to walk all over the boxes of fish during a sale.....
up early in the morning after a gale of wind, Fern skipper Alan Goddard looked out of his front room window overlooking Mounts Bay and on the horizon spotted an unusual shape. Reaching for the glasses he recognised the shape to be a floating container - a quick call to son Steve and they soon had the Fern steaming out across the Bay in search of their floating treasure. After securing the 40' container with a line they towed her back to Newlyn and half the village turned out to see what riches lay within - of course, it might have crossed their minds at some time that containers will only float if what lays within is buoyant enough to support all that steel - so when the container doors were finally opened it came as no great surprise to find the treasure was nothing more than several hundred thousand corks - of all shapes and sizes!

Get together - a single voice.

One of those meetings that may have a place in history has seen fisheries leaders from every sector of the UK come together and form the beginnings of a national strategy to provide a single voice in defence of fishermen and their ability to make a living from the sea around our coast. Marine Protected Areas (MAPs) are the latest in a line of increasingly restrictive measure to help protect fish stocks. Fishing representatives fear that the MAPs may have be introduced with not enough industry consultation - see a previous post.