This year's Cornish Sardine season gets underway.

Not many times the dry dock gets to host a yacht......
as the boats begin to assemble for Golowan's maritime celebrations this weekend, football notwithstanding on Sunday.......

back on Newlyn fish market here's just the sort of fish that Prosenjit Bhattacharya from the Greenbank Hotel, Falmouth couldn't wait to get his hands on during his Newlyn visit with Seafood Cornwall at the helm this week....
maybe he'll cook up some new recipes for Cornish Soles.........

and as a further sign of the summery times, the langoustine appear in the big beamer's log book.......

in the first days of the new season, why's top Cornish Sardine man Pete smiling with an empty tub?......

that's because he's just loaded the wagon with the rest of his night's work......

now it's time to wash down the Resolute, after a fruitless steam to the Eddystone of Plymouth earlier in the week only to find huge marks of tiny sardines the boys headed back to home waters and have been chasing marks of better quality fish north of the Wolf - years ago when the local boats fished with drift nets, Land's End Radio used to broadcast to busy shipping letting them know where the boats were - later, in the 1970s, many Scottish pursers had narrow escapes with passing traffic as they fished off Land's End chasing the huge shoals of mackerel ....

the short movie above harks back to a time when tea drinking and pipe smoking on the job were the norm and terms like ship-to-shore, wireless, big set, teleprinter, telex, link call, traffic route (TR) and "I haven't got anything today for you old man" were used by an small army of operatives whose faceless voices came to be readily recognised.........

things were equally blue for the Lyonesse........

has our harbour master avail himself of a new high-speed harbour patrol boat to chase those errant swimmers, divers and surfers?.......

ice heads for a beamer........

just clearing her lungs.......

looks like it's going to be another sultry day in the Bay.

Escapes from German Occupied France to Newlyn & Secret Operations from Cornwall to Occupied France 1940-1944 at the historic Benbow Pub, Penzance.

With the arrival of the Free French flotilla on Monday in Newlyn, after which the boats will move to Penzance Dock, comes an exhibition at the Admiral Benbow pub in Chapel Street, Penzance. The exhibition tells the story of escapes from occupied France during the Second World War when members of the Free French Army as De Gaulle called them made their way to Newlyn and Penzance. Some of their relatives will be around to add first hand experience to the stories.

To see the exhibition "Escapes from German Occupied France to Newlyn & Secret Operations from Cornwall to Occupied France 1940-1944 at the Admiral Benbow, Chapel Street, Penzance go upstairs and then go to the end of the bar.

Open daily, 11.00pm -5.00pm - ends 2.00pm on 1st July

Signs of high summer - jelly on the move!

Someone might want to provide a name for this beast from the deep in Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight shot courtesy of Mike from Captain Stan's Fish, Bembridge, Isle of Wight.

Chef's delight under a mackerrel sky!

There's no better way for a chef to get to know his ingredients than to see them in their natural habitat first hand - so when Prosenjit Bhattacharya from the Greenbank Hotel, Falmouth took a trip out with old mackerel hand Chris Morley in the early hours for a spot of handlining the chances are it would be smiles all round!

Prosenjit created a nicely observed image album that recorded the visit to Newlyn and trip aboard the Rachel & Paul.

Med Adventure bound away!

A chance to note how AIS can give an apparent track rather than a real one - the Med Adventure spent the night in Newlyn before heading off round the corner - only by clicking on each waypoint tracked in the AIS route will the times become apparent - otherwise the software just joins the dots over the last 24 hours!

Med adventure - nice thought!

Currently, the ILB has a good lead on its larger sibling in the call out stakes......
but on a Thursday evening some of the crew take to the water and race in the Bay, good to see the old hands like Mr Henderson (at the mast) give youngsters like Sam a chance to take it easy and man the helm......
a snip at around £2.4 million.....built by Farmont Yachts, Antalya, Turkey the Med Adventure was the first of a new series called "Trawler series" designed by Kevin Kerwin with interior design by Rene van der Velde and completed in 2004.

With a displacement of 100 tons, 21.32m long, a beam of 6.20m and a draft of 1.50m the two main engine are 480 hp Caterpillar 34306Cs which give he a maximum speed of 12 knots
and a range of 5.000 nm at 8 knots. She was making around 10 knots on her way from Cowes to Newlyn......
a very popular hull form in the US of A.......
with this particular design allowing those on board to take full advantage of the deck spaces aft......
op for'ard, the mini bulbous bow will at least shave something off the fuel costs, though at that price would you really worry too much?.......
meanwhile back on planet earth, the bots aboard the Ajax put their hard won efforts ashore, no doubt having enjoyed many of the sights of the sea at this time of year, dolphins and diving gannets to name but a few......
the monsters of the deep are blooming in the heat........
and the evening sky makes for an interesting mix of hues.

But I wanted it rare!

Here's a hot tip on how to tell the rareness (or otherwise ) of your fish - or steak for that matter. For this you'll need one of those bits of kitchen equipment that you never think you'll need until you do - the humble kitchen skewer - available from your local butcher - just ask. Apart from the obvious skewering of meat - what else would you use to pierce two holes in a coconut to get at that milk?

To determine the doneness of fish insert your humble metal skewer for 5 seconds through the side,

touch to your lip and if it is cold - yer steak is rare
if slightly warm - medium rare
quite warm - medium
hot - somewhere past medium
and if it burns your lip the chances are you'll have to start again but some blackness to the flesh may also give the game away......!