Jim's on his eleventh Marathon!

Big Jim Portus would really appreciate some support if you can this weekend - he's running his eleventh London Marathon in aid of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen - that wonderful organisation that steps in at a moments notice when things go wrong for fishing families. There are two bog centres in Devon and Cornwall, one in Newlyn and Jim's local in Brixham.


Royal National Mission To Deep Sea Fishermen Charity Registration No. England & Wales No. 232822, Scotland No. SC039088 The Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen provides care, compassion and support to working, retired and disabled fishermen and their families. Deep-sea fishing is dangerous and unpredictable. Hardship and tragedy are facts of everyday life in the UK’s fishing


Here's Jim's just giving page to find out more.

Spring tide is here

Now showing at the Yew Tree Gallery, Penzance until May.

Ajax hake's on the menu at Senara

Caught 120 miles west of Newlyn, landed and sold then prepared and cooked 2 miles east of Newlyn.......

pan fried hake soon sold out at Penwith College's Senara restaurant .......

 which is not surprising as at well less than £10 for a three course meal.........

 dishes like this roast chicken just fly off the plate......

 stopping briefly on the hotplate and about to go..........

another portion is whisked out the door to a packed house with its view over Mount's Bay and St Michael's Mount.

Plotting the potter.

The Rowse crabber, Intution leaving Newlyn

Just appearing on the chart coming away from Newlyn in the early hours, the crabber Intuition heads back to her fishing ground off Land's End. The AIS clearly shows the ten strings of 95 pots she worked yesterday - right on the edge of the busy shipping lanes. The strings lay east-to-west, and as soon as a string is hauled the boat turns round and shoots them away again. Hauling is done 'head-to-wind', and into the face of the weather. Bigger crabbers can and do fish through weather that would have most boats heading for home.

Cod loins in puff pastry cases

 Two good loins of white fish given a head start in the pan, skin side down until crisp, in this case cod but hake would have been equally as good......

 just gives you time to roll out tea plate sized bases and prick around the centres to prevent the dough from rising.........

place the fish on the dough bases and top of with a salsa of roasted pepper, onion and aubergine - courgette maybe and a few slices of chorizo given a quick singe in the fry pan to release the oil and give them 15-20 minutes at 180 or so......

served with a few of your five a day and yesterday's leftover mash given the deep-heat treatment in a fry pan.

Hot stuff!

Trying out a new fish dish with extra bite? Bored with bland and tasteless chillies? Take a look at a new local supplier for a wide range of truly tasty (but not necessarily hot and fiery) chillies from Vaddens, based in Truro.

Netter's nightmare

Image courtesy of NOAA

With the wind averaging well over 30 knots and held firmly in the west.........

Image courtesy of the Met Office

 as a huge area of low pressure passes slowly over the Bristol Channel

there are only a handful of boats at sea still fishing. However, a big French stern trawler, the St Gothard, is towing very close to where the Newlyn netter, Silver Dawn is working. So close in fact that it looks as though she may have towed right over where the Silver Dawn appears to have a tier of nets - see where the two AIS tracks cross in the bottom sector of the image.