Hail the 'umble 'ake, oven baked.

Two reasons the 'umble 'ake should be top choice for everyone's tables at the moment.  One, the fish ought to be had at a reasonable price - owing to the collapse of its biggest market in Spain the auction price here is that of the 1980s and second, because it is a hugely tasty fish when cooked well.

A simple recipe with layers of sliced purple onion for extra sweetness, thinly sliced potato, topped with sliced toms and mushrooms and a good quantity of cream mixed with milk 50/50 seasoned to taste and baked in a foil covered dish till the last 10 minutes for around 40 minutes - check after 30 to see if the sliced spuds are coked through. Veg of choice to accompany what is a very meaty fish.

How fresh is your fish? -try this free iPhone app.

Screen shots of the app in action - for iPhone owners.

An iPhone app from Nofima will assist fishmongers to evaluate how fresh a batch of fish is. The app was launched Wednesday at the European Seafood Exposition in Brussels.

The app is free and is aimed at fishmongers and others wanting to evaluate the shelf life of whole gutted fresh fish.

The freshness of the fish may be evaluated via a few steps, including odour, texture and the appearance of the eyes, skin and gills. The final result appears immediately.

Sun pz sun

Flags fly from Penzance's oldest pub.......

Untitled, the latest restaurant to open in Penzance.....

 waiting for orders, the Scillonian on her day off........

 looks like the World Gig Championships did some severe damage to beer stocks on the Scillys......

 local marine artist, Nick Praed lives and works aboard his boat, the Arkincastle, in Penzance wet dock......

 and his near neighbour has the summer sorted on deck.......

 temporary dock resident, the Elizabeth N has plenty of work to do topsides......

 John Cabot's replica, Matthew,waiting for a weather window before she heads back to her Falmouth base.....

 at Battery Rocks a flock of gulls enjoy riding the hefty offshore breeze.......

 on the Jubilee pool wall, a graffiti artist with a keen interest in gardening has been at work again.......

 open for summer trade, the Poolside Indulgence Cafe........

 still adrift, the Battery Rocks' swimmers' buoy........

 Stanhope Forbes' depiction of the Great Fire of London at the Newlyn School Gallery in Chapel Street.......

while up the road signs that Penzance could be the new Roc, a local, 'up-market' charity shop has an original art work by Damien Hirst for sale in the window. 

No sun, no fish, that easterly wind does its damndest.

About to land on a modern day punt.....

but it's slim pickings for the handline boys this morning......

is it coming yet?........

as the boys on the Cornishman wait for the ice to appear down the chute.

Scillonian sails to the Scillys and back.

Screen shot from VesselTracker app on an iPhone.

The new VesselTracker mobile app allows users to track vessels off the Cornish coast (or any where in the world for that matter) - here the Scillonian can be seen (in real time) making her way back to Penzance for the night. You nver know this app could help you win the nightly bet in the Yacht Inn guesssing when she will appear of Penlee point!

Intuition chasing crabs ashore.

The AIS picked up the Intuition seemingly making her way up Paul Hill in Newlyn tonight!

Rocking Rose of Sharon returns.

A familiar name on a lifebuoy has appeared in the harbour...

with her old fishing number FR23 still clearly visible atop the wheelhouse...

the old St Ives trawler now sports a number of deck lights indicating her new role as a live aboard...

registered in Dartmouth...

sporting the initials ES...

gone are the days when her stern was home to a net drum...

as can be seen in this shot when she was one of  'the clan', a fleet of around ten trawlers that worked from Newlyn (two of the boats in this picture were lost at sea)...

like every trawler, on the odd occasion she was 'mopped up' with her own trawl ...

unlike this shot where she shows another St Ives registered trawler, the Keriolet, her net drum.

The Rose of Sharon is, in some ways, an historic boat. She was built in 1969 for the Stevens family (Crystal Sea II). Although St Ives owned, she, like all the big St Ives boats, worked from Newlyn. As a long liner, on average the boats of this size worked around 26 baskets of lines fishing mainly for ling, skate and pollack. In Summer, the boats could be found fishing over 100 miles West of the Scillys. In her later years the boat was skippered by youngest son Peter Stevens and trawled for white fish. She was also one of a small fleet of boats that prosecuted the prawn fishery in the eighties.

Newlyn, despite being for many years the largest port in England, has never witnessed a new build programme on the scale of that found elsewhere, especially when compared to Breton ports - where many of the boats fish exactly the same grounds as the local fleet. What makes the boat significant in the history of Newlyn is that she was, until the Girl Pat III, the only boat built new to sail from Newlyn since 1969 that required a ticketed skipper (>18m) – to this day. Recent new builds just under the 18m, Sowenna, Intuition and Silver Dawn all represent considerable investment for the local fleet.


Not too sure what father Stevens would make of her current role as a stage for rock music in her home port of Dartmouth!