Monday.

A proper autumnal start to the week, with the strong weekend winds having dropped away, the ETV Anglian Princess sits quietly at anchor in the Bay........

one of a couple of boats to land this morning, big cod from the beamer James RH.........

just checking one of the inshore trawler Imogen's boxes of fish.......

half a dozen boxes of best bass should make a premium price with much of the country being starved of quality inshore fish over the last few days......

the ring netters were kept busy on the Cornish Sardines last night, well over twenty tubs in this stack alone......

the bilge pump is kept busy on one of the harbour's relics, fit only as the subject for artistic endeavour these days..........

an end of season yacht checks out the bottom for a safe anchorage.......

view from the James RH across the harbour to the just arrived Cornishman........

scouting for birds.......

there's a good chance one of these will get a good soaking in a minute......

the grass may still be green but the leaves give the game a way, Autumn is here.

Feeding time!

Blue Reef Aquarium Newquay at 4pm when the fish in the main aquarium are fed - watch yer toes!

Mounts Bay from the train.

The clouds give it away.

Fishing for hake, Ajax sails from Newlyn.

Bound away with 16 hours steaming ahead of her. The shipping forecast for area Sole where she will be tonight is, West or Northwest 5-7, decreasing 4 at times, sea state moderate or rough, occasionally very rough with showers, squally at first, visibility moderate or good - what would be described by those in the trade as 'uncomfortable'. Follow skipper Alan's progress from the Twitter box on TTG as he chases the hake west of the Scillies.

Google changes images display!

Out of the blue, Google have made a change to the way the bigger images are displayed on their Blogger platform(which Through the Gaps uses). As a result, when a small or thumbnail image is clicked, all the images in that post appear in a 'lightbox'. Unfortunately, the settings currently employed by Blogger mean that the new images in the lightbox are only marginally bigger. I have managed to manually edite some of the latest posts to counteract the affect that the new changes have made. Here's hoping that when the back-room boys at the Blogger development team are back behind their workstations on Monday morning that they fix this bug!

Seth Lakeman at St Ives' Festival - you missed it!

 Sold out almost on the day tickets went on sale, virtuoso violinist folk singer Seth Lakeman blew the roof off the Guildhall in St Ives last night. A few lucky people were there to hear the man himself.

Ajax AH32, the first fishing boat in England to use Twitter!

Ajax AH32, the Newlyn gillnetter that fishes exclusively for hake has become the first fishing vessel in England to use Twitter to report her daily catches live from sea. Skipper Alan Dwan from Waterford in Ireland will test the technology next week as part of an ongoing campaign to create a stronger market for his catch.  

The Ajax's Fisherman owner, Andrew Pascoe is one of several Newlyn skippers striving for accreditation for a fish species that seems to have dipped under the horizon for the country's top chefs and restaurants. Probably the most versatile fish landed on the market at Newlyn - and definitely the most underrated - hake prices are often lower now than they were 20 years ago as this invoice for a landing made in 1991 shows!

These prices are for fish weighed in stones - the 2-4 kilo hake at £10 per stone equate to around £1.50 (10/6.2)  per kilo - which is what these fish have been making during the summer months!

With a smaller fleet working the fishery hake catches remain steady throughout the year ensuring continuity of supply with the net boats fishing over the neap tides. One possible new market now being explored is for deep fried hake - the local fish and chip shop Lewis' can't sell their new line quick enough!


Through the Gaps has created a special, "Newlyn Hake Fishing" Twitter alert box on the home page of the blog - hopefully skipper Alan will find the time in between hauling and shooting to tweet direct from the wheelhouse!