Alya, Dodging for 24 hours.

The Guilvinec registered trawler Alya is currently working south of the Scillies.......

though for the last twenty-four hours she has been dodging head to wind as can be seen from her AIS tack, heading into the south westerly seas to begin with before her last run as she heads west. The boat steams slowly with her bow facing directly into the wind to minimise the amount the boat rolls, eventually coming round 180º and making her way back to a start point and repeating the move........

wind height data from the Sevenstones Lightship just a few miles north of where the Alya is currently working shows a swell height between 10-20 feet.

Fish on.

Despite the atrocious weather, a small fleet of Breton boats are still fishing away. Included in the AIS tracks are those of the Newlyn netter, Silver Dawn making her way home to land.........

as the wind continues to hover just under a steady 40 knots and the air pressure has steadied at around 29.2 millibars.

Live from St Enodoc - Nathan Oultlaw with Paul Ainsworth cooking masterclass.

Nathan shares a moment with fellow chef Paul Ainsworth from across the river Roc at the end of his final chef's masterclass for the year - keep an eye on the web site for next year's similar events.

Join Nathan and Paul for a six-course fine dining dinner with live interviews and demonstrations. The live event will be happening here, today, at 6pm. Catch the live masterclasses with Nathan Outlaw and Paul Ainsworth from the web site here.


Check out the soused mackerel dish - a great use for mackerel at Christmas - and those Panko breadcrumbs make an appearance again! 

Weather data - what's in a weather chart.

Typical weather data pattern for an approaching depression heading in from the Atlantic - taken from the weather station aboard the now un-manned Sevenstones Lightship. The barometer falls (barometric pressure) as the centre of the low nears the south west - the wind speed increases in the other direction with similar rapidity.

The current sat chart shows the first depression to hit currently at 960 millibars - which is quite low........

twelve hours on and the chart for 0600 tomorrow morning has the low deepening to 943, which is very low - the closer the isobar lines around the centre of the low are together the stronger the wind - looks like the west coast of Scotland is due for a hammering again.

This chart is a print out from a weather fax machine aboard the Breton boat, Le Heidi when she was sheltering in Newlyn on the 11th January 1993 - it shows the 940 millibar depression moving at 25 knots across the Atlantic........

before deepening to one of the deepest lows ever recorded at a predicted 911 millibars it hovered around 915 - unless someone knows different?......

sou'west of Ireland a weather buoy's chart has the wave height dropping over the last 24 hours from a high point of 32 feet around midnight last night to around 20 feet this evening.........

and all hands tied up alongside - though unlike not too many years ago, there's not a single French boat in sight!

At sea, an old saying has it that; wind before rain, set your sails again, rain before wind, sheet your sails in - in other words, if the heavy rain comes first and is followed by a rising wind (generally in this area from the south west) - look out!

Monday morning - with a forecast looking less than promising for the week.

Big moon means a big tide as the netters look forward to a week ashore.......

and big tides mean big squids........

and even, it seems,big bass fishing at the Stone.......

enough to keep the big boats and big buyers happy.......

paying big bucks for these monk tails.......

getting plenty of interest from a few market visitors........

fishes view through the hand grip of a harbour box.

Ajax lands at the end of another neep tide.

Skipper talk, discussing the forecast for the coming week........

as the first of the boxes exit the fishroom.......

ready for Monday's market.......

with an extra pair of hands to make things easier......

it's time for the Ajax to get her fish ashore......

steady as she goes.......

before heading for the market fridge......

looks worse than it is.......

the rub marks on the stern give an indication just how much she rolled her way home from west of the Scillies.......

Tom texts the news ashore.......

before heading up top........

to haul a few tiers of nets ashore......

then it's time for a visit from the monk-man.......

just the paperwork to do........

back on the harbour, the fender production line is in full swing.......

someone's set Debs off again!

All in a day's work.

An AIS shot of three boat's tracks. The top boat is a gill netter working gear on some inshore ground before moving off and stopping at a couple of wrecks. While the bottom tracks show two inshore trawlers, both shooting in an area known locally as 'the Westen Ends' before towing out towards the ground known as 'Nor'west of the Wolf' (as in Wolf Rock Lighhouse).