Sea-Spray taking ice in Newlyn.

Renowned for the quality of his fish - skipper Dave Smith takes on two tons of ice from the Cornish Ice Works aboard his mulit-purpose boat the Sea-Spray. The insulated tubs keep the line caught pollack he fishes for at this time of year in top condition.

Busy afternoon in Newlyn.

The mizzen gets furled on the Ajax while she is in port for twelve hours...

before making her way to a berth for the night...

astern of a brace of visiting stern trawlers...

are joined by the Bideford registered Our Olivia Belle...

as she heads for the ice berth...

the Ajax uses a spring to push away from the quay...

as the prawn trawler Vision III heads out Through the Gaps...

the Louisa N makes her way in...

to a berth on the end of the New quay...

there's nearly always at least one crew mending their gear on the quay...

was and scrub-up time for the visitor.

Penlee's Ivan Ellen out on a shout video.

This morning's shout and the route taken by Penlee lifeboat.

Penlee lifeboat Ivan Ellen on a shout captured as she leaves Newlyn  - it's  a bit fresh out there this morning as she rushes to pick up a yacht in distress.

@Findafishingjob - or maybe you need crew?

Great to see the guys taking up athe idea and making use of the new way to find crew or find a berth - just use the Twitter tag @findafishingjob at the start of your tweet and it will automatically get posted on every Through the Gaps blog page - and on the Twitter feed!


You can use the same tag to tweet to your followers and help spread the word - Tweet any news about berths available or needed - even if it just to cover someone for a trip or looking ahead to cover leave.

Photography technique in strong sunlight.

With the sun over your shoulder the subject, in this case the Crystal Sea heading for the gaps has been well lit and with strong shadows where the sunlight doesn't fall..

the same boat taken directly into the sun - against the light, or contré jour as painters refer to it, effectively creates a silhouette of the subject...

regular visitor from Brixham, the Carhelmar...

multi-purpose inshore boat Semper Fidelis heads for the gaps complete with insulated tubs to store her catch on deck...

on the fish market plaice proved popular this morning...

with the entire netting fleet away to sea there was only trawl, beam trawl and inshore fish on the market...

as the Filadelfia makes her way back into port...

looking peaceful, name the boat?...

mind your step down the quay!

Catching Cornish hake

One hundred and nine miles as the sea bird flies from home, the Newlyn netters Govenek of Ladram and the Ajax work side-by-side to bring home the catch. The boats try to stagger their landings of fish at Newlyn and Brixham so as to avoid flooding the market on any one day. This week, the Karen of Ladram landed on Monday, the Ajax is due for Thursday's market and the Govenek aims to land for Friday, if all goes to plan.

Work in progress - STS Lord Nelson oil on canvas

It would have been nice to have worked form sketches made at sea but a selection of photos will have to suffice including this one...

starting with roughing out the boat and horizon in charcoal on canvas..

and giving a couple of background colour washes in raw umber and ultramarine blue mixed with viridian to give the work some shape...

forming the background heavy skies and the heavy seas ahead.