Comings and goings in Newlyn.

Six am and not a single fish on the market - the boats are all at sea...

so the grader lies idle...

as work continues to demolish the old iceworks...

just a few of the visiting scallopers...

typical trawl door used by French boats in these waters when fishing for bottom or demersal fish...

Defiant leads the inshore chase away form the harbour...

its that time of year when the Ivan Ellen gets her bottom scrubbed...

classic wooden yacht visiting...

and a slightly more modern design, a trimaran with folding hulls - makes berthing a cinch...

a royal boat?...

guess what this little scalloper wants to be when he grows up?...

the french crew are waiting for water...

stowing the gear on the Cornishman...

ambassador to the French, Andrew gives the skipper the all-clear to leave - after he received hospital treatment for a severe finger injury last night - and then to add insult to injury the boat picked up a tyre in ts prop when it was leaving in the early hours...

so this time as the boat leaves...

the skipper makes sure he has plenty of water under him as he heads out through the gaps...

and way past the Mount...

paint blasting on the beamer..

the mackerel fishing must be good - Stavros has been brought out of retirement!...

the punts lay three abreast while they queue to land...

mobile, colour echo sounder, satellite navigator and chart plotter and VHF radio using working channel 8...

another punt hangs off waiting to land...

as the fish come ashore...

five boxes at a time...

and hand graded on the market...

one of the highlights of Newlyn's busy social calendar, the Raft Race on Sunday the 30th of August, the day before the Newlyn Fish Festival - what a great weekend to be in this part of Cornwall...

and one for the youngsters, every Tuesday on the Green...

shades of blue Ben Gunn would love...

serviced liferafts make their way down the quay

one in, one out...

it's that man Matt on the bow again...

as the Ajax makes her way to the fish market...

as the Ajax's Irish skipper guides boxes of hake from the fishroom...

another resident Irishman strikes a pose trés nonchalant...

not much left of the iceworks now...

beam trawlers at rest.

Meva is still an active fishing port despite its timeless looks.

Spotted in meva - the sardinier Resolute...

Ye Olde Fish Market in Meva...

the harbour might be home to a fleet of small boats but the qauys have some heavyweight cranes...

makes a change from catching fish for a living - Meva's latest fish and chips emporium is gaining a reputation for top quality seafood fayre...

a big moon hangs over the harbour...

as a small fleet of scallopers...

land their day's work at high water on the end of the outer harbour quay.

Cod, please, waiter — and compliments to Scotland’s fishermen

This story, written by Charles Clover appeared in the Sunday Times last weekend 

"David Milne, a trawler owner based in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, has seen many bad times in 38 years at sea. Now, he says, the future is bright. To prove it he took a party of people out to the fishing grounds to show them what has changed. Ten hours from harbour he pointed to the chart on the screen and said: “Pick somewhere.” He shot the trawl at the randomly chosen spot and pulled up 3½ tons of cod. His passengers were duly amazed. A decade or so ago Milne would typically steam out for 10 days to fill the boat’s hold with fish, anywhere from St Kilda to Yorkshire... read on!"

Go back in time to the year 2000 when Rick Stein's TV series Seafood Lover's Guide on BBC TV was being aired. In this episode he talks to a fish merchant in Whitby on the Yorkshire coast about cod - at that time there had been a huge fleet of boats making record breaking trips in the North Sea - and pair trawling and pair seining had become the de-rigeuer method of fishing for cod, haddock and whiting.  A Seafish paper,  Fishing UK; Past, Present and Future gives a good view of the changes that were and continued to be introduced from the 90s when the industry as a whole began to take on board the consequences of fishing effort vs fish stocks. It was the dawning of a new era in fishing as well as a new millennium.

Clip courtesy of Rick Stein's Seafood Lover's Guide BBC TV 2000.

Apologies to anyone wanting to see the clip - despite an acknowledgement to BBC Worldwide they had it taken down immediately! A shame, as the comments from the Whitby fish merchant and coble fisherman Richard Emerson a mile south of Flamborough Head featured in the programme were very apposite. Maybe there will be a chance to see a re-run of the whole episode on BBC3 or BBC4 in the future.

Work in progress - but which boat?

Way out west of Land's End on one of those days when you really would rather be at home in front of the fire with a good book. A washed in sky and the heavy seas roughed out with some attempt to match the tones needed.

"Fresh local king prawns" - from Newlyn?

It's good to see the local restaurants and eateries taking advantage of locally sourced food products and saying so on their menus - this one was spotted on a menu board somewhere in Penzance.

As an astronomer the term 'local' may mean anywhere on the planet or even solar system - but to the rest of us mere mortals, 'local' surely means a few miles down the road - well to the best of my knowledge, king prawns have yet to make an appearance on Newlyn's fish market - and a quick look at IFCA and the MMO's list of pressure stocks and minimum landing sizes revealed no quota, no minimum size and no landing figures for king prawns - from that we have to conclude a slight misrepresentation of the truth on behalf of this eating place - 

and if you want to be really picky spot two spelling and two punctuation errors on the board - shades of Only Fools and Horses, Rodney!

Invasion of the orange fleet.

Ocean Fish's skipper Peter the II can only look on in envy as the boys on the Asthore clean down the boat and prepare to head back to a berth... 

after top skipper Peter number I is all smiles after landing the season's first haul...

of these fine fish... 

he's not the only happy chappy as the dozens of guys who fish with punts...

finally have some mackerel to catch, the only problem being they are all round the St Ives side!...

just the one net trip of hake and on the market this from the big netter Govenek of Ladram...

and a few boxes of ray and turbot from the Gary M...

and the Trevose...

which get whisked away PDQ by the guys with the hooks...

destined for restaurants around Cornwall and beyond, top quality line caught pollack from Mr Smith..

 making her first port of call in Newlyn, Ocean Fish's latest acquisition, the scalloper Le Men Dhu...

built and launched at Tom's in Polruan six months ago...

she was closely followed in the the other scalloper in the ever expanding orange fleet, the Manx Ranger...

hard on their heels was a new Shannon class lifeboat...

 in to re-fuel...
 

before heading off to Cork which will take her a mere six and a half hours!...

seen here at 9.40am, some three hours after leaving Newlyn making around 22 knots... 

on a more tranquil not, coming for auction at Lane's, a painting of days gone by Charles Napier Hemy depicting a punt fishing with pots coming in to land her catch of lobster in choppy conditions with a luger in full sail on the horizon. The painting is titled 'Sorting the Catch'.