A feast of fishy days in Spain and Portugal.

Magazon's lighhthouse, The Punta del Picacho stands well inland providing a guiding light to the port of Huelva...

the huge sandy spit (now armoured) plays host to the typical kind of flotsam found near any fishing grounds like this small dahn...

a fish, possibly a sheepshead built to eat clams and limpets...

while a Great Skua or 'shit-harry' as they are known in Newlyn, was hounded away from a dead fish with huge scales...

that's a fifty-pence piece for scale - no sign of a 120mm minimum mesh size in these parts it seems...

a local fixed gear boat makes its way parallel to the huge rock armoured sand-spit to the marina at Mazagon...

a town which chooses to celebrate its proximity to the sea with this giant gull statue on a roundabout, maybe St Ives would like to erect something similar - maybe with a pasty in its mouth...

heading off into the big city of Huelva which boasts a brand new indoor market, the Mercado del Carmen...

featuring colour-coded stainless-steel, fish, veg and meat stalls...

with the usual wide variety of seriously tasty fayre on offer like this stall devoted to cured meats, local cheeses...

 and salt pork and fish...

next door, the stall was devoted entirely to shellfish of all sorts...

while others are devoted solely to a single fish like tuna, such as Pescades J Marquez, Mercado del carmen...

and swordfish...

the bright red loins...

cut straight from the carcass...

other stands went for a mic of fish...

with the inevitable presence of hake...

and these tiny trammel net caught 'wedge sole' or acedia (lenguadillo...

plenty of bass and bream including these gilthead variety...

breccas and sargos

and plenty of other fish not seen in Cornish waters...

unlike these much more familiar mackerel - the monger happy to split a mackerel oozing deep-red blood and roe to show just how fresh his fish are...

the range and quality of fish on sale was superb...

but the local speciality seemed to be cuttlefish - known locally as, choco...

back in Mazagin marina there were a couple of old style...

 wooden double-enders awaiting restoration...

while further along the coast the only fishermen in the Parque National sported two very skinny legs and a long beak...

in at El Rocio, a town that boasted a huge church that hosts Spain's biggest religious pilgrimage during September every year when a round one million people flock to the town...

and streets straight out of an old Western movie...

heading into Huelva a huge statue to the man we have to thank? for 'discovering' the USA...

and the giant Cristobal Colon power station...

drive across the Rio Tintoa and out through Huelva over the river Odiel to Punta Umbria...

which boasts some seriously big palm trees...

and an equally big market...

and maritime centre with its divine symbolism...

and striking logo...

one of the local restaurants...

seems to have made Captain Haddock their patron...

the port itself has received a good chunk of EU funding it seems...

though local fishermen are making noises in protest...

and have adorned many of the walls with their slogans,,,

encouraging people to 'squeak', well, that was the literal translation for 'chirla' so we can only assume it means honk your horn in support when passing...

every fishing port has one, the local ice works...

which supplies the necessary to the sardine fleet...

working similar gear...

and nets to the Cornish sardine fleet at home...

though this is a novel idea to maximise deck space...

every boat's gear on the shore has an ID tag...

two older sardine boats...

show a familiar kind of leaded footrope...

and deck arrangement...

all of the fleet carrying a huge amount of floodlights no doubt easily seen by the ISS when it passes overhead at night...

other boats boasted very flimsy dahns...

and a strange collection of that all-too-familiar sign if ink stain only too familiar to the beam trawl fleet at home...

earthenware ports...

which on closer inspection...

reveal each has a small hole in the base...

some of the boats...

appear to have invested in plastic cuttlefish pots...

but the hauler is the same...

new pots...

for old...

other boats in the fleet...

are rigged for shallow water shellfishing...

with some working one or two of these tiny trawls...

all of the boats have a river mooring and a punt at hand...

trawling seems to be fairly uncommon...

and, on a day when few boats were at sea this was the only big boat, and a trawler to boot, on the move...

every fishing port has its Swordfish of course...

the local supermarket...

has a selection of frozen...

and fresh fish...

and shellfish on sale...

with some very tender looking squid...

and the inevitable choco...

along with whitebait of some sort...

hake...

mackerel...

and scad at twice the price of the mackerel, no accounting for taste...

unless they know way of cooking it that we don't

bass a-plenty...

eating at a local restaurant a small group of locals were fishing with nets for clams in the heavy surf...

not far from the ports of Huelva and Punta Umbria the biggest city in the region Seville despite its size is home to some traditional outlets in which to eat and drink...

such as the totally authentic Bodega San Jose...

the kind of place that harks back to a time when the world was a simpler place devoid of overt regulations, there is no electronic-touch-pad-till, instead they record 'la quenta' for each table in pen in simple columns on an A4 pad...

little has changed since this local artists sketch was given to the then landlord...

who may well have been the husband of mum. who at the age of you can only guess, not only still works the bar with what appears to be her sons and maybe even grandson also cooks...

 some of her favourite tapas dishes...

just down the road are the 13th Century Reales Ataranas linking the city...

via the river Guadalquivir  to the sea over 65 miles away...

travelling west and into the Algarve the indoor market at the old fishing port of Tavira in Portugal...

like many places is adorned by an eclectic mix of religious and other artefacts...

even on the fish counters that sell fish taken straight from the local fleet...

of inshore boats...

with their characteristic swept bows...

transom sterns with towed clam gear...

both Spain and Portugal seem to attract graffiti artists who take delight in siting their work in the most dangerous or difficult places, if it not the sides of an underpass on a motorway it's the support columns of a river bridge...

a familiar sorting table for shellfish...

and nets stored up for'ard...

a style of hull from another era...

and something more contemporary...

giving enough space for the big sardine nets...

while up for'ard, insulated tubs give away the kind of fishing the boats prosecute...

no more than two dredges for the clam boats it seems...

all round the port many of the properties are faced with ceramic tiles harking back to their Moorish origins...

while the first bridge over the river promises to lock in good luck to anyone who takes the trouble to close the hasp...

those familiar inky stains tell their own story...

looks like cuttlefish are on the menu for the local fleet...

so retiring to the covered market tapas bar it's time for a snack of starters which included cured slices of tuna...

grilled sardines, all six of them...

scallops...

and the most tender and tasty octopus you could imagine - viva Espana and Portugal!

We will be back!

The latest on Brexit and fishing from Michael Gove and others.

Listen to both excerpts below:

and, of course, well known fisheries expert Mr Gove managed to create an entirely new sector in the industry:

The "Under 10 feet" Fishing Fleet by #Gove, creating a brand new sector of 'micro' fishing boats in his #R4today interview this morning. #Fisheries #MSC #Hastings. pic.twitter.com/3lGqq1ueqf

— Piers Golden (@goldenphoto_pro) April 19, 2018

Government pushed on future of fishing industry by Waveney MP. The impact of fishing post-Brexit in Lowestoft took on national significance at a debate in the House of Commons.


The debate on Wednesday, April 18, was led by Waveney MP Peter Aldous with the parliamentary under-secretary of state for environment and Suffolk Coastal MP, Therese Coffey, speaking on behalf of the government.

Mr Aldous also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the following day to argue the case for a reallocation of fishing quotas to help smaller boats catch more fish, an option not included in the Brexit transition deal agreed in March.

In the debate he said: “We need to be in a position whereby fish caught in the exclusive economic zone off the East Anglian coast are landed in local ports, thereby benefitting local people, local businesses and local communities.”

Dr Coffey, responding on behalf of the government, said: “The Government’s future vision for fisheries will be laid out in a white paper, to be published in due course, which will be followed by a fisheries bill that will give us the legal powers necessary to manage our fisheries in the future and enable us to develop a truly UK fisheries policy, in particular by controlling access to our own waters and setting fishing opportunities.”

Under the terms of the transition deal following Brexit on Friday, March 29, 2019, fishing in Waveney and along the Suffolk coast will still be forced to follow the same rules which applied while the UK was a member state, until the end of the transition period in December 2020.

Mr Aldous added on Thursday: “The under 10 fleet [fishing boats under 10m long] will continue to whither on the vine if we do not do something over this next two or three-year period.

“What the government need to be doing is to reallocate fishing quotas from the larger ship fleet.”

Legal precedent for such a move has been set, with former fishing minister Richard Benyon succeeding in 2012 when he took a case to court to allow the government to do so.

The points were put to Michael Gove, secretary of state for the environment, on Radio 4. He said: “The court said we could do that [reallocate unused quotas] but the courts also said that we needed to do so in a fashion that took into account the interests of those who hold the quota which meant that we could not do it instantly.”

Sonia Barker, leader of the Waveney Labour Group, said: “The Waveney Labour Group is still very concerned that the Government has ‘sold down the river’ the fishing community of Lowestoft with its recent Brexit deal.

“Why are we saying this? It is because the reassurances to the fishing community in Lowestoft given last month by the Conservative government minister for the environment, George Eustice were shown to be worthless.”

She urged Mr Aldous to get “proper reassurances from the government, not platitudes.”

Full story courtesy of the Lowestoft Journal.

Get your tickets for The Fish in the Sea at IFSTAL, London.

The Fish in the Sea - trailer from Zev Robinson on Vimeo.

On May 10, IFSTAL will present Zev Robinson’s latest 30 minute documentary on sustainable fishing in Scotland, The Fish in the Sea.

Doors open at 5:30 pm, films start at 6:00. There will be a Q&A after the screening with a panel of people involved in sustainable fishing at the Manson Lecture Theatre in LSHTM Keppel St as part of the IFSTAL programme targeted at the public, and staff and postgraduate students from several university of London colleges focusing on food systems related work from a range of disciplines.

Zev Robinson is a Canadian-British artist and filmmaker and has been making films about food, agriculture and sustainability since 2008 as part of his art, film and food project "The Art and Politics of Eating" 

A different view of the new fish market in Newlyn.

The beam trawl boats like the Cornishman...

are still landing cuttlefish...

for a select bunch of buyers...

for the first time the new 'viewing room' enjoys a visit - though the windows might need a wipe at this time of year...

the new market features boot-scrubbers...

to keep the new floor clean...

though its non-slip surface is now giving the draggers a few headaches...

or aching arms, legs and backs...

not that that is stopping the market from shifting fine fish like these lemon soles...

in such pristine conditions...

monk tails...

red mullet...

plaice...

red gurnards...

ling...

the odd brill...

plenty of cuttles...

and a few boxers of whiting...

are as Edwin says, a sign from above that the summer is on its way...

though right now harbourmaster Rob Parsons has a few market jobs lined up for Lionel today...

after washing down...

work on the old section has seen the lod roof come off...

and the road made ready for passing traffic...

lifeboat cox, Patch attending to domestic chores aboard his charge...

as one of the Nowell fleet makes her way in...

Brixham beamer, Carhelmar is up on the slip...

in sight of the newest prawn trawler to join the Scottish fleet, Zander Jack's Ocean Vision.

Just how much of the Brexit cake will the smallest (and by far the most numerous) fishermen of England get?

What will Brexit mean for the small scale fishermen of England in the North Sea and elsewhere?

Reporting for the BBC, @rosschawkins was on #r4today early this morning reporting from a beach near Hastings.

I think that was a "no" then.

Plenty of debate on Twitter this morning following the R4 Today piece:

Excerpt courtesy of R4's Today programme: