New white weather window from Windfinder.

Thanks to the ever-helpful Jonas at Windfinder, the weather forecast for Newlyn and the surrounding area displayed on the right side of the blog is now up and running and, more importantly, visible to all.

For more detailed coastal info, if you click on the 7 day forecast and then 'Google map' at the top of the page there is a handy little facility where you can click on each arrow and get more detailed info for each location.

If you have any suggestions on how this weather info could be improved - either content or display - they will be gratefully accepted and passed on to the developer at Windfinder.

First fresh fish Friday for weeks

Morlaix registered Steren Mor (ex-Emmanuel) sits alongside the quay......
black gold - signs of a busier market this morning......
though there is a stiff breeze filling the Bay.....
these wrasse would look stunning on any mongers display, not too sure about the eating though, recollect something akin to soggy cotton wool.......
the buyers have been kept busy most of the week once the boast started returning from a few days at sea.....
Roger Nowell on the Imogen keen as ever to keep it that way with a good dollop of haddocks on the ground......
and even a couple of 'blues', steer clear of that hard ground Roger......
James' fish at speed in the market bustle......
these little red beauties will be flying out of a restaurant for sure this evening.......
some of the very first official Cornish Sardines to come across the market floor as reported by the Guardian yesterday........
first of the big netters, the Gary M gets her shot of big pollack up for sale.....
complete with tree, the scene is all set for this evening when Penlee Lifeboat cox'n 'Patch' Harvey will do the honours and throw the switch that turns on the lights, preceded of course by a suitably extravagant firework display - a big thank you in advance to all those volunteers who freely give of their time in all weathers to see that the harbours brings in thousands of visitors over the Christmas period.

Helicopter lifts lone angler from Falmouth inshore lifeboat at full speed.

This short video, shot by a member of the Falmouth inshore lifeboat crew, exemplifies the skill with which RNAS Culdrose SAR crews operate.



A lone angler is picked up by the ILB, as it speeds back across the estuary the diver from the rescue helicopter drops aboard and within seconds lifts off the casualty.

Cornish Sardines in at number 40!

After several years of painstaking research and development by catchers and producers alike, Cornwall's sardine fishermen can now land and sell their unique product with the same PDO protection as Arbroath Smokies and a host of other well known brands like Wenslydale Cheese, Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese, Parma Ham, Burgundy, and Port. Cornish Sardines are the 40th such product to have been granted PDO status in the UK

Cornish Sardines are mainly caught by a small fleet of boats in Newlyn and Mevagissey using ring nets. See the full story here from the BBC or visit the Sardine Management Association's site. The Pilchard Works web site give a useful background to the story of sardine fishing including recordings of fishermen from St Ives and the ports along the south east Cornish coast like Mevagissey.

Hopefully, a spell of more settled weather will see the elusive fish return to the inshore waters of Cornwall. In recent weeks the severe winter storms have pushed the sardine shoals further offshore than the fleet of small inshore vessels are safely able to fish.

Windfinder supplies Through the Gaps with weather data.

As of today the BBC weather info on the right of the blog's home page has been replaced with an new feed that highlights wind data. The BBC data seemd at odds with the local weather for much of the time, time will tell if the new data, coming from a weather station at Land's End, proves more accurate.

There are a couple of issues with regard to the text display that are preventing the wind speed in knots, direction and air pressure in millibars from showing over the black bacground.

The web site for this service, Windfinder, can be found here.

Ocean Spray - crewman thrown overboard off Land's End

Gillnetter Ocean Spray leaving the gaps in Newlyn.

When fishing 14 miles off Land's End a 30 year old crewman on the Ocean Spray was thrown overboard as the boat shot it's last tier of nets. The skipper quickly came astern and, with the help of the crew retrieved the fisherman who suffered crush injuries, a Culdrose SAR helicopter was called. However, with a heavy swell running it was decided to allow the injured man to be taken off by the Penlee lifeboat and the helicopter returned to its base at the air staion.

Stan Olds on deck.

Talking of the now scrapped Silver Harvester, here she is in the mackerel heydays brailing fish from her tanks. Wonder where that man Stan is now, rumoured to be in Milton Keynes but known to have posted recently on the newlyn.info site.

£100,000 in over three weeks? - we think not.

For a change, the local paper Cornishman made fishing news the front page headline last week. However, news that the recent run of bad weather that lasted nearly four weeks had cost the fishing industry £100,000 was a little off the mark.

If Newlyn's turnover was running at this level over the course of one year then the port would gross around 12 X £100,000 equaling £1.2 million - in fact, by July this year the port had already grossed nearly £11 million!

It would be much closer to the truth to have reported that the fishermen of Newlyn have personally lost around £100,000 in wages as a result of the abnormally long spell of bad weather. To have published such inaccurate information in Brittany in the two local papers ( Le Telegramme and Ouest France) that cover fishing ports similar to Newlyn would have undoubtedly cost the editors a severe reprimand from their respective fishing community readers - at the very least.

Similar stories of slackness are to be found in the reporting annals of the past.

Fifteen years ago a number of local boats, Silver Harvester, Sowenna, Ar-Bageergan and Britannia IV were involved in fishing for tuna using drift nets. This attracted much media attention, especially when Spanish fishermen became incensed that the Cornish and Irish boats were using nets rather than traditional line and pole methods - talk of boarding parties at sea and shotguns were rife in the national press. Several incidents were reported from the Bay of Biscay during one week of fishing, the full might of the Media waded in keen to make a story. One evening, a local boat involved in several reported incidents with the Spanish fleet, the 30m Silver Harvester was contacted around 11pm by a reporter from The Independent as she headed home to land. The conversation was made all the more difficult as the reporter had gone to enormous trouble to put the call through via a link-call but was in a noisy London pub at the time. He was told that the boat would enter Penzance dock around 5am to land her tuna catch. The boat was carrying an early version of an Inmarsat C transceiver on a trial with BT which is how she was able to report some of the incidents confidentially.

The crew member who took the phone call on watch that night (Vince Marshall, sadly lost on the Margaretha Maria 12 years ago) was surprised, if not amazed, to be greeted by the aforementioned Independent reporter as the SH entered the dock gates in Penzance at first light. By then, Penzance Harbour was host to satellite TV trucks from the BBC, ITN, CNN and dozens of reporters as they clamoured in search of hot news from fishermen involved in the latest Anglo-Spanish 'fishing war'.

Much later that morning, Vince was busy on the deck of the SH when a young man, opening a round of sandwiches, came and stood on the dockside . "What's going on here then?" enquired a bemused face looking across the dock to the sea of TV satellite dishes. Vince told him and then, out of curiosity, asked who he was was talking to, "Oh, I just popped out for a quick break like I always do, I'm from the Cornishman" - it was one of Vince's favourite stories, and one that as a Grimmy, he felt pretty much summed up the way things are in Cornwall, especially the far west.

Photo © Phil Lockley

The press weren't the only ones interested in the tuna nets in use at the time - here, with regulatory clipboard and no doubt MAFF approved tape measure, every measurement possible is being checked on the gear by officers from the Royal Navy's oldest front line fleet, fisheries protection.

Newlyn Harbour Christmas Lights

A Christmas scene from a few years back when W Stevenson & Sons, who for many years, made one of their trawlers the focal point of the harbour lights display. Here, the Caroline graces the slip with a flotilla of swans at her stern.

Newlyn Harbour lights will be switched on at 7pm this Friday the 11th December with none other than Patch Harvey, cox'n of the Penlee Lifeboat, doing the honours by pulling the switch. Mousehole Harbour's lights will brighten their village the following evening at 7.30pm on the 12th December - both ports will buzz with life on the night with festive cheer in abundance - more so this year as the forecast is for a dry, but cold evening!

Tracking the Berlewen as she sails from Padstow

Using the new AIS feature on the site, the Padstow netter Berlewen can be seen steaming westwards from her home port before shooting 24 miles North of Pendeen light.

What trawlermen want, what they really, really want.

Put together by 16 year old Jakle Revill, a superb 'information' animated video inspired by the 50% Discards Project in a joint project between CEFAS and South Devon fishermen.

At last, a Monday market!

First time in weeks there have been a significant number of boxes put through the steam cleaner......
the Sapphire takes on fuel after landing......
with around 8 tons of crab to come ashore the Intuition moves out to allow the Emma Louise to pull back and allow her to get to the waiting vivier lorry.....
black gold on the market......
making its mark.....
as the fickle black finger tallies the scales.......
there's even a few mullet for auction......
along with a box of sprats.....
careful picking by a safe pair of CEFAS hands removes an otolith from a small haddock.....
the beady eye of the dogfish from the Ajax's short shot......
beginning to land her brown crab......
ahead of the Emma Louise......
no more backs of pickups running in foul water with these beauties......
another sepia ink masterpiece......
and a crucial part of the WS&S installation piece.....
with a huge trip from the St Georges which included a few boxes of faithful old pouts, or as they are known locally, 'bothicks'......
just to keep the 'mongers happy there's a bit of bass being caught to boot!

Marios or in Cornish, 'Hern Ys Aysel'

A great favourite around the pilchard (sardine) catching communities of Cornwall is the dish known simply as marios - marinaded pilchards. Just like the pasty, every fishing family's mum, grandmother and great-grandmother has their own 'unique' recipes - all based around headed and gutted pilchards, vinegar, cold tea, thinly sliced onions, salt and pepper, brown sugar, fresh bay leaves and, of course, a secret blend of pickling spices.

If you don't know yourself, a blend of the appropriate pickling spices can be bought - if you know which - from a small chemist's shop over in St Ives. The methods vary, but essentially the gutted and headed fish are laid in a dish, the tea and sufficient wine vinegar (definitely not malt) added to cover along with the other ingredients to suit your personal taste. Most recipes call for the fish to be cooked overnight (the sort of thing range ovens of old or today's Agas are ideally suited) at a low temperature (60º) or, alternately, baked in a conventional oven at a high heat (150ºC) for 40 minutes and then left to cool for 24 hours. This will ensure that the bones almost dissolve and can be safely eaten.

Trouble is, the weather of late seems to have pushed the sardine shoals well offshore!

Here's another version sent in from St Ives ex-fisherman Billy Bunn - who can these days be found earning a living as skipper of the oil standby vessel, Putford Provider and tracked using AISlive - she berthed in Great yarmouth at 1am this morning.

"I headed, tailed, gutted and sniped off all the fins, put bay leaves in the bottom of a large deep pan, a little bit of salt, a few pinches of the spice, put some spice in the belly of each pilchard and a bay leaf - lay them in the dish - sprinkle some spice over and some leaves - repeat with another layer of pilchards then finish off with some leavess and spice - cover with malt vinegar - either put on a lid or brown paper - cook on a low heat overnight and test in the morning, the bones should be soft - to lesson the strength of the vinigar if you want add a little bit of water."