Back to the day job

The weather has been dreadful down here, very strong gale force winds have mean that there has been little opportunity for fishing, but at least that means I get nice dinners !
The weather has to be checked several days in advance to allow for travelling out to the fishing ground and the time the nets will be in the water and again for getting back out to collect them. The website XCWeather is one of those used also the Met Office website.
The weather finally settled this week and nets were put out on Monday for collecting on Friday,

nets being 'shot'

So it was an early start on Friday and expectations for monkfish were met 

Monkfish,

usually they are dead when the nets are hauled this one was alive but not after he had had his head chopped off and his tail wrapped in Parma ham and roasted for 20 minutes !

There was also about 100kg of Spider crabs which can be fiddly to extract from the nets, the legs are very delicate and break easy so it took a while to finish.

so the kettle went on for a brew (looks like the cooker needs a bit of clean)

The red dot is the marker indicating where the nets are.  The bay is full of those big tankers and they are causing a problem for the inshore fleet, one fisherman has lost over £1000.00 of pots because they go over the markers dragging it with them.

Saturday was not such an early start but it was a bit misty

St Michael's Mount

Does what it says on the tin and very useful in misty weather, the autopilot, you type in your course and it takes you there - you do still have to watch out for other vessels !

There were a few rays in the nets too, the one one the left is a spotted ray and the other one is a blonde ray, can you see the difference? 

Nets cleaned time for a bit of photography, 

back end of the boat, also known as the stern, the front pointy bit is the bow (I think!)

This looks like it is Lizard way - it's that damned Lizard again Peter !

While Ken was being a fisherman I was being a cleaner, I posted the following on my Facebook Page

I was up at 7.30, bathroom cleaned, fridge cleaned, windows cleaned, the bedrooms cleaned, all downstairs cleaned, all floors washed, you name it I cleaned/washed it, shopping done and fridge re stocked, he comes home from fishing and asks "what have you done today, sat in the garden?" Good thing I'd not got anything sharp in my hand!!

Now back to those rays - could you see the difference? the spotted ray is the one on the left and has two more prominent spots either side of it's body and the other spots don't go to the very edge of it's body as they do on the blonde ray - the fishermen have a saying to differentiate between them "blondes go all the way!!"

Enough for now, and there's still more Gambia ramblings to "look forward to"