![]() |
| Home | Events | News | ↓ Photos ↓ | Banners | Contact | Links |
| Photos 2008 | Photos 2007 | Photos 2006 | Photos 2005 | Photos 2004 |
Please click on smaller images for enlargement (and vice-versa)
|
Looe Fish Market has a reputation for handling fish all of which has been caught within the last twenty-four hours. It thus has the freshest and priciest fish in the UK. Because we Brits don't reckon to pay for good food and turn our noses up at cuttlefish and squid, and because it costs more to get fish to Bristol than to France, nearly all the fish landed at Looe ends up in France, Spain and Italy. Looe Fish Market changed over to the "Moby Clock" electronic fish auction system in 2003, a system widely used in small ports around the western region of Brittany. As guests of Bluesail Fish, who are the wholesalers running the market, thirteen of us turned up at the market at 6.35am on a dark, dry morning with the temperature only just above freezing. |
||
|
The Looe Fish Market is housed in a long building both sides of which are made up of many large doors, each of which has 15 transparent panels, that slide up and down as the movement of goods and the weather dictate. One side of the building opens onto the harbour wall the harbour wall where fishing boats come alongside to land their catch, or, as here, their nets. |
|
|
|
The other side opens onto an access road where buyers collect their fish after the auction. |
|
|
In between is the market which has a smooth concrete floor with a very slight fall to a drain covered by a grid that runs along the centre of the building. Plastic boxes slide easily and can be kicked along or dragged with a hooked rod. Heavier loads are moved with a pallet truck. |
|
|
|
The focal point of the auction is an electronic scoreboard akin to that used in an athletics stadium. Beneath the scoreboard there is a ticket printer. All the participants were friendly, cheerful and relaxed in the near freezing temperature. |
|
|
The auctioneer (in navy blue with woollen hat extreme right) sits on the back of a small and manoeuvrable three-wheeled electric trolley that carries the scoreboard and ticket printer. His driving seat is also his office desk, with room for his thermos of coffee, writing implements, fish knife and a computer with a flat screen display and keyboard that interfaces with the scoreboard. |
|
|
|
The auctioneer drives to a pile of fish boxes landed from a particular boat and the details of the catch (species, grade, weight, name of boat) are displayed. The bidder has a remote control and can bid by pressing a button. |
|
|
The auctioneer occasionally gives a few words of encouragement, otherwise the whole process is carried out with quiet efficiency with everyone knowing what they are doing. Stewards take tickets from the ticket machine and drop them in the appropriate fish boxes. |
|
|
|
On Thursday 14th February the market handled only three-and-a-half tonnes of fish, whereas on Monday there had been twenty tonnes. As a result the Auctioneer had time to give us a wide ranging twenty minute talk about the workings of the Fish Market, the fishing industry in the UK and Europe, quotas and plans for developing fishing at Looe. The sliding doors, each with fifteen transparent panels, can be seen, here closed against the chilly breeze! |
|
|
After that it was 8.25 am - time to go to an upper room in the bar opposite for a warm welcome with a steaming cup of coffee and a cooked breakfast. All in all a very interesting and most enjoyable morning, for which hearty thanks to all at Bluesail Fish. |
||
Banner picture 133: Fowey Harbour Red Arrows 23 Aug 2007, 6.17 pm.