The last few times I’ve visited Clovelly, it’s felt a bit like entering a theatre and walking slowly down from the ‘gods’ - the car park at the top to centre stage: the harbour below. You pay your entrance and then from the royal box you get the first tantalising glimpse of blue sea and sky. Princess Anne may take this same winding cobbled road when she comes to unveil a plaque to seafarers on May 6th. Round another bend and the sea shanties drifting up the natural amphitheatre of cliffs are a reminder that, as usual, I’m late for the performance. Down another tier to the grand circle and the harbour is laid out before you. On lobster and crab or herring festival days the quay is packed tight with colourful stalls selling their wares to visiting crowds. But this time there is no slightly camp pink lobster or sequinned fishwives on stilts. On this visit (as for much of the year) Clovelly is a working harbour, with fishermen still playing catch up after the winter storms. Yet as I jump down on to the pebbled beach - I am, as ever, late!

“You’ve kept me waiting,” grumbles Stephen Perham, the harbour master, lying on his back, daubing red anti-fouling paint on Neptune’s hull. “You didn’t text back, so I thought you’d run away to sea,” I reply, recognising Neptune as Stephen’s father’s old herring boat. It’s been five or six years since I first wrote about Stephen’s quest to revive herring fishing in Clovelly and I want to check that he’s still passionate about these fickle fish. “I’m behind getting her ready for the season,” he tells me, “being a wooden boat she needs a lot of TLC, plus her engine needed repairing.” Stephen has been busy over the last weeks clearing the beach and replacing the wooden posts around the harbour wall. 

 
Peter Braund (another old Clovelly name) is loading Stephen’s other boat, the picarooner, ready to go out and check their pots. The tiny, graceful picarooner was copied from one of the original wooden Clovelly herring boats, designed to beat the larger boats out to the shoals. Peter is one of the few in Clovelly who remembers herring fishing before it was banned in 1977 to protect herring stocks. Stephen was too young to go out on the boats. He reminds me of an image of father and son, trapped inside by the herring ban, Dad drawing the ‘fishing marks’ in the condensation or the salt on the window pane to show his young son where he would shoot the nets – if he could. Joy, Stephen’s partner joins in, “there’s plenty of herring but people have forgotten how to prepare and cook them.”

I have my answer, so I walk along the harbour wall to find Tommy Perham, Stephen’s older brother, clearing lobster pots from the quay, ready for Princess Anne’s visit. He is roping the heavy baskets down to John Balls in the boat below. John’s boat, Aurora, is still away for repairs (the winter storms created a shingle bank which blocked the harbour trapping her inside) so they are sharing Tommy’s boat. Tommy left fishing for several years to work in the building trade and as a fishmonger. His pots are baited with salted herring. It seems a waste but he tells me there’s no money in herrings. Last year was a bumper harvest – there were so many, they flooded the tiny local market and they couldn’t give them away. Yet Tommy seems hugely content to be back fishing and very happy to answer the tourists’ questions – exchanging quips with a Canadian over whose lobsters are the largest. The visitors have to step over the ropes and a skipping joke is repeated many times. I notice the fishermen are incredibly patient acting as though they’ve heard the joke for the first time.  

They are patient with my questions too. They get a brief respite as I climb back up the cobbled streets to fetch new recorder batteries. (You can pay for a lift up the hill by landrover – but somehow that would be cheating.)  I am unimpressed that I’d forgotten the batteries, but very impressed to find them in the fudge shop, inside the Charles Kingsley museum - a reminder that Clovelly is not just about the harbour. Even the donkeys are out on their daily stroll, down down-along street, cheekily snatching greenery from the gardens. I can’t help thinking though, that in the days when everyone’s livelihood depended on catching herring in those flimsy boats – all eyes must have been drawn to centre stage: the sea and the harbour.

After a crab sandwich from (the third Perham brother) Barry’s seafood shack, I catch up with John as he deftly strings eighteen pots together with bright blue rope. Born in Cromer into a fishing family, he discovered North Devon while working as a relief coxswain on the Appledore lifeboat. He decided “it’s not a bad part of the world to make a living” and about ten years ago bought a cottage in Northam. Lobsters grow by moulting their hard outer shell and when she is soft-shelled as John put it, “the male takes full advantage”. Then the females known as  ‘berried hens’ (because their eggs look like thousands of tiny berries) carry them packed tightly on their abdomen for nine months or more, before they shed them the following Spring.

John spoke of the baby lobsters from the lobster hatchery he helped release and the reserve local fishermen protected voluntarily from Clovelly around to Bucks Mills. There is talk of closing this area again as a shellfish nursery, he tells me. “If it’s managed by fishermen for fishermen it’s much more likely to work. No genuine fisherman is going to take everything out on the first day because there’ll be nothing for the rest of the week. And fishermen especially down this part of the world have a good track record in closing off their own areas.” This is true with the Trevose box off Padstow, the ray box off the North Devon coast and the marine conservation zone around Lundy, all seasonal or permanent ‘no take zones’ supported or instigated by local fishermen. ‘Managing sustainable fishing by fishermen for fishermen’ is a refrain I keep hearing. There are lots of different groups interested in fisheries management and conservation and in North Devon they’ve a good reputation for meeting and working together. With the common fisheries policy agreeing to decentralise decision making, even the legislation appears to be supporting more local management. I will blog this one day when I get my head around the complexities and know a bit more what I’m talking about!

Stephen and Peter arrive back in the picarooner. “Find anything?” I call across the water. A few fishermen sell lobsters and crabs to local restaurants or private clients but around 95% of the shellfish catch heads straight to Cornwall to be processed (there is no local processor).  The Clovelly potters would love to sell more of their catch locally – if you’re lucky enough to time it right ask them what they’ve caught – or call to negotiate a meeting point or delivery. Call John on 07810 561656.

The only other working fishing boat in harbour is BD310, “Jordan and Joe Rossi’s boat.” As Stephen says “there aren’t many fishermen left here now.” The few other vessels afloat on the rising tide are charter boats. The Independent is ready to take people out fishing or to Lundy. Boat Stories will write about our trip on the Jessica Hettie - once she’s back in the water. Meanwhile, I notice the Neptune is still half-painted. Stephen promises she’ll be ready for the Whitsun holiday towards the end of May. I fully recommend the fifteen minute trip round the bay: as you look back at the village, Stephen tells historical tales of the goings on in each cottage. He’s lived in several of them himself.  

 As for my favourite fish: they should arrive in late autumn – but they like to keep everyone guessing. Later in the year Boat Stories hopes to film their story and will remind you when to start pestering your local fishmonger or restaurant - asking if they have any Clovelly herrings.

As promised the minute we got the funding go-ahead from Northern Devon FLAG we hit the ground running.  Amanda Mc Cormack got the website www.boatstories.co.uk  facebook and twitter up and running in record time before the Easter holidays. Jo went to the quays and harbours catching up with skippers and crew she has worked with before, meeting new people, writing content for the website and researching stories we could make into films.

Boat Stories has met with over a dozen working or ex fishermen and women so far. We’ve learned about some of the fish and seafood living out there in the mud or sandbanks, like the fact that if a turbot (a large flatfish) is upside down it can apparently use its ‘prickles to flip up in the air and right itself’. Or that salmon entering the Taw and Torridge estuary are sometimes swimming so hard to beat the currents that ‘they find themselves several miles up the wrong river and have to turn around and start again’. We’re beginning to learn what’s special and different about Northern Devon fisheries and fishing and have spoken to those whose knowledge of local currents and hazards and the notorious Bideford Bar will hopefully be passed on. We’re looking forward to meeting more skippers and we’ve noticed how busy they are because we’ve learned to follow our local fleet via the marine traffic website (something for a blog one day-  http://www.boatstories.co.uk/news.html).  Many fishermen are out at sea now, as I write, working right through the Easter holiday weekend.











We’ve spoken to other working boat owners, harbour masters and those who volunteer for the RNLI or run ferries or charter boats. We’ve talked to fishmongers and a few restaurants: those who are selling locally landed fish (see fish page on website) and others who would like to. We’ve met people in various stages of running or setting up businesses to sell and cook local seafood and we will keep in touch with them on the ups and downs of their journey. We’ve spoken to organisations and individuals whose job is to manage the rivers, estuary, inshore and offshore waters.

We’ve met with local filmmakers and are grateful for their support and enthusiasm for this young, exciting low-budget project.  We’ve also tried to follow up with most people who have contacted us. Many people have wonderful tales from times when owning a boat and fishing was the way of life and we want to document these before they are lost. We are also keen to tell contemporary stories of life on the water as it is now. You may not think your story is interesting because it’s your day to day living, but Boat Stories would love to hear from you – please get in touch.

Starting nearly two months later than planned means we haven’t been able to approach everyone we’d like to – before they go into their busy season. We haven’t caught up with all the skippers, charter boats, restaurants, cafés or pubs, nor looked into heritage boats. As the seasons progress we hope to learn more about different kinds of sustainable fishing, the supply chains and recipes. While the research continues we’ve had to prioritise the seasonal films we need to make now, before we lose the opportunity.  The good news is we have found lots of stories which we think will make great short films. We have funding for six but would like to make a series of twelve so if anyone has any funding tips or ideas, please get in touch! Meanwhile planning is underway for our first three stories to begin filming in May. They are three very different films  - to be shot in three very different areas. Each needs several elements to come into place – especially fair weather on the right tides.

Wish us luck and we’ll keep you posted.

The ferry which runs from Appledore Quay to Instow Quay begins sailing on Monday 7th April. The fleet will be blessed at Appledore (opposite John’s deli) and the primary school children will sing a ferry song and launch a biodegradable artistic creation. Around 11.30 Instow pupils’ voices will echo back across the water as they launch their own sculpture. The service runs, back n forth, on the high tides between 0930h and sunset. The ferry is run and managed by volunteers on a 'not for profit' basis.  This first run is not open to the public –but you are welcome to go and watch the ceremony. Boat Stories will catch the ferry sometime soon and report back. Remember it can only run when there is water in the estuary! 

Ferry times on   http://www.appledoreinstowferry.com/timetable-fares/timetable.html

 The small North Devon trawler fleet has been busy this week. Boat Stories spoke briefly to Paul Stone, skipper of the Sparkling Star out fishing in the Bristol Channel, close by the Star’s sister ship “Our Olivia Belle.” On a mobile which kept cutting out he said “we’re nestled out quietly by ourselves, you wouldn’t think anyone else was around. And the fishing is good.” Great news after the rough winter the fishermen have had.  Paul was fishing just outside the Trevose box, a huge area of seabed, roughly between Padstow and Milford Haven, running west towards Ireland, which was closed for a few months to allow species like cod and sole to reproduce. Paul used the words ‘you wouldn’t think’ because a quick check on the Marine Traffic website shows that these two trawlers are far from alone. Marine Traffic picks up the Automatic Identification Signal (AIS) from all larger boats and as I check now it looks as though someone has scattered a pile of colourful boat-shaped sweets over the map between the North Cornish coast and Wales. Colourful because different ships: tankers, cargo vessels, passenger ships and pleasure boats each have their own colour. I can see how watching your boats as they move across the map can become addictive!  

Paul said, “I saw probably 26 boats steaming the channel waiting for the Trevose box to open at midnight on Monday and there’s maybe thirty trawlers south of us now, from Belgium, Holland and France and other UK ports, I think we’re the only boats from North Devon out here.”  (By the way all these boats are fishing legally, within the European common fisheries policy and outside the 12 mile offshore limit.)  At 15 metres the two North Devon boats from S & P fish are also amongst the smallest, many of the trawlers out there with them are beam trawlers: anything from 24 to 40 metres in length. Paul added “it’s one of the best hauls I’ve had for thirty years. But with this crazy number of boats it could be game over, very quickly.” Meanwhile the Ray box, off the North Devon coast, set up voluntarily by North Devon fishermen to protect the spawning grounds and brood stock of various ray species is still closed.   

Don’t worry Boat Stories is not going to get stuck into European fishing policy (we have six films to get on and make) but we are genuinely interested in any boat stories happening off the coast – and what it is like for local fishermen and fish. 

It’s April and the boats of North Devon are beginning to slip their moorings.

The Lundy ferry, the Oldenburg left with its first passengers of the season for Lundy this morning – sailings from Bideford this week. 01271 863636

S & P fish shop on Ilfracombe Quay plans to open for the season (see our fish page).

Geoff Huelin will set off early in Our Jenny to shoot his first lobster pots of the season (see our fish page).

The Trevose box: a huge fishing area, off the North Cornish Coast, has been closed to fishing for several months – the closure supported by local fishermen to help protect spawning grounds. It opens up today. Trawlers from all over the South West and Europe will converge on this area to try and reap the rewards..

The season for pleasure boat licenses granted by North Devon Council opens up. Check with individual operators to see when they’re opening. The Ilfracombe Princess sails for the first time from Ilfracombe on Thursday 3rd April weather permitting 01271 879727 (story on this boat trip coming later this week).

Watching the boats safely inside Ilfracombe harbour, begin to play a gentle dosey-doe with their moorings as the evening tide slowly rises, it’s difficult to imagine that only a few weeks ago this was the scene of “a dangerous nightmare” as crews battled to save their boats. Ilfracombe inner harbour walls are shaped like a pair of outstretched arms – ready with a welcome hug to offer a safe haven. But in the worst of the storms surges, giant swells rolled around inside these walls, bucking and jostling these same boats, lifting them right to the top of the wooden palings, bashing them against the walls and causing some serious damage. “We would have moored the boats in Bideford,” Scott Wharton owner of ‘S & P fish’ who runs a small fishing fleet from the harbour told me but “we didn’t get a break in the storms to move them. So his crew manned the boats “night and day using incredible skill to keep them safe” with the only respite at low tide.

The fleet is still counting their losses out at sea with about 200-300 crab and lobster pots missing and others “tangled and rolled up into a giant ball.” All along the harbour wall, each boat has a tale to tell of the storms. John Balls who runs a potting boat from Clovelly harbour described the force of the sea “smashing pots and rolling them together like a bunch of grapes.” When he was able to get out (the sea piled up a load of shingle partly blocking Clovelly harbour) he searched for his pots, ‘grappling’ with a giant hook on a long pole, to salvage them from the sea bed. He lost 25% and when Boats Stories found him he was in his shed “mending and making new pots.” There was pressure on the fishermen to get out in the lull between the storms but it wasn’t that simple because the fishing grounds were affected by the constant pounding. I met one young fisherman in Appledore who had just come ashore from several days on a trawler which came home “practically empty.” Fishing crew are on a percentage of the catch and a percentage of nothing is nothing!

“So what was it like during the storms for the fish?” I asked the fishermen. “You know when you walk barefoot on the beach, sometimes the falling tide has sculpted hard ripples in the sand,” Bideford based, trawler owner Dick Talbot, explained patiently. “Now imagine those sand ripples rising over 70 feet high into giant sand banks, that’s what much of the seabed is like out in the Bristol Channel.” Dispersed amongst these giant sand waves or hugging the coastline are patches of gravel or mud and weed. And then imagine as Scott said “a washing machine constantly churning everything round and round.” Add in the mud and silt which came down the rivers, as if you are adding laundry liquid through the dispenser and you create an entire water layer full of silt, sand and weed. Some predatory fish which rely on sight may have headed further out to sea. Geoff Huelin who runs a potting boat from Ilfracombe thought that lobsters might have trundled slowly into deeper water, whereas “crabs or whelks would bury in deep to sit out the worst.” I realised it was perverse to continually ask people who’d earned nothing all winter what it was like for the fish. “I reckon fish in the Bristol Channel are used to wild tides and stormy seas – if they didn’t like it rough they’d be living elsewhere,” one salty dog, who’d spent nearly seventy years, facing the waves off the North Devon coast, twinkled at me.

Happily during the last weeks of calmer weather, the tide has begun to turn. The boats are finding fish. Boat Stories was out researching films in Appledore and took this picture (above) of the Sparkling Star heading to the fish dock to unload her catch. In Ilfracombe even as I write, the boats have risen on the water and the Olivia Belle is preparing to cast her moorings and head out to sea. Meanwhile

Scott said it could take his business three or four months to recover and others fared far worse. So now is the time to buy fish and support your local fishing industry. Geoff will be shooting his first pots tomorrow, planning to have lobsters and crabs ready for Easter. S & P wet fish shop and cafe, just across the harbour from where I’m sitting, plans to open tomorrow: April 1st for business. Head to Ilfracombe to watch the boats rise or fall gently with the tide, or the harbour at work, while you eat a crab sandwich, at the licensed café, out in the sunshine.

A big thank you to all those fishermen and women who took time to speak to Boat Stories while they were trying to get their businesses back on track after the storms. See our fish page for a list of suppliers selling locally landed fish and seafood. We will be adding to it and talking about different types of sustainable fishing, seasonal fish and the fishing grounds our local fishermen voluntarily protect as the project progresses.

Jo Stewart-Smith March 31st 2014