“You’re kidding? Are there really dolphins and seals out here in our sea?” This surprised response often greets Rick Morris, MARINElife’s wildlife officer, as he makes his way around the passengers on MS Oldenburg, en route to Lundy. “Yes,” is the answer, but keep your eyes peeled. And if you follow Rick around the boat, as I did one Saturday in early May, your chances of spotting sea mammals are even higher. As the MS Oldenburg left Bideford and sailed slowly down the Taw and Torridge estuary, Rick introduced himself to everyone on the boat and handed out leaflets about MARINElife’s work. Rick or another volunteer is on the boat every Saturday and every month they do a full survey of the sea mammals and birds from the ferry.

As Rachel, MARINElife’s science officer, explained, “it makes perfect sense to survey from the ferries. We need to gather data following the same route or transect, noting changes over time and ferries like the Oldenburg repeatedly track back and forth at a fixed speed.” Rachel’s passion is seabirds and she did her PhD on the foraging behaviour of gannets. For years, these large, striking birds have been bucking the trend, doing well while other seabirds like the auks (guillemots and razorbills) and kittiwakes have been seriously struggling. Gannets are the ultimate generalist, able to hunt a wide range of fish and they learned to follow fishing boats and harvest any discarded fish thrown back into the ocean.

I was interested to know what Rachel thought of the proposed discards ban. As a punter, when you learn that so much fresh fish is thrown back – because it’s too small and has little chance of surviving – banning discards seems a no brainer. But Boat Stories has been listening to the fishermen’s point of view. They have to buy quota. Any fish, they can’t return to the sea, becomes part of that precious quota. If fish are too small to sell commercially they’ll be turned into fishmeal and fishermen will earn less for their catch - pushing what is already a perilous business for small fishermen even closer to the tipping point. Rachel said thoughtfully, “any ban will need to be phased in slowly, to give the seabirds a chance to adapt.” Meanwhile we were keeping our eyes peeled out for Rachel’s gannets. Follow them as they fold their wings and plunge into the ocean and the chances are that dolphins may be after the same schools of fish.  

The cloud hung, heavy and grey, but Rick and Rachel both laughed when I grumbled. “It makes it easier to spot fins,” said Rick, “you’re not constantly screwing up your eyes against the glare. And with no whitecaps these are perfect conditions.” Rick proceeded to tell me he’d seen minke whale on this crossing so I decided to put the pressure on. Luckily for Rick a passenger shouted, “We’ve seen a fin”.  Rick rushed over and identified the triangular fin as a harbour porpoise. Needless to say I missed it!

Half way across seemed a good time to say hello to the captain, Jerry and first mate on the bridge. I found them all eyes trained on a bulk carrier which seemed to be on collision course. “We’re on the starboard passage, so they should give way to us,” Jerry told me. “The chances are no one’s on the bridge – they’ll be relying on electronic aids.” Eventually, slowly, the big ship gave way to our ferry and Jerry began to tell me about the 26 ships he’s captained. He’d just come from the helm of the Irish Naval ship, Le Samuel Beckett, built in Appledore, conducting sea trials. “I tweeted you!” I told him. The fisheries protection vessel is one of the ships on my Marine Traffic fleet and I’d spotted her from Ilfracombe harbour. A few years back on a trip to Lundy, I’d also spotted a pod of dolphins, bow riding the ferry; I began to point them out to passengers, surprised that the bridge was keeping quiet. “Do you tell passengers if you spot dolphins now?” I asked Jerry. “We try to,” he said. “But if over two hundred passengers cross to one side, she could begin to list.” I hadn’t thought of that! We were nearing Lundy. Time to get an identification lesson from Rick before the dolphins turned up!

Back on deck, the wind had woken up and a few seabirds were using it to get around. Several Manx shearwaters skimmed close to the water, using the lift from the waves to race us to Lundy. We spotted seven black tailed godwit on migration and two dumpy guillemots, flapping hard. Where were the sea mammals? Rick explained that while both dolphins we might see have the typical curved dorsal fin, the common dolphin has a distinct hourglass-shaped white pattern on its side and is much smaller than the bottlenose which can reach 3-4 metres. Dave the dolphin who (I’ve blogged about before) and who frequented Ilfracombe and Combe Martin last year was a bottlenose. Once you get to know them, behaviour helps in identification. Around the North Devon coast the dolphins showing off – the ones that should be riding our bow wave are usually common dolphins. The fins we spot from the sea cliffs usually belong to harbour porpoises which prefer shallower water and like to hug the coast.

Rick knows his sea mammals so well that I assume he’s been watching them for years. “I’m a long distance lorry driver,” he told me. A few years ago he was on ferry from Portsmouth to Spain, when he asked a MARINElife wildlife officer, staring out to sea, what he was looking for.  “Whales blowing,” came the answer. “Like that one there?” replied Rick. He’d spotted his first fin whale and “was hooked, line and sinker.” Now Rick surveys from ferries leaving ports all around the UK. "People think they have to go to New Zealand to see whales, but European seas are amongst the most diverse in the world." It's Rachel's job to make sense of the data collected by hundreds of volunteers. We don't spot fin whales off North Devon, very often, but just days after we filmed Ilfracombe fisherman Geoff Huelin, he “spotted two minke whales and had dolphins riding the bow wave all the way to Lundy and back!” Boat Stories didn’t see any dolphins last Saturday (Rick did!). But we did see plenty of seals, because we went on the Oldenburg around the island trip. (A bonus on certain tides!) And we travelled home with some Lundy sheep.

High pressure, sunshine, the North Devon coast! When we came back to Ilfracombe harbour after filming yesterday, the evening light bathing the contours of the cliffs was simply glorious. Wondering what to do over the weekend? Why not go out on a charter boat or boat trip with a qualified skipper?

THE HAMPSHIRE ROSE: harbour trips in a traditional lifeboat

The other day, I was sitting up top of Ilfracombe lifeboat station chatting to Stuart Carpenter, a volunteer helmsman on the inshore life boat, when rather cheekily I asked him what his day job was. He glanced out over the harbour, laughed and said ‘I drive a lifeboat around all day.’ The lifeboat in question is the “Hampshire Rose” a traditional wooden lifeboat which Stuart has had restored to take passengers on half hour tours around Ilfracombe harbour.  She is a Rother Class lifeboat and saw active service in Kent until 1990. Lifeboats with wooden double-ended hulls (like hers) were in use for nearly 200 years. Dressed in traditional lifeboat colours of orange and blue, she’s unmistakable once you know her. She’s licensed to take 12 passengers.

To book – look out for the traditional lifeboat  man on the harbour or call 07818 094228 email: [email protected]

OBSESSION II : diving and charter boat

Chatting alongside Stuart was Leigh Hanks: fulltime mechanic and deputy coxswain and Ilfracombe’s lifeboat station’s only paid employee.  Amazingly the lifeboat has a pool of 29 volunteer crew members. It sounds plenty, yet at any one time, 24/7, a lifeboat operations manager, a mechanic and a coxswain (for both the inshore boat and the all weather boat) is on call. Boat Stories salutes them all for their time and courage and will blog about the RNLI one day. We would love to make a film too! Meantime though, I couldn’t ask Leigh what his job was – so I asked him about his hobbies and rare days off. Turns out his holiday of choice is skippering a boat and diving and he is relief skipper of the diving boat ‘the Obsession 11.’

Boat Stories has never been on any boat named Obsession but I spotted Obsession 11 last week, from Lundy. Recognisable, with her diving platform at the stern, she was dropping off a happy looking mixed party on the quay. Besides diving she offers everything from swimming with seals (see our page) to hen and stag parties or the scattering of ashes. The good news is that every member of the Obsession fleet (skippers and crew) also volunteers for the RNLI, so out in the Bristol Channel you should be in safe hands.

JAY JAY & Lundy Explorer: Ilfracombe sea safaris

The skipper and owner of Jay Jay (available for diving and angling ) and Lundy Explorer, Mark Hutchings, also volunteers on the lifeboat crew. Good to know because the Bristol Channel, with its fast, high tidal race, deserves respect. The Lundy Explorer is a new, bright orange rib, capable of zipping in and out of the coves along our beautiful coast. Boat Stories went for a ride in the rib last summer hoping to spot Dave the Dolphin. We were disappointed not to see Dave the bottlenose, but we did a lot of zipping  as the crew tried to make up for it by providing an adrenalin rush. Many people were entertained by Dave last summer and as ever Boat Stories is keen to look behind the headlines, find out why he paid us a visit and why or where he might have moved on.  Or whether as rumour has it -  he turned into Doris!  If we hear he’s back – we’ll let you know. Rick Morris, MARINElife’s Lundy wildlife officer, told Boat Stories that lone dolphins have often been rejected by their social group or pod because they have misbehaved in some way or are simply too young and fit to be acceptable - in the same way that young male lions are forced to leave their family pride. It might be that Dave approached boats – looking for company.  But we really don’t know enough about dolphin behaviour.  A quote often used, I have borrowed it myself when writing voice-overs for films, “we know more about outer space than we know about life in our oceans”.  

Contact Jay Jay or Lundy Explorer on 07827 679189 or 01271 863398

If you go out on one of the charter boats or take the Oldenburg to Lundy (blog coming soon) there’s a fair chance that you will see common dolphins riding the bow wave – and keep your eyes peeled for harbour porpoises. The message from MARINElife  is enjoy watching our local sea mammal population– but don’t harass them – they will come to you if they want to. See Lundy warden’s guidelines on our ‘swimming with seals’ page. And let us know if you see anything interesting. A sun fish or (totally harmless) basking shark perhaps? They’ve been spotted already this year but Boat Stories hasn’t seen them yet..

As I walk into S&P fish shop on Ilfracombe harbour Clare is unpacking the new waterproof labels and Rich is dressing lobster. “I’m learning,” admits Clare, “anything you want to know about fish or how to cook it - ask Rich.” I soon discover Clare knows a lot more than she is letting on. She is married to P for Paul - one of the Wharton brothers who founded S&P trawlers: the largest fishing fleet in North Devon.  Paul is the skipper of the banana-yellow potting boat ‘Lady of Lundy’ which supplies lobsters and crabs directly to the shop. Add to this the fish which comes off the trawlers and S&P is the only wet fish shop in North Devon fed directly from the boats. Clare’s also running the licensed café selling seafood sandwiches and platters right on the harbour.  With the fishing boats only ten metres or so away, you can’t beat this for food miles.

There’s an amazing variety of large fresh fish of every shape and size laid on ice, before me –much more than in your usual fishmonger and I’m struggling to identify everything. Besides the usual haddock fillet (on offer) there is pollock, bass, ling, plaice, sole, brill, turbot, monkfish, scallops, and John Dory (Rich’s favourite). You really see what you’re getting here – the whole beast - which Rich will fillet for you if you’d rather not do it yourself.  He’s also prepared meaty chunks ready for kebabs for the barbecue or mixed for fish pie. “The salmon is farmed of course and the brown crab comes from south Devon, otherwise it all comes in mixed boxes straight off the boats.”

If the trawlers land by day, Rich can select his fish off the boat. If the fish is landed in the middle of night the catch heads straight to Appledore fish dock and S&P in effect buys their own catch back from them. Clare tells me they often have a two or three hour turn around before the boats are off out to sea again, for several days. As a fisherman’s wife she’s used to being summoned to the harbour in the middle of night with food parcels or a change of clothes.  

All S&P boats are certified under Seafish’s responsible fishing scheme which Gus Carslake from Seafish told Boat Stories is “the equivalent of an organic inspection for boats. It focuses on sustainable fishing, measures taken to avoid unnecessary bycatch, fish quality (in terms of hygiene, putting fish on ice, getting it to the customer quickly) and how the boat is maintained – hugely relevant for the safety of the crew.” Seafish want to encourage fishmongers to link the fish customers buy to individual boats in the same way that good butchers will tell you which farm their beef or lamb comes from. Restaurants in Ilfracombe could do the same – you could be eating on the Quay and spot the boat which caught your ‘fish of the day’!  S&P’s trawlers are orange –look out for them coming in and out of Ilfracombe, Appledore or Bideford. There’s the 15 metre Sparkling Star who joined the fleet in 2012, skippered by Paul Stone and crewed by Karl and the two Toms. And Our Olivia Belle - built for the fleet and named after the Wharton brothers’ daughters Olivia and Isabel and skippered by Scott, the S of S&P, his son Danny and Marcus ‘Tats’ White.  So North Devon’s largest fleet is not huge! For those who remember Our Josie Grace (named after daughters Josie and Olivia Grace) she was sold earlier this year, after the fleet lost their ‘historic rights’ to fish off the Welsh Coast. According to Boat Stories' fleet on Marine Traffic, her new home is somewhere on the East coast, fishing the North Sea.

Buying and selling boats is something Scott is used to as he responds to the ups and downs and ever changing fishing regulations. “Our Josie Grace employed four crew,” he tells me “and kept four more employees going on land.” A few years ago, when it looked as though the writing was on the wall for fishing, S&P invested in boats which could supply transport to offshore windfarms and so he is able to employ the skippers he would have had to lay off. “There’s plenty of fish out there – plenty for a good sustainable local fishing industry, perhaps 20 to 30 local boats - if only we could manage it.” Minutes after he tells me he’s done with fishing he happily admits, “It’s still the best job in the world.”  Amazingly Scott and his brother started out fishing off Lee Bay in a tiny wooden boat they bought from their wages after playing extras in a Glenda Jackson film. Scott’s career path from wooden boat to fleet owner would be almost impossible in today’s climate without backing or sponsorship.

Scott is used to selling fish shops too - he sold S&P fishmongers in Butcher’s Row, (Passmores still operate there (see our fish page) and decided to invest in the café on the harbour. A fish shop and café where you can sit outside and watch the boats come in, drink a glass of chilled wine or cold beer with your crab sandwich sounds idyllic. Yet business has been slow – so this is a make or break year. “We’re going all out for it this year,” Clare tells me. Hence the lobster tank (being cleaned) the new fish tank with spider crabs and other sea life to attract the children, special offers, the new menu cards and the offer of local delivery.

So the message is use this local fish shop and cafe or risk losing it. They have some faithful local customers – several turned up while I was there – and went away happy.  And OK you have to pay for the car park and the food and drink you buy.  But watching life go on in a busy working harbour is one of the few spectacles left that is free. Rich must have noticed me reading the menu and drooling. He offers me a taste of local lobster : sweet, juicy, meaty and delicate. I always thought lobster was out of my price range – but they’re on special offer and I buy half a dressed lobster (cooked and prepared) to take home to the family.

I leave Clare and Rick working away to catch the potting boats coming in on the high tide.

                   for information on opening times check out our fish page