Fishing boat registration codes

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Fishing boat registration codes are the letters and numbers displayed prominently on the side of European (including UK) fishing boats. The letters are derived from the first letter plus one or two more letters of the home port name followed by an identifying number. When we were on Portland Bill we saw the fishing boat WH296 cutting through the glittering sea, heading towards WeymoutH, its home port. Later we saw the boat moored at the harbourside and noted that it was, very appropriately, called "Portland Isle".

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Yachts big and small

I noticed the diminutive "Freda" moored at the quayside in Wymouth harbour, the pristine paintwork, masts and ropes drawn sharply against the blue water of the harbour and the sky blue above.  I stopped to give her the "once over" in her relative isolation before I went on to photograph the forest of masts further into the harbour.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Bridport harbour

Bridport in Dorset is a small market town two miles inland from a small harbour. This is often, unsurprisingly, called Bridport Harbour, but it also goes by the name West Bay. The harbour has the usual collection of pleasure craft and a small number of inshore fishing boats. It is something of a tourist destination and its desirability as a place to live is attested by the housing built on West Cliff, the 1885 terrace called Pier Terrace, and Quay West, two blocks of modern flats seen on the far side of the harbour in the photograph above.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Rhenish Tower, Lynmouth

The Rhenish Tower on the pier at Lynmouth, Devon, is thought to have been built around 1832, perhaps as a beacon for ships entering the harbour. It was originally a squarish tower built of rubble stone. In c.1852 brick balconies with turret-like machicolations were added to make the plain tower more attractive. It acquired the title, the Rhenish Tower, because of similarities with towers by the River Rhine. A further use was made of the tower in the C19 when bathing water was collected there and piped to the nearby Bath Hotel for "therapeutic" sea-water bathing.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Minehead harbour and pier

Today's photograph is a view of Minehead harbour from the pier. It shows its location below a wooded hill with the oldest houses squeezed into a strip below the trees and more recent Victorian and later buildings at the head of the pier. Among the latter is the lifeboat station of 1901 which is still in use, housing two inshore rescue craft.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Minehead harbour

The first pier at Minehead in Somerset was built in 1610 when the harbour became an important export and import location. Today the the harbour is still in use but commercial traffic has gone to bigger ports elsewhere and pleasure craft far outnumber the few engaged in fishing. Unusually, this harbour is, and always was, at the edge of the built up area of the coast, and today it is a popular destination for a walk from the centre of the town.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Colourful quayside houses, Weymouth

This terrace of houses on the quayside of Weymouth harbour shone in the light of the summer evening, and revealed details that suggest they date from the early nineteenth century. The bowed oriel windows, the fanlights and open-book keystones, the parapet hiding the low-pitched roofs all say early 1800s. The colour wash does too, though not the royal blue and turquoise - they are painted after the fancy of someone nearer in time to us.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Low water and high water, Tenby

For twenty years of my life I lived within two miles of the sea - close enough for our windows to have salt deposited on them in windy weather. One of the lessons I learned during this time was the sheer variety of photographs that were possible during the different stages of the tides. I was reminded of this during our recent visits to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, south Wales. The shot above, taken from a slipway at high water was one of many that I took where the foregound object differed - in this case I chose a rowing boat and fishing gear.

The second shot, taken at low water, shows the interesting variety of small boats and the colourful buildings above the harbour.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

View from Tenby Harbour

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This view from Tenby harbour looks north from near the slipway and the yacht club. At high tide the small pleasure craft, yachts and inshore fishing boats were all afloat or at sea. The sunny day and clear light made the most of the colours near and far, including the brightly painted hotels and apartments overlooking the sea on the High Street and the road known as The Norton.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Tenby harbour

 

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The town of Tenby in south-west Wales is a settlement of long standing. It is first mentioned in a poem of the C9. During the medieval period it became the site of a castle and had town walls and towers built around it. It grew to prominence as a fishing port and a significant centre of import and export. During the late C18 and C19 tourism became important to the town and it remains so today. A visitor to Tenby who parks near North Beach gets the above view as they walk into the town. The pier, slipway, lifeboat stations, Castle Hill and the colourful buildings behind the harbour's edge make a fine composition at high tide or low.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Herring gulls and scallop shells

This pair of herring gulls in the harbour at Lyme Regis seemed to be examining these scallop shells more in hope than expectation. All the shells had been opened and all seemed to have been there for a long time. What struck me most about this encounter was the combination of colours - the soft grey and white of the birds, and the white brown, orange and almost yellow of the shells all set against the lurid green of the algae/weed.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Harbour, Lyme Regis, Dorset

These photographs of Lyme Regis harbour were taken one minute and three seconds apart and illustrate a difference that a wider angle of view can make to a shot. Whilst the first shot offers information about the harbour and what can be seen there the second gives that information but in less detail. It also sets the harbour more in its geographical context and shows off the sky to better effect. It is, in my view, a better picture, more of a landscape than the first photograph.

 photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Fishing boats, Lyme Regis, Dorset

There's no doubt that most photographs of boats (and ships) give more attention to the bow than the stern. In a way, it's like photographs of animals where the head invariably features more prominently than the tail or rear end.

However, the stern of boats and ships are the more often the "business end" of the vessel and as such have more of interest on show - as with this pair of fishing boats in the harbour at Lyme Regis, Dorset. 

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2