What a priveliged family we are ! About a month ago the chef of the super yacht Lady B came to the shop for a chat about fish and there followed a frantic couple of days of preparing, smoking and vac packing a quantity of what I think I do best ! I hope the owners enjoyed it ! Trish, Ailish and myself were invited on board for a wee tour….we had to take our shoes off before we could go on board…. hardly surprising when we were told we were standing on silk carpets ! Thanks to John, Bill, Lisa and the crew for making us feel so welcome. Check out google images for some cracking pictures of a beautiful yacht.
Four days later and a phone call from Jackie, the cook on board the motor super yacht t6 saw me again panicking to smoke enough haddock for a trip which will take them through the North West passage to Seattle !
A week of relative calm follows….
I’m leaning on the garden fence looking North at splashes in the water that are far too big to be diving Gannets…. ORCAS !!! (6 or 7 of them, fishing about a mile off shore) Our ‘Havra’ guests were just sitting down to a dinner of baked whole Turbot and very fine wine. A quick look at these amazing creatures then back to the Turbot ! Three and a half hours later the Orcas are still there but the Turbot was long gone !
My favourite ‘whales’ and I think the smallest ?…Neesicks, meaning sneezers in the Shetland dialect or harbour porpoises. How these tiny creatures survive Atlantic storms, dolphin attacks and Orca predation…I would not want to be a Neesick !..I was sitting up at the cairn behind our house, looking out to sea with the binoculars just in case there was a big whale passing. I turned my attention back towards the Maywick Holm and found our local Neesick group of around six……they’re always there the whole year round. Looking Westward off the Point of Maywick there’s a tremendous comotion in the water. I’m thinking it’s Dolphins, but they’re too small ! 20 to 25 beautiful little Neesicks come hurtling in to the bay at Maywick and spend the next couple of hours rounding up a shoal of fish and devouring them just 200 yards from the beach !
Living here as a fishmonger is a tough job but someone’s got to do it !
