15 arrivals for the period
Whitefish totalled 5,500 boxes from five Scottish trawl and two Anglo-Spanish longline landings. A few Scottish boats made their final haddock and monkfish landings from Rockall for the year and will work closer to home over the winter months. Rockall is over 200 miles from the nearest landfall which makes it a very remote and dangerous location with massive seas relentlessly rolling in from the Atlantic. The Anglo fleet is conspicuous by its absence with only two landing of mostly ling and hake over the fortnight. The fleet continues to fish north and land into Shetland.
The shellfish sector was extremely quiet; a number of vessels were either broken down or undergoing a re-fit. The Kinlochbervie-based prawn trawler Oliva appeared for Loopallu, the offshore crabber North Star made a single landing of brown crab and three Oban-registered clam dredgers landed their catch.
Non-fishing activity was a mixed bag. Fish farm vessels Sally Ann, Viking Junior and Garde Saele called in for layovers, the survey vessel Kaiku took shelter from poor weather, bulk carrier Cosmos discharged 1200 tonnes of Irish salt for Highland Council roads department, Smit Spey was day-running for the annual war games exercise and research vessel Scotia called in for a half landing.
The pier played host to Loopallu for the very last time. Congratulations and many thanks to the hard-working team of organisers and volunteers who brought something really special to the village for fifteen successive years; we will certainly miss you.