Nearly midnight, and the Buccaneer fishing boat is prowling the Cornish seas, hunting sardines. So far, it’s not been a good night. “Full moon,” shrugs skipper Pete Bullock, “the light sends them into deeper water.”
The screens from the boat’s sonar and radar devices give the wheelhouse the appearance of a James Bond film set, but there the glamour ends.
In fact, after nearly five hours at sea with the diesel engine throbbing and the boat pitching, “sick and tired” is taking on a whole new meaning for me.
Suddenly, Pete spots a red mark on the sonar. It’s a shoal of sardines, and the two other fishermen aboard, Matthew Round and James Roberts, swing into action. Floodlights illuminate the deck and a circular curtain of net called a purse seine is winched into the dark water.
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