Cockles

I went to St Annes this morning to collect my new varifocal glasses (thats another story) and came back via the front at Lytham where the tide was going out and the cockle pickers were setting off for the cockle beds. There was quite a lot of activity with police, coastguards and Fisheries officers, so I stopped for a look.

The trailer in the shot appears to be quite well loaded and the back axle looked damaged as it had sunk into the stones.

To the left of the trailer was an area of the mud beach with about 10-15 vans and 4 x 4's parked up, they looked very close to the water to me but hay ho what do I know.

I was told that the cockle beds are about 5 miles out, if you look carefully in the right of the shot above the beached blue speedboat you might just about be able to make out a gas rig, apparently that is where the cockles are.

There has been a lot in the local press about the cockling since they opened the beds with illegal gangs coming down for the harvest which is apparently worth a lot of money, mostly on the export market, they are going to sea badly equipped and with faulty equipment on their boats and lacking in knowledge of the tides and the dangers that they face, this has led to a big rise in the work for the coastguards who have had to rescue a number of them.

This could all change as a notice said the beds were shut from Monday 7th November, seems a shame that the local legitimate fishermen are suffering as a result of this. Bit of a story on the BBC here

I seem to have written more than I usually write about my blips, I seem to have found a few minutes to spare and I have got the house to myself except for the dog that thinks it is tea time and is pestering me!

The new varifocals are OK but I am having a bit of trouble finding the spot on the lens for reading as my eyes move up and down from keyboard to screen, I have had to re-read the text and correct a few errors (more than usual) so forgive me if you spot any.!