Creel boat

Taken yesterday, this photo shows the Jacobite laying a string of creels just off the Ormsaigbeg shore. Although the OB painted on her side indicates that her port of registration is Oban, she's based in Tobermory.

As well as lobsters, these boats land crabs and prawns - langoustines or 'Dublin Bay' prawns. They are caught in the creels, or lobster pots, that are visible on deck: a steel frame covered in netting, with one or two entrances which the shellfish have difficulty getting out of. The creels are baited with dead fish and laid in a 'string' with a float at each end, this being anything from an old plastic container to a proper orange float, marked with the registration number of the boat.

The weather yesterday wasn't too bad, but well-found boats like the Jacobite are out in the most fearsome conditions. With a crew of three, their day is one of unremitting hard work in all weathers and often on slippery, bucking decks. Most crews still dislike wearing life jackets as they impede their work, but the quality of wet-weather gear has improved immensely over recent years, many now wearing survival suits which will keep them alive for some time even in these cold waters.

The creel boat's equipment includes radar, in the white dome over the wheel house, GPS, and a net hauler, visible just above and to the left of the for'ard 'OB', which pulls up the heavy creel string which, in the old days, was hauled by hand.

Too few people, when they sit down to a dish of prawns in a restaurant, stop to think how hard-won this delicacy is. Most of the shellfish caught off western Scotland go straight off to London and the continent.