Katherine Ann Westabout

Last night well after sundown I thought for a while I was seeing the longer twilight of these more Southerly latitudes but looking a little later saw another set of what became obvious as squid fishing boats. As dawn approached several of these large 80 metre vessels were picked up on the AIS doing 11.7 knots which is indeed fast for a fishing vessel. What was happening the word had got out that there was a squid hot spot and they were converging from all along the 200 metre contour, the edge of the continental shelf, to a an area less than 12 miles by 4 approximately. At last count there were 21 of these massive vessels all jockeying for position. Tried to get a photo of one when about half a mile away where he was just nudging into the wind but it didn't turn out due to the foggy atmosphere. What you could see though along both sides were a solid mass of outriggers to house the jigging machines and lights. Being only a hundred miles North of the Falklands it was obviously in her fishing jurisdiction and does credit to the management that these 21 vessels mostly Taiwanese and Korean can continue to fish successfully here. Be interesting to see what the lights look like tonight from what will be a known distance. The Approach. I had hoped to clear the outliers on the one tack but the wind backed and was tempted to back away and go round to the East of the Falklands but with the greater distance and probably better wind angles will stick to the original plan and stay to the West, so am now on a port tack till the wind veers.