Sea Echoes: Another giant crane to emerge from Cork Harbour
Another big crane is emerging on the Cork Harbour skyline. It is being built at Cork Dockyard in Rusbrooke where it is the third in a successful construction and export project that has been developed there. It is an impressive sight.
Aquaculture has been ignored by the Department of the Marine the Irish Farmer’s Association, which represents fish farmers, has claimed.
“We have licences which went out of date over 10 years ago which the Department should have updated. Instead, salmon farmers are being accused of breaking the law for not reporting to organisations which have ceased to exist. Somebody somewhere thinks it more important to pursue this archaic system than to do the job of actually processing licence applications,” said the IFA’s Aquaculture Executive, Richie Flynn.
Personnel difficulties continue within Units of the Irish Coast Guard, where management has issued a warning to all volunteers not to engage in communication with any outside agency about operations. Volunteers disobeying this instruction will be subject to dismissal.
At Kilkee in County Clare there have been two marches by local people, protesting about the Coast Guard amid reports that experienced local volunteers have left after criticising management overtraining, operational procedures and safety issues. Coast Guard Unit activities there have been restricted since the death in September of last year of Doolin Coast Guard volunteer Caitriona Lucas.
She was assisting the Kilkee Unit in searching for a missing man when its RIB (rigid inflatable boat) capsized. Investigation reports into the tragedy are still awaited. Manuel di Lucia, founder of the original Kilkee Marine Rescue Service, said it was time that Minister for Transport Shane Ross intervened in a situation which dates back to the takeover of the community service by the Irish Coast Guard in 2013.
The first Irish woman to dive on the wreck of the Lusitania off Kinsale describes the experience in a fascinating article in SUBSEA, Ireland’s diving magazine. An instructor with Dalkey Scubadivers she says: “The sight of the anemone-covered bow will remain vividly in my mind for a long time.”
The international seafarers’ union, Nautilus, has described as “totally unacceptable” the development of a centralised computerised Vessel Traffic System for a number of key British ports – the Mersey, the Clyde, Heysham, the Medway and Great Yarmouth.
Peel Ports Company intends to base the system in Liverpool. Nautilus and the UK Marine Pilots Association have warned that this will create shipping and maritime dangers by replacing people with unreliable technology.
There is always something unusual to be found in the sea it is said and that has been proven by the catching of a ‘Frilled Shark,’ called a “living fossil” by marine scientists, off the coast of Portugal. The rare, deepwater shark, has 300 teeth, but is rarely seen. It was discovered in a by-catch taken by fishermen but had died. It was given to a research vessel in the area for scientific study.
The headless skeleton of a Steller's sea cow has been found in Northeast Russia.
Despite the missing head, marine researchers say the remains will “help solve several mysteries about this enormous, extinct animal.”
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