Through the Gaps emerged in 2006, first as the newlynhar-bour.co.uk website before the blog format proved to be more accessible and faster to work with and update.

“It’s there to do a PR job for the best fish there is,” he said. “It tells the story of how that fish makes its way to Newlyn, and then to Billingsgate or Spain and onto someone’s plate.”

Now in its seventh year, Through the Gaps has become something of a virtual land-mark, tirelessly promoting

anything Newlyn- and SW-related. Its following has grown steadily to a respectable average of around 400 daily hits and something over 5,000 unique visitors every month – and there are some noticeably changing patterns.

“There are plenty of local readers, people who log in to see what’s happening in and around Newlyn.

“Fishermen certainly like it. But it’s noticeable that Through the Gaps is seeing an increasing interest from people interested in the seafood side rather than

people with an interest solely in fishing,” he said.

He added that it is noticeable that of the mobile devices that are used to read Through the Gaps, iPads are easily the most widely used.

“Last month 900 iPads, seventy iPhones and fifty HTC,” he said, scanning the statistics.

“The majority of people reading Through the Gaps are from the UK, Ireland and France, but from further afield as well.”

He has also set up web sites for a couple of fish-

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www.intrafish.com/fisheries 7 September 201212 NEWLYN 7 September 2012 13www.intrafish.com/fisheries NEWLYN

1: An unusual view of the market

2: Craig Crosbie with fresh Newlyn crab

3: Very rare cloud formation Undulatus Asperatus was only recognised a few years ago and is seen here over Newlyn harbour

4: Father and son Kevin and Mark Curtis, owners of the Elisabeth Veronique, taking on their triple trawl rig

5: Dan Garnet the fish man from Clovelly Fish at last year’s Newlyn Fish festival

ermen, including netter Ajax (www.ajaxah32.co.uk) and an inshore handline fish-erman who has yet to go live with his site for selling his catch direct.

“They are updating the Ajax website directly from sea even when hundreds of miles off,” he explained.

This provides updates of where they are and what fish is on the way. The next steps are likely to be for some of the inshore fishermen to start uploading their updates to Through the Gaps direct, and for a greater immediacy with a facility for video footage, such as live interviews, to be

streamed directly to Through the Gaps.

“I’d love to see other ports doing this. I’d be happy to negotiate with someone inter-ested in setting up this kind of effort for their fishing ports,” he said, adding that as well as the mechanics of setting up a blog or website, an important part of it is also the search engine ranking and social networking side of it.

Through the Gaps is linked to Twitter and Facebook pres-ences, so that updates are posted to each simultaneously, and he said that fishermen have yet to start making full use of what a significant marketing tool Twitter can be, although some, such as David Stevens on the Crystal Sea, are already using it.

“It’s all about fish PR, spreading the word about the fish we have down here, doing a good PR job for the fish and the way of life.

“For the creatively minded, there are also links there for those who have an interest in using a camera or a paint-brush,” he told Fishing News.

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