Bad news I\'m afraid, Richy........
When I was on the pier last Friday night, I got to talking to the pier watchman.
He said that NO fishing would be allowed from the pier next Thursday during the departure of the tall ships. The Port of Tyne are employing a private security company to police the pier on the run up to and on the day itself.
I\'ve read that the \"Parade of Sail\" as it\'s called will start at around 8:00am and it\'s hoped that all of the ships will have past the lighthouses by around midday.
However, tens of thousands of spectators are expected, so as to WHEN fishing from the pier will be allowed again, I don\'t know......I would suspect several hours.
Then, ofcourse,,,,,,there\'s the nightmare of trying to get down to the seafront and finding a parking space.
Just as a further pointof information:
When I was out on Tallisman yesterday, Andy told me that the harbour and river is to be CLOSED to all boat / ship traffic on the Wednesday night - excluding the Shields ferry - until after all the ships have departed the harbour on the Thursday.
I suppose it\'s a security thing.......terrorists have used suicide bombers on boats in the past and the Tall Ships race is quite a high profile \"target\".
Andy wasn\'t too happy about the situation........he had a charter booked for the Tursday, but he\'s had to cancell it.
[Edited on 21/7/2005 by TC]
put some extra leave in so hoping to add some catch/nmon catch reports on the site soon.
