Dark days before Christmas on the Wadden Sea

HARLINGEN - Because I was curious about the new Volvos (D13-400) on the 'Asterias', I booked a day of sailing. What struck me on this Tuesday, December 9, is that it is still quite busy with mussel ships. This morning I counted thirty ships actively at work. From the looks and sounds of it, the engines are running like clockwork, because the smoke plume is gone. Crew members Eelke Sybren Dijkstra, Theo van Malsen and driver Klaas Poelstra are therefore satisfied. Today we are taking mussel and water samples for sanitary inspection. This living product is under strict control from the plot to the store. Quite busy Readers of Visserijnieuws who regularly check MarineTraffic may sometimes wonder: what are those mussels doing, they 'fly' over the Wadden Sea, one goes where the other comes from, there is no point in it. Well, I can assure you that every boat trip is meticulously planned according to time, tide and water level. The BRU 8, for example, sails from the Balgen to Harlingen with mussels for consumption and Rinus Padmos sounds satisfied. Serge Schot reports from the ZZ 9 that they are cleaning the plot. This means fishing off the last mussels and shells and silt, the proceeds going to Zeeland. The BRU 5 is also active, but those mussels are trucked to Yerseke to the consumer. There is still demand for mussels. They are not that big, but the quality is superb. Nico Nieuwenhuize fishes with his brother Laurens (YE 96) a little further away in the Kabelgat. They go to the Roem van Yerseke for processing. In addition to the seed collected from mzis, there has been no bottom seed fishing last year, so mussel seed is scarce. Skipper Iman Deurloo of the BRU 50 reports that they are sowing a load of mussel seed from the Westkom to the Oosterom (Botslenk). "There are a lot of starfish on it, so first we have to get fresh water to Harlingen and then sow it on the plot. We have to be very careful with the scarce mussel seeds." Seed potatoes Others are sowing mussels from wind-sensitive plots to more sheltered fields on the Wadden Sea or in the Oosterschelde. At the moment it is important to protect your seed potatoes from the winter storms. So far things are going well, but you can tell that the blow the sector suffered after the major mortality in the Oosterschelde in 2024 is still reverberating. It will take several years of recovery to get everything back into balance. Anyway, this sector has taken a beating before and what still applies: Luctor et Emergo! In short, it was very busy on the Wadden Sea. Nice to experience it again. Nico Laros laros.nico@gmail.com