The future is brighter for Moray harbours with a new leadership team installed to look after them.
A new crew of three men have taken up roles overseeing Buckie, Cullen, Portknockie, Findochty, Hopeman and Burghead harbours.
Harbour master Darren Bremner will be in charge of all six of the sites along with two assistant harbour masters Simon Forest and Mike Soper.
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With the fishing industry playing a pivotal role in the Moray economy, it is important to have the right team in place to meet growing demand across the region.
Darren Bremner, who will be based at Buckie Harbour, is a former offshore worker and is enjoying his new role.
He said: “The job changes everyday, in a nutshell we are responsible for the safety and security of the ports.
“The harbours are really important to Moray, there’s a lot of different products that pass through here be it for food like fish, prawns and squid when they are in season and we also get cargo vessels in that supply animal feed to a lot of different farms around here.
“We are the guys who take in the salt that grits the road and we also take in quite a large amount of malt that is used in the whisky industry, so I’d say we are an integral part of the industry.”
Both Simon Forest and Mike Soper are ex-military workers, with Mr Forest serving in the Royal Navy and working for many years on scallop trawlers out of Kirkcudbright.
He is the assistant harbour master for commercial activity and predicts a rosy future for the Moray coastal sites.
He said: “The harbours need to change with the times and Burghead is more commercial now than it has been for many years so we need more space for the fishing boats to manoeuvre and berth which puts a strain on the room taken by leisure craft.
“Burghead will become commercial only in the near future but we’ll see how that can be achieved.”
Burghead and Buckie are commercial harbours, while Hopeman, Cullen, Portknockie and Findochty are used by leisure crafts.
