Tag Archives: Kearney Trawlers Ltd
The fishermen
Jose Quezon’s hands moved like the parts of a well-oiled machine. It was April 1 2021, and the Northern Osprey, a 20m fishing trawler that sails out of Kilkeel, Northern Ireland, was in UK waters near the Isle of Man. The boat and its crew, four Filipinos and one British captain, had been at sea since dawn two days before. But Quezon had been at sea for the majority of his adult life. He had worked as a deckhand in the Philippines for 14 years and, since 2009, on British-flagged boats fishing out of UK ports. Technically, Quezon lived in the Philippines. But each year, he boarded a plane in Manila and flew to Belfast in Northern Ireland or Aberdeen in Scotland. When he arrived, his visa gave him 48 hours to transit through the UK to join a ship, which he’d live on for the next eight to 12 months. >click to read< 20:56
