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There's nothing nicer than a wander round Scarborough's picturesque harbour, munching on some fish and chips, followed by an ice cream.

There are boats of all shapes and sizes moored up, from dinghies to trawlers, yachts to pleasure boats.

Scarborough harbour.

It might seem that as though boats come and go as they please, but that's not the case. Everything that comes into the harbour, does so under the watchful eye of Captain Bill Estill, Scarborough's Harbour Master, and his crew.

Bill is Port Manager for Scarborough and Whitby and he's also responsible for the Coble Landing in Filey. His job is to supervise the operations of the two bigger harbours and keep an eye on things in Filey. But, what exactly does his job entail?

"It involves planning all the berths, the maintenance of the harbours, the promotion of safe navigation within the harbour areas, keeping everything clean and tidy and we operate a dredger at Whitby, operate a pilotage service. We're responsible for collecting all the income 鈥� everybody who comes into the harbour must pay for the privilege.

Chris Harland outside the watch cabin.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a varied job 鈥� one thing that I do enjoy is that we never know what鈥檚 going to happen during the working day, it tends to spice things up and we鈥檙e used to coping with unusual circumstances鈥�.

Although Scarborough and Whitby are busy all year round, it's the summer months which are the busiest, with plenty of visiting craft from all over Europe as well as working boats.

"All our visiting craft come during the summer months, the fishing industry tends to be busier during the summer because there鈥檚 a very big prawn fishery off here which runs between May and the end of August and we get a lot of visiting fishing boats from there as well, so we鈥檙e generally busier in the summer.

"Both of our harbours are staffed 24 hours a day, we have a man on watch at both of them supported by CCTV surveillance systems and we have a presence here every minute of the day.

Boats moored in Scarborough harbour.

鈥淲e meet people from all walks of life and the people coming in to visit in yachts can be all nationalities as well. We get a lot of Belgians, Dutch, Norweigans and Germans, it鈥檚 an interesting life."

The harbours have changed over the years. There is less cargo going through Whitby now and there are fewer fishing trawlers based in both Whitby and Scarborough. Many of the bigger boats are itinerant now, working around the country rather then being based in one port.

Despite this, Bill says the fishing is still good on North Yorkshire's East Coast. Just recently Whitby's newest trawler landed a catch of fish worth 拢50,000 from one five day trip - the most valuable catch on record at the port.

Crab pots on the harbour.

There have been a lot of changes recently in and around the harbour in Scarborough.

"We鈥檝e had some significant investment over the past winter 鈥� we鈥檝e got our new yacht pontoons in the harbour and Sandside has been completely revamped and looks extremely smart 鈥� the work on the harbour and the work on the shore compliment each other very nicely.

鈥淭he developments at Scarborough have been extremely well received and I think it鈥檚 one of the best things we鈥檝e had round here for a long time."

So, next time you're wandering round the harbour in Scarborough or Whitby with your fish supper, spare a thought for Captain Bill Estill and his crew, manning the fort (that should be port!) 24 hours a day.

Why not give them a wave!