Once the excitement of the festivities in the Solent was over, each ship went on her way. Oriana was heading to Amsterdam and Zeebrugge and we'd be arriving in Amsterdam at 1500 the next afternoon, following a transit of IJmuiden locks and the Nordzeekanal. This is great for ship spotting and photography, as the Nordzeekanal has many docks along its length, and there is an anchorage just out in the North Sea.
As for Oriana herself, she is a comfortable ship, the decor is pleasant and the food is good. But I'll get back to her later. In the meantime, here are the ships I saw on the passage up to the city itself. I got up late and went on deck to see where we were, hoping I hadn't missed us going past the anchorage, where there are usually a nice haul of ships to be had. Fortunately I hadn't. And what's more, there was something funny about the sky. An odd yellow orb had appeared and the sky had turned blue...SUNSHINE!!! A scarce commodity this summer - and why couldn't it have put in appearance in Southampton and the Solent the previous evening?!
These ships were in the anchorage. Some were further away than others and were buggers to subsequently identify, as the heat haze smeared out their names, Halsted Bay being the worst of them as her name was largely indecipherable.
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| Dimitrovsky Komsomol, 23444 gt, built in 1985, Bulgarian flag. IMO 8510934 |
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| Grand Challenger, 42887 gt, built 2006, Panamanian flag, IMO 9331397 |
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| Nordic Inge, 4473 gt, built 2005, Danish flag, IMO 9294692 |
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| Paul E, 4677 gt, built 2005, Gibraltar flag, IMO 9268277 |
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| Torm Alice, 30241 gt, built 2012, Danish flag, IMO 9465966 |
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| Mount Victoria, 22521 gt, built 2007, Cyprus flag, IMO 9360439 |
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| Atlantic Livadia, 23843 gt, built 1999, Liberian flag, IMO 9192765 |
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| Atlantic Polaris, 29266 gt, built 2009, Hong Kong flag, IMO 9292779 |
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| Baltic Advance, 23240 gt, built in 2006, Cyprus flag, IMO 9299862 |
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| Gotland Aliya, 29283, built in 2008, Bahamas flag, IMO 9375604. This ship was even further away than the others. |
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| Halsted Bay, 29683 gt, built 2007, Marshall Islands flag, IMO 9301914 |
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| Atlantic Livadia and Atlantic Polaris |
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| The pilot boat, Draco |
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| Hein, 2854 gt, built 1979, Netherlands flag, IMO 7911856 |
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| Cape Troy, 42053 gt, built 2011, Marshall Islands flag, IMO 9570008 |
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| Princess Seaways, 31356 gt, built in 1986, Danish flag, IMO 8502391 |
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| MSC Lirica, 59058 gt, built in 2003, Panamanian flag, IMO 9246102 |
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| MSC Lirica |
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| Sanmar Paragon, 38560 gt, built in 1996, Indian flag, IMO 9112325 |
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| Cape Agnes, 92572 gt, built in 2010, Panamanian flag, IMO 9573751 |
Entering IJmuiden locks
Once we were through IJmuiden locks, it would be another couple of hours before we would arrive in Amsterdam city itself. That, I'll put in part 2.
To be continued...
