Cowes fireworks

Before I go further, here's an up-front confession - I am not a big fan of Cowes Week and usually avoid the place like the plague when it's on. I lost interest in it years ago when the Royal Yacht Britannia was decommissioned and therefore no longer attended, and there's no Navy guard ship either. A load of yachts just don't 'do it' for me and the town gets very crowded. The last time I went to either Cowes town during Cowes week was in 1991 or 92.
My sister and her two kids were visiting last week and my aunt decided to book us - me, her, sister and the two boys - onto a Red Funnel cruise from East Cowes, which went out into the Solent for a good vantage point. We could park the car on the car deck for an extra fiver, which saved having to hunt for a space in the town; it was lucky we left home when we did because there was a large queue into East Cowes which started at Wootton.

While we were waiting at the terminal, there was a display by the Red Arrows, followed by the last airworthy Sea Vixen, a former carrier-based aircraft dating from the 1950s and 60s.

The plane photos were taken with the Canon 600D with 100-400mm lens and the firework photos were taken with the 6D and 24-105mm lens.

Red Osprey - our 'party ship'  for the evening - was a little late getting into East Cowes, due to sheer volume of car traffic aboard, not to mention river traffic and she had to be escorted in by the police! We watched her unload - and unload, and unload.
Eventually she was empty and the staff wasted no time in getting us aboard. As we drove on, we have to turn round so the cars were facing the right way for disembarkation later and, just before the display began, the upper car deck was opened for passengers to watch the fireworks from.

Red Eagle was doing a cruise from Southampton

Once the fireworks were over, we waited in the Solent for Red Falcon (on her usual run from Southampton) to arrive, unload and depart which meant we missed the traffic queues out of East Cowes.

Summer's finished, Cowes Week has been and gone, as we say in our family...