Southampton, 7th December 2013

On a chilly but bright day it was off to Southampton to see Saga Ruby for what - for me - may be the last time. She was due to depart on her final cruise (at least with Saga) this evening, returning to Southampton for the final time on 7th January which, unfortunately for me, is a Tuesday when I'll be at work (I currently work from 0700-1730 Mondays to Thursdays). As her final departure isn't yet known but will probably be that same week, I decided to go over and get some last photos.

There was a nice little haul of ships to be had. Firstly, the outward-bound container ship APL Yangshan:

I was very pleased to see the back of Red Falcon once we'd arrived in Southampton, for reasons outlined at the bottom of this post. I went straight round to Mayflower Park to photograph Saga Ruby in the sunshine, which had made an appearance.

From the ferry just before we left.

And what I think will be my last ever shot of her. :(

The laid-up container ship Qingdao Tower is back on berth 40.

In the background Morning Camilla arrives, complete with an extra funnel looking very much like the top of Fawley Power Station chimney...

Car carriers Trinidad and Morning Camilla.

Red Falcon on her way back up Southampton Water, with the 1330 from East Cowes

Turkish tanker Yasa Seyhan just arriving at Hamble oil terminal:

Apex, which was assisting Lumen N:

Other ships in were bulk carriers King Wheat and Indra II, small general cargo ships Bramau and Huelin Dispatch, ro-ros Eurocargo Salerno, Bess and my old friend Grande Napoli, container ship APL Temasek, plus tankers Opal Express and Sten Aurora.

Disgusting footnote: I had decided to take the car ferry across instead of the Red Jet (to avoid Newport traffic and for free parking at East Cowes) and ended up wishing I hadn't. I'd had two cups of coffee before leaving home and on boarding Red Falcon's 1030 sailing I headed for the toilets. On opening the door, I quickly closed it again, as it was swimming in water and heaven-knows-what-else...so I tried the disabled toilet - exactly the same result but with a crew member attempting to unblock the toilet. There was obviously a problem, confirmed by a PA announcement to the effect that the toilet system had packed up, which in itself had a knock-on effect - no catering because, apparently, the law stipulates that, with no toilet facilities there can't be any catering either. I suppose that makes sense because what goes in has to, er, come out.
One deeply unpleasant side effect of the lavatorial drama was witnessing a bloke taking a leak on the outside deck, which I could have done without seeing; it was disgusting and uncivilised and I am sure that arrangements could have been made for anyone that desperate! I reported it to an officer, telling her she might want to get someone to hose off the outer deck at the aft, 'Cowes', end, her first response was 'You're joking' and when I assured her I was not, her second response was an entirely justified 'Bloody hell'. The problem was fixed later in the day and the drainage will be permanently repaired overnight on Sunday.
Red Falcon, incidentally, is due to have completely new interiors, improved seating (not before time), an improved pet area (again not before time - why should pets and their owners be confined to a crummy, draughty area on deck?) and, if this is a success, the other vehicle ferries will get the same treatment.

Something else that disgusted me was finding a length of fishing line, complete with hooks, strung across the walkway on the western side of Town Quay. Fishing is supposed to be banned on Town Quay but I have seen worm-drowners deliberately flouting the laws and continuing to fish with seeming impunity. Breaking the by-laws is one thing but, whether through ignorance, laziness or malice, deliberately leaving fishing line and hooks lying round where wildlife, pets or people could injure themselves on them is fuckwittery of the highest order. If an animal - wild or a pet - or a small child had got hold of those hooks they'd have caused quite nasty injuries, and wildlife suffers greatly, and needlessly, from discarded fishing lines and hooks. I removed this stuff and binned it and I'll be emailing ABP, who Town Quay belongs to.

On a happier note, Town Quay is FINALLY being repaired. I hope it means the end of that infernal fence!

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I'm getting a 70D to go with my 6D sometime next week. I did have a 600D which I'd bought to use as a back up but I ended up not using it, simply because I couldn't get on with it. The 70D's controls are more akin to the 6D's, unlike those on the 600D.

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Something I hadn't mentioned on previous posts - barring any airline, air traffic, weather-related or other trouble, I am going to Rotterdam next month and sailing back on the new Norwegian Getaway, sister of Norwegian Breakaway, then I am doing a one-night cruise from Southampton and back. I am being joined by my friend Patricia and there's also be other friends on the cruise as well. Only a very short trip but should be fun.

Wind Surf and other ships at Portsmouth, 7th September

Wind Surf, a five-masted cruise ship, was in Portsmouth again yesterday (Saturday, 7th September) and, because I missed her previous visit, I went over to see her departure. For a change, and so the light was more in my favour, I decided to go over to Gosport Marina, rather than to the Round Tower, so this meant taking the Wightlink Wight Ryder service from Ryde Pier rather than my usual method of the hovercraft to Southsea - it makes more sense to use the Wight Ryder service because the Gosport ferry pontoon is next door; out of the Harbour Station and turn left.

The nice thing about the Wight Ryders is the fact that they have an open deck which passengers can use in all but inclement weather or after dark, whereas the old Fastcats had no such facility. The Wight Ryders are slower but that's not a bad thing on a pleasant(ish) day when you're not in any hurry and great for taking photos.

There were a few ship movements in Portsmouth, including Normandie Express, on one of her last trips before her winter hibernation...

...the local pilot boats...

...local ferries...

...refrigerated cargo ship Crown Opal, with another load of bananas and other fruit...

...and local bunkering tanker Whitchallenger, which supplies fuel to the ships in ports along the South Coast.

Finally, half an hour later than scheduled, Wind Surf began to move. For once I didn't need to look at the AIS app on my phone to see if a ship was moving because we could plainly see her masts above the buildings of the dock yard. She was supposed to depart at 1700 but, presumably because of Crown Opal's arrival, had to wait and left at 1730, which was cutting it a little fine for my 1815 ferry back to Ryde bearing in mind I had to get back across the harbour.
Here she is, sailing out of the harbour with a backdrop of threatening clouds; the weather has changed to more seasonably unsettled and with temperatures cut in half to a chillier 15-18°C from highs of 31°C last week.
Wind Surf is a seriously pretty ship. Maybe, one day, with fossil fuels depleted, all cruise ships will look like this?

Once she was out of the way, I hurried back to the Gosport ferry terminal to catch the incoming Spirit of Gosport and made it to the Wightlink terminal with a couple of minutes to spare.

I hadn't been to Gosport in years, it's probably been at least 21 years since I was last there - when I was in the navy - and it reminded me of why I don't like the place. The waterfront has been tidied up and a marina built but, as far as I'm concerned, it's not that much of an improvement on the place (and the new marina has destroyed feeding places for winter wading birds). I much prefer staying on the Portsmouth side and going to the Round Tower and Southsea, but the light is generally unfavourable from there in the afternoon.

St Helen was on the Odds and Evens.

As we left, and as the light was beginning to fade Bretagne arrived from St Malo with some impressively coloured clouds in the background.

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The plans for the coming weekend have changed slightly. We're still doing the trip but the ship we were supposed to travel on to Morocco and back has been switched to another route, to Algeria (which requires a visa to visit and, from what I understand, isn't the most sensible country to visit), so we have Vronskiy, better known in these parts as Brittany Ferries' Duc de Normandie, instead. I'd rather have travelled on Sherbatskiy, the former Oleander (which began life as Pride of Free Enterprise) instead but we will - I hope! - still at least get to see her because she's still sailing from Almeria. Still, it'll be interesting to see what the ex-Duc de Normandie is like, the last time I travelled on her was around 22 years ago. What else we get to see, I don't know, but it should be an interesting trip.

Southampton Water, 30th June 2013

Had to go to the mainland today, via Southampton with the car, so I took the opportunity to grab a few photos, too. It was a nice warm sunny day, with clearing fog.

LS Anne, passing Cowes on her way in to Fawley. She was on a parallel course with us as we entered Southampton Water.

Other tankers at Fawley were Aframax River...

...and Baltic Mariner

This moronic yacht got right between us and Red Eagle this morning. We had to slow to a dead stop in order to give him the opportunity to get out the way. This is the type who gives WAFIs their name, he really was a Wind Assisted F**king Idiot.

Wallenius Wilhelmsen's Toreador was looking rather pale, her once bright red paint now faded to a washed-out pink.

The docks were busy with car carriers, as they always seem to be at weekends. Undine and Virgo Leader were at berths 39/40.

While Queen Victoria was in 46, which is the Ocean Cruise Terminal these days, with Höegh Shanghai in the opposite berth.

On the way home, NYK Orion was ahead of us, out in the Solent

And June is finally over. Good riddance to it!

Southampton Water, 30th May 2013

We - my aunt and myself - did a quick trip to the mainland yesterday, to see my sister in Newbury and then go and see some puppies in Basingstoke (we're getting another dog :-) ) so I grabbed a few photos on the way back down Southampton Water late yesterday afternoon. The weather in the morning had been atrocious, with outbreaks of rain, so I'd just stayed inside the ferry on the way over but there wasn't much about, in any case.

A few days ago I bought a second DSLR body to go with my 6D although, this time, it's a cheap 600D, as I don't need another full frame body and couldn't justify the cost of a more expensive camera, as I am a hobbyist and not a professional. So far, I am pleased with it, although it is very basic indeed, and it is a lightweight body which produces good results.

The following are a mix of photos from the 6D, with the 100-400mm lens fitted to it, and the 600D with the 24-105mm on it.

Heritage Leader at Southampton - I think the NYK car carriers would win any silly names competition...

Tankers at Fawley, L-R: Nansen Spirit, Patagonia and Bro Anna

I resorted to photos of the ferries, given that it was a little sparse on the shipping front!

While coastal cargo vessel Huelin Dispatch was on her way out to the Channel Islands, on her usual run. The lower photo was taken with the 600D and 24-105mm.

Some video of Huelin Dispatch, also taken on the 600D (the rattling you can hear is the Red Eagle; those ferries have vibrated something awful since their conversion ten years ago).

<whinge>What the hell have Yahoo done to Flickr? What was an easy-to-use photo sharing site has been turned into a user-unfriendly mess. It's now hard to keep track of comments, likes and uploads from your contacts, is so busy-looking that it's now very hard to navigate, it's hard to edit photo settings, the photo-stream is infinite scrolling which I hate and - worse - as a paying subscriber I now find that those with free accounts are getting the same deal, the only difference is that they have a (small and unobtrusive) advert at the bottom of the page.
I'll give it a chance, of course, and see if it grows on me but so far, ten days after the change, it hasn't; to me, it's software geeks rebuilding things for other software geeks and is a triumph of design over function. If it ain't broke don't fix it...but they did  - and their forum announcing the changes has attracted 30,000 comments, overwhelmingly negative.</whinge>