After months of will-she-won't-she speculation and rumour the former Pride of Calais, now known as Ostend Spirit, finally showed up on the Port of London departures list as departing from Tilbury on 30th October 2013 at 1100, destination - the one nobody wanted to see - Aliaga.
I asked for - and got - a short notice day off work (no, of course I didn't tell them why!), booked a return crossing for myself and my car with Wightlink on the 0600 service from Fishbourne, collected fellow enthusiast
'Slinky-Dave' Shepherd at Leigh Park and drove to Northfleet.
To cut a long story short, the ship left her berth, turned round, approached the lock, buggered about for a bit and then went back alongside with the departure aborted for unknown reasons (later we found out it was a rudder problem) so that was that. With no new departure time we called it a day and headed back to Portsmouth. The ship eventually left at 1900 the same evening, but with work the next day, pets to see to and it being dark, there was no point in hanging around.
It would have been nice to get decent photos but, if we hadn't ventured up to the Thames while we had the chance and she
had gone as scheduled, we'd have kicked ourselves.
As you can see from the pics, fellow ferry European Seaway (which I was fortunate to sail on in 2005) has been keeping her company at Tilbury - and Seaway's own future is less than assured.
I have followed her on the AIS since and she has been doing speeds of up to 17 knots since leaving the Thames. There is nothing wrong with this ship and it seems criminal to send her to the breakers, which is a sentiment echoed across forums and Facebook groups.
Anyway, yesterday didn't go as planned but at least I did see her one final time - and I at least did catch up with her in her Ostend Spirit guise - and was able to say Farewell My Friend. I am running out of favourite ships...
I have got some photos of other ships seen on the day, I'll post these at the weekend.
