Big Mary

Ever since I was a child, I had wanted to take a trip on a Cunard liner, having been fascinated by stories of the trans-Atlantic liners for years. I never did manage to travel on the QE2, which I very much regret, although I did visit her one day in the early 90s, thanks to a friend's next-door neighbour who was, at the time, hotel manager aboard her. Along came Queen Mary 2 in December 2003 and, as I watched her pass Town Quay in the murk that day I hoped that, one day, I might be one of the fortunate people to travel on her. Back in July this year, I watched the three current Cunard 'Queen' cruise ships leave Southampton together and wished that I was aboard one of them, especially the Queen Mary 2. When, the following day, my friend Patricia texted me with details of a four-night cruise on Queen Mary 2 at an attractive price, my will power - which is tenuous at the best of times - completely evaporated and I invited myself along.

The cruise was to depart Southampton on 16th November, sailing from the Ocean Terminal, spend a day at sea on Saturday 17th November before heading to Le Havre (Sunday) and then Zeebrugge (Monday) before returning to Southampton on Tuesday 20th November. The Le Havre part of the schedule was changed to Guernsey before being changed back to Le Havre.

16th November was grey and foggy, much like most of 2012 seems to have been, and it wasn't until the Red Jet was passing the Ocean Terminal that Queen Mary 2's distinctive shape could be made out. I met Patsy on Town Quay and, as at least it wasn't raining, we walked round to the Ocean Terminal which is practically next door.

There is an opportunity to get a photo of your ship at the Ocean Terminal; before you get to the terminal building itself, another small road (White Star Road) goes off to the left and you can walk along there for a few yards, stand in front of the fence and take a photo of your ship. Unfortunately, the fog prevented a really good photo, which I took with a small bridge camera, rather than dragging the SLR out, which I would have done if the weather had been better.

Because this is a long post, as the next ones will be, I have made the previews smaller, instead of full-size like I normally do, to prevent too much scrolling. Click on the previews for the larger versions.

After a bit of a wait in the Ocean Terminal spent avoiding the eye of Children In Need fundraisers (nothing against children, per se, I just hate this annual BBC wankathon with Terry Wogan and various z-list 'slebs demanding you part with your hard earned, and refuse to donate money to it, especially as the BBC binned their Wildlife Fund which I did donate to) we went through security and boarded the ship. Last time I came through here, for a visit to HAL's Maasdam in August, my footwear set the alarms off so, as I was wearing the same shoes, I erred on the side of caution and took them off!

We entered the ship via the Grand Lobby on Deck 3, where a piano player was providing background 'musak' (as it can only really be described as). One thing about the ship I wasn't keen on was the music, which was mostly classical, jazz/orchestral or piano-based; I suppose this is because the demographic catered for generally falls into the elderly category. I very much doubt that the likes of Annihilator, Iron Maiden, Gorgoroth or Judas Priest would go down very well with the older folk who make up the bulk of the clientele!

The cabin - or 'stateroom', as Cunard prefer to call it - was ready and it was big, with plenty of room for two people. It had a large window which was far better than an inside, where you have no idea what time of day it is, as it is pitch black no matter the light level outside. There was a bottle of Pol Acker on the table but as Patsy can't stand the stuff I drank it. :o)
From the Golden Lion we could see the tanker Whitchallenger alongside. She soon left, to be replaced by the rubbish barge Seagreen.

The fog cleared in time for departure and we could see Balmoral, which had been at berth 101, heading for the Upper Swinging Ground with Oriana, at 106, also getting ready to leave. The photo below also shows one of the Red Funnel vehicle ferries; I can't believe how minute these look when viewed from above!

As Balmoral headed for the Upper Swinging Ground and Oriana also left her berth, we promptly let go and began to move. The Queen went first, privileges of royalty! We reversed out and, with three loud blasts on the horns, set off down Southampton Water. One of the good things about Queen Mary 2's horn is that the blast is preceded by a hiss (one of the horns is a steam horn from the original Queen Mary) so you don't jump out of your skin. The hiss is a sort of unintentional warning the siren is about to sound.

Aligote, built 2010, IMO: 9440497, 42225 GT, Marshall Islands flag

Oriana and Balmoral followed us out into the Solent. Big Mary hung around between Cowes and Ryde and let them pass, which enabled me to get some passable night shots. Modern camera technology has moved on a lot in recent years and photos unobtainable without a tripod in the past are at least do-able now, with modern image-stabilised cameras and lenses. My Canon 100-400mm L lens has an older IS system but it works very well.

Brittany Ferries' Mont St. Michel approaching Portsmouth

Yes, I was tempted to get a marker, cross 'Hamilton' out and write 'Southampton'!

We anchored a few miles off Jersey the next morning. I was woken up by the anchor going down, up again and then back down, it's a noisy process. Visibility wasn't that good, and it was yet another wet day, but we could see the shore, St Helier and Corbiere lighthouse. I have a soft spot for Jersey because it was the first 'foreign' trip I made on my own, when I was a teenager, sailing from Portsmouth on Channel Island Ferries' 1970-built ferry Corbiere.

Spare propeller blades

I spent the day looking round the ship but, in the afternoon, I watched Gillette Soccer Saturday on SSN to keep an eye on the Southampton score. Saints were away at QPR for a much anticipated match; as both teams are in the bottom three, the losing manager was probably likely to lose his job, so it was dubbed, predictably, by the media as 'El Sackico', a play on 'El Clasico'. Thankfully, Saints won 1-3, which was only our second win of a so-far chastening return to the Premier League. Unfortunately the ever-irritating Reading also won, meaning we are still second from bottom, jeez, I hate Reading after they pipped us to the Championship title last season...but I was amused to see Portsmouth lost - again. :o)

We were supposed to have left the anchorage at 1930, although it took 20 minutes to raise the anchor and it was nearer 2000 by the time we began to move.
We were scheduled to arrive at Le Havre the following morning.

To be continued...

'...a tall ship...'

'...and a star to steer her by', as the poem goes. Well, there was more than one star, and I wasn't steering the ship, I was a passenger (and had, by now, consumed more alcohol than was strictly necessary) aboard Queen Mary 2 - a *very* tall ship - this weekend, and I decided to combine some ship photography with astrophotography.

People who know me will also know that, as well as maritime photography, I love astronomy, although I am not an astrophotographer, and it was nice to combine these two interests and get a shot of Orion with Queen Mary 2's bridge and forward superstructure in the foreground.

One photo came out, and here it is:

This can also be found on my astronomy website.

I am processing photos and video from this trip, and these will appear in posts over the next few days.

Oleander

Last week, I posted photos of Pride of Kent (ex-Spirit of Free Enterprise) as I found out she'd gone to breakers in the summer. Of the three Spirit-class sister ships - my all-time favourite ferries -  built in 1979/80 for the Townsend-Thoresen Dover to Calais route only one now survives, the former Pride of Free Enterprise, now called Oleander and sailing across the Mediterranean between Spain and Morocco, for Trans-Europa Ferries. Oleander is also still much as built, with a few small alterations, unlike the unfortunate Pride of Kent which was lengthened and had odd bits stuck on.
Before being sent to the Med, Oleander was on TEF's Ramsgate-Ostende route for a few years; I also saw her in Dover and Calais a number of times, as Pride of Bruges and P&OSL Picardy. I hope Oleander is around for a good many years yet, better still back in northern European waters.

I can't find any pics I might have of her as P&OSL Picardy, and I'm sure I have some somewhere and if I find them I'll add them. The pictures below are all scanned prints.

Here she is as Pride of Bruges, a name she was given when P&O wanted to rid themselves of the 'Free Enterprise' style of naming following the disaster at Zeebrugge, when her sister ship Herald of Free Enterprise capsized (the Herald was subsequently refloated and, offered for sale but deemed uneconomical to repair, ended her too-short life in a scrapyard in Taiwan in 1988).

And here she is, as Oleander, at Ostende in August 2003

Rotterdam

Holland America Line's Rotterdam is an infrequent visitor to the Solent, and was scheduled to arrive in Southampton at 1200 today. As it happened, the ETA changed and she was due to arrive at 1100 instead. Bugger, that meant I had to get up an hour earlier! Before getting up (lazy git that I am) I checked Marine Traffic AIS and saw she was picking up the pilot at the Nab so I got up, got dressed and went straight to Cowes. I had a bit of time to spare, so I hoped the kiosk on the seafront was open, as I wanted a cup of coffee, having not had one before leaving. It wasn't. Damn. Although that was probably really no bad thing because you don't buy coffee you only rent it and the public toilets were shut for the winter (because, of course, no-one actually needs to go to the loo between September and April, do they?). I went back to the car and waited.
Luckily the weather was beautiful, after the torrential rain and thunder of the night before, if the strong breeze was cold. A great day for ship photography!

In the meantime, I photographed Heather C which was anchored just off Cowes.

It wasn't long before something large loomed round the corner...I did notice that, as soon as she was in a good position for photography, WAFIs and other small craft flotsam started an exodus from Cowes Harbour! Every bloody time...!!

Naturally, a Red Funnel ferry got in the way. If a Red Funnel didn't get in the way, you'd start to wonder if you'd ended up in a parallel universe because it wouldn't be normal if Red Funnels didn't get in the way. Actually, that said, I like this pic and it is my favourite of the bunch.

The Red Funnels had to wait. Red Eagle had to wait until Rotterdam had gone past and Red Osprey had to wait until Red Eagle was out of the way!

Recently I offloaded my old Canon 40D DSLR, as I no longer used it, and I had intended to get a bridge camera (one of those SLR-looking superzoom compacts) for those times when it's not possible to carry my Canon 7D and lenses with me. I found that I could do a straight swap at our local camera shop for a Pentax X5, a 16 megapixel device which has a lens with a 35mm equivalent of 22mm to 560mm. I have to say that I am pretty pleased with the results so far, at least on the cats, dogs and garden, and I tried it out today. Technology moves on and this blows my first ever digital camera, a Minolta Z2 I bought in mid-2004, out of the water. It's not DSLR and L-series lens quality, of course, and they'd always be my first choice for serious photography, but pretty good all the same.

Once Rotterdam had rounded Calshot, I headed home. You can always tell which are the ship photographers' cars because, once the object of attention has gone past, they all drive off!

Back in August I visited Rotterdam's fleet mate Maasdam, a similar design, but with a different funnel and stern. Click here to read about it.

Rotterdam will be back this way on December 5th.