Random Ship Spotting - Part 4

The fourth in a series of articles looking at ships we have seen either at home or whilst on holiday.

MSC Musica, photographed in 2009 from one of Venice's water buses. We were low down on the water and she is towering above us! Built in 2006 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France, she had capacity to carry over 2,500 passengers with a crew of just over 1,000. She was the first of her class - the Musica Class - to be followed by Magnifica, Orchestra and Poesia. Refurbished in November 2019, she has 13 decks and can cruise at an average of 23 knots.

The MS Regatta, was also built at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire in 1998 as an R-class cruise ship for Renaissance Cruises. The second of her class she was imaginatively named R-Two. Renaissance Cruises were an American-owned company and finances affected by the Gulf War were finally disastrously run down after the 911 terrorist attack and the company went bankrupt, the ship being sold to Cruiseinvest and sailing as Insignia after a full year of being laid up. In 2003 she transferred to Oceania Cruises and was renamed as Regatta under which name and owner she still sails. A relatively small ship, for these days, she carries upto 824 passengers with 386 crew.

The ro-ro car and passenger ferry Metamauco, built in 1998 by the family-owned Cantiere Navale Visentini shipyard in Italy and operating in the Venetian Lagoon by Actv. This firm, the Company of the Venetian Transport Consortium runs all forms of public transport around the Venetian Lagoon and islands, including ferries, waterbuses, wheeled buses and trams.

Actv waterbus (vaporetto) Actv 87 on the main southern route from Venice towards the cruise port.

Two Blue Star ferries seen in Rhodes in 2010. Blue Star 1 on the left was built in the Netherlands in 2000 and carried upto 1600 passengers and 640 vehicles. In 2007 she had 15 new cabins added on an extension to deck 9. From 2021 she completed a two-year charter with Irish Ferries sailing between Pembroke and Rosslare. She kept her name throughout this charter and in 2023 returned to Blue Star and currently sails between Piraeus and Chania.

On the right is Blue Star's Diagoras, built in 1990 as the New Tosa in Japan for the Osaka-Kōchi route. She was bought after nine years on that route by Greek company, Dodekanisos Seaways, who shortly afterwards sold her on to DANE Sea line who renamed her Lindos. After some conversion work, she sailed between islands in the Dodecanese group in 2001 and was renamed again as Diagoras. DANE Sea line went bankrupt in 2004 and she spent the next two years laid up in Piraeus before Blue Star bought her in 2006. She operated on a variety of routes mainly in the Dodecanese group until being sold to a Moroccan company, Africa Morocco Link, in 2016, operating between Spain and Morocco. She was bought back by Blue Star in 2018 for whom she still sails.

Also in Rhodes in 2010 we came across the Delphin Voyager. Now this is a ship of many names. Built in Tokyo, Japan as Orient Venus for Japan Cruise Line in 1990, she spent fifteen years sailing in the Japanese cruise marketplace. In 2005 she was sold to First Cruise Line in 2005 and became Cruise One (how do they think of these names?) Chartered in 2007 to German company Delphin Kreuzfahrten as Delphin Voyager as seen above. The company became insolvent just six months after we saw her and she was taken to Perama a few miles from Piraeus in Greece until she was chartered for a five-month period in early 2011 to Hainan Cruises in China. She became the Hainan Express for that period to May 2011.

Then followed a charter to Quail/Happy Cruises under the name Happy Dolphin. She wasn't happy for long as Quail/Happy Cruises quickly went bankrupt in the same year. Another charter in 2012 took her to Turkey for the summer season crusing from Izmir under the name Aegean Paradise. In 2016 she was sold to a company and spent some time as a floating casino off Indonesia. She is apprarently still cruising as Aegean Paradise and 16 minutes ago as I now write, she was heading for Penang in Malaysia.

Costa Victoria pictured in Piraeus, Greece, in April 2010 with what appears to be a very determined Miss Franny walking along in her "danger flag" pants, keeping an eye on the workmen standing on a floating pontoon or raft doing something important to the side of the ship. I think the circles with the cross in them are safe targets for tugboats rather than "drill here" markings, but who knows... She was built in 1995 at Bremen in Germany, the first of two Victoria-class ships. The second was earmarked to become Costa Olympia but instead was sold to Norwegian Cruise Line, becoming Norwegian Sky. Meanwhile Costa Victoria started cruising with Costa Cruises in 1996, Costa's last new ship before the firm was taken over by Carnival Corporation in 1997.

Refits were undertaken in 2004 and 2013 to add balconies and remodel staterooms and public rooms to look "more Italian". In March 2020 a woman who had disembarked in Crete was found to be COVID positive and 726 passengers were subjected to quarantine. Her last scheduled stop of that cruise in Venice was cancelled and passengers eventually left the ship in Civitavechhia, Italy, after their quarantine period. She never carried passengers again. Three months later in June 2020 she was sold to an Italian firm for possible conversion to worker accomodation for shipyard workers in Genoa, but this never came to pass either. She was transferred to a subsidiary company and sent to Piombino from where she was towed to Aliağa, Turkey, for shipbreaking which took place in 2021.

A row of four ferries seen in Piraeus, Greece in 2010, belonging to the firm G.A. Ferries. On the left and laid up at the time is the Marina or to give it its full name,: Anthi Marina. She had been built as one of three ships for Townsend Thorensen and was originally the Spirit of Free Enterprise. One of her sister ships was the ill-fated Herald of Free Enterprise that capsized in the English Channel off Zeebrugge in 1987. Following this P&O bought out the company and all three ships were renamed, with Spirit... becoming Pride of Kent. In 1991 she was cut in half and an extension of 102 feet (31 metres) fitted into the centre of the ship.

In 1998 she became P&OSL Kent with the merger of P&O and Stena Line. This was shortened to P O Kent following the buyout of Stena Line's shares. She was sold to G.A. Ferries in 2003 and named Anthi Marina for whom she operated until being laid up in 2009 and was eventually scrapped in 2012.

Second in line is the Romilda with a similar background. Built in 1974 as Free Enterprise VIII and renamed in 1987 as Pride of Canterbury, she was transferred to G.A. Ferries in 1993, the second of their ferries to be named Romilda. She was sold to be scrapped in Turkey in 2011.

Third in line is the Rodanthi, built in 1974 in Japan for the Shin Higashi Nippon Ferry. She was bought by G.A. Ferries in 1989, chartered to CoTuNav (Tunisia Ferries) in 1995 then returned to Greece later the same year being laid up in Piraeus in 2009 and eventually scrapped in 2012

Finally, nearest the camera, we have Daliana another ship built for the Japanese domestic market as Ferry Pearl in 1970. She was bought by G.A. Ferries in 1988 and laid up with the others in 2009 - there were financial problems behind the laying up of ships. She was sold for scrapping in 2011.

Ships and Boats Index

Random Ship Spotting - Part 3

The third in a series of articles looking at ships we have seen either at home or whilst on holiday.

The Shamrock Enterprise was photographed in Glasson Dock, near Lancaster in the UK in May 1985. She was a general cargo ship, built in 1982 and launched on the 13th March of that year in the Netherlands. In 1985 she was sold to Lazard Leasing Service Ltd. and leased to Shamrock Shipping Company. She was to sail subsequently under the names Silverthorn in 1990, Fir in 2002 and finally Temptation upon being sold to a Colombian company. Whilst carrying over 1400 tons of cargo in heavy seas in the Caribbean, she sank on 20 December 2015, eighty miles from San Andres Island. Her crew were rescued.

The TSS (Turbine Steam Ship) Manxman, photographed in Preston Docks in 1986 acting as a floating nightclub after a career of almost 30 years with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company. Built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead in 1955, she was the final of six sister ships built for the company. Her last sailing between the Isle of Man and Birkenhead was in September 1982. She appeared as a location in the Barbra Streisand film Yentl during this period. She was sold as a planned centrepiece for a new leisure complex at Preston Dock, sailing there under her own steam on 3 October with passengers paying 1955 prices for beer at 10 pence per pint.

When the Preston Docks area was redeveloped in 1991 she was towed back to Liverpool where she spent another period as floating nightclub. In 1993 she moved to Hull where she remained whilst a company was formed with the intention of preserving her. Unfortunately a fire destroyed much of her internal woodwork and the preservation campaign fell through. She was moved to Sunderland to be dismantled and was scrapped in 2012.

Buffalo was one of three ships based on the same design, the others being Bison (see below) and Puma. She was built in Hamburg in 1975 for Pandoro Ltd. She was a Roll On-Roll Off ferry and a regular visitor to Fleetwood, seen here in 1986. In 1998 she became the European Leader, as Pandoro was rebranded as P&O Irish Sea. In 2004 Stena Line bought the Irish Sea route and she was renamed again as Stena Leader. Stena closed the route from Fleetwood in 2010 and the ferry was sold to Anrustrans being renamed as Anna Marine. She was scrapped in Turkey in 2014.

Bison seen at Fleetwood a little later, in May 1987. She was also built in Hamburg in 1975 but in order to cope with an increase in traffic between Fleetwood and Larne she was lengthened in 1980 in Tyneside where she was cut in two and an extra 15-metre length added. In 1989 she was chartered to B&I and returned in 1993 whereon she had to have extensions added to her side to comply with Safety Of Life At Sea (SOLAS) regulations. This made her less seaworthy and to compensate she had an extra vehicle deck added to the stern to add weight. In 1998 with the rebranding of Pandoro she became the European Pioneer and with her transfer to Stena she became Stena Pioneer. Sold to a Russian company in 2011 and renamed ANT 1. She was scrapped alongside her two sister ships in Turkey in 2014.

Motor Trawler Resolute sailing into Fleetwood, decorated as part of Fleetwood Lifeboat Day celebrations in June 1988. Built in 1970 in Aberdeen, she was renamed Boy Anthony III in 1979 and sold to a new owner in Maryport the following year. In 1985 she returned to Fleetwood as the Janmar under new ownership again and once more became the Resolute in 1987. In 2006, whilst docked in North Shields, she suffered serious fire damage to her crew accomodation and was scrapped two years later.

Ships and Boats Index

Coach Trip to Sidmouth with G-Line

A series of articles about a coach holiday to Sidmouth, in Devon, England. Our base for the week was the Royal York and Faulkner Hotel in Sidmouth and we will explore nearby seaside towns, the city of Exeter and some gardens, a swannery and a donkey sanctuary. A tram ride will also come into the equation at some point.

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to each of the articles. A link on each page will bring you back here.

Holidays and Day Trips in the UK Index Page

Jurassic Coast Cruise from Exmouth

Wednesday 30 August 2023. It's our last day down in Devon. Our trip today is to Exmouth with an included 2-hour cruise along the Jurassic Coast in a boat after lunch. I wasn't feeling so well and spent the whole time before the cruise just sitting on a bench in the Market Square, whilst Miss Franny alternately sat with me or went for a wander around the shops and market.

By lunchtime I was starting to feel better and managed to get seats on the boat out in the open but sheltered a bit by the enclosed space in front of us. Seating was on foldaway chairs, not the most comfortable or even unmoving seats to have on a boat perhaps, but we didn't run aground or meet any violent rocking motion caused by whales or the Kraken surfacing beneath us, so all was well.

The boat had both an enclosed cabin below and an open deck on top. The reason we went for the open deck was that the tide was out and this is where the gangplank led! As the boat filled up with people, passengers who wanted to sit with friends started moving the folding chairs about, blocking aisles and access for those still trying to get on...

The sun came out every now and then, turning the rocks a more vivid colour and we passed some impressive stacks - Harry's Rocks(?) - no because they are chalk not sandstone stacks. I'm not really sure whose they were, but they were the sort of thing I would have avoided getting too close to...

The Captain - didn't quite catch his name, Ahab or something(?) - turned the boat into the cliffs and the commentary mentioned kittywakes, shags and cormorants. Cormorants I can recognise but the others are just gulls and best avoided without suitable head covering and certainly not to be trusted near any fish and chips. Very congenial, but less so for the passengers trying to eat ice creams...

One woman lost hers altogether and there was much shrieking and wailing as it went over the side. Not all of it coming from the gulls either... In fact, in this case it was nothing to do with the gulls but more the fact that she turned her cone on its side to eat it horizontally. Gravity emptied the cone faster than she could...

We went past Budleigh Salterton, seen on our first full day of the holiday and turned round within sight of Sidmouth. The boat was shaped a bit like a brick so it wasn't the fastest thing on water. I presume it was a touch more streamlined under the waterline as otherwise we'd have felt quite a bit more motion. And probably not as dense as a brick or otherwise the motion would have been vertical...

Exmouth comes back into view eventually and the tide has come in a bit so there's more of a slope to the gangplank as we disembark. Andrew has the coach ready and waiting nearby and we head back to the hotel for our last evening.

Thursday 31 August 2023. 7:00am - cases outside our rooms. 8:00am - breakfast. 9:00am - bus! Clear instructions you would think. Even so apparently a woman announced she had to go back to her room after breakfast at 9:10. "No more than ten minutes please..." she was asked. "Oh... don't rush me! Don't rush me!" came the reply.

The other coach party in the hotel (from a different company) were going home half an hour earlier than we were. The coach driver, waiting for the last two passengers to come to the bus well beyond their deadline took the coach up the road to the turnround point saying to our driver, "They'll come running once I set off don't worry!" Sure enough they appeared like magic but he didn't stop and left them waiting and panicking whilst he turned round and came back down the seafront before he picked them up!

Here's our coach on the motorway services as we were on the last stop before before we started dropping off passengers back onto feeder minibuses which took them back to their homes. G-Line - I'd recommend them any time!

Coach Trip to Sidmouth, August 2023, Index

A Free Day in Sidmouth

Tuesday 29 August 2023. We have no excursion today as it's Andrew's day off so we have a free day in Sidmouth.

We walk (slowly!) up the hill to Connaught Gardens. These were developed from a cottage garden of the 19th century and were bought and developed by the local authority following the death of the own in the 1930s. The gardens were opened by the Duke of Connaught, the third son of Queen Victoria in 1934, by which time he was in his 80s.

I sat and sketched the view from the western end of the gardens where a set of white-painted steps, known as Jacob's Ladder, reach down to the beach far below. It is a shingle beach but traces of sand can be seen just at the edge of the sea. A teenaged girl was jogging up the stairs, along past my bench and then down the cliff path to repeat her circuit. "Wow, that's really cool!" she said. And proudly I suppose it must be if I can impress teenaged girls at my age...

A few spots of rain stirred us into walking back down the hill into town. We had seen a sign for a toy museum and went to have a look. I used to have one of these Merit games as a very young boy. I know I'm bigger now but even so I was surprised at just how small it was! It worked by magnets on the end of a plastic concertina scissor contraption like a trellis attached to the bottom of the lever and a fixed point somewhere between the lever and the playfield at the bottom of the box. This meant that moving the lever would magnify the movement of the magnet.

We came out of the museum back into rain and went to look for somewhere to eat. We found a little cafe in a courtyard where we have eaten before. It had obviously changed hands as there was a distinctly Asian look to the decorations, very exotic! We had a scone with jam and clotted cream each - utterly gorgeous. By the time we came out it was fine again and we walked down to the seafront and along to the cliffs at the eastern side of the Promenade, turning in to walk along the River Sid.

The weir. The path diverted through a small park onto the streets of Sidmouth.

The Swan Inn has stood here since around 1770 and is described as a traditional back street pub.

We turned left past the pub and thus came to one of the town's main shopping streets. Unable to drink alcohol any more because of the pesky medicals, we did the next best thing and went into the Old Ship Inn, now a Costa Coffee but I can remember it being open as a public house.

It dates from the 1300s (the Blue Placque says "1400s") and has known smugglers, rowdyism, so many unwashed bodies that the street outside stank so much it was just about a no-go area and rumours of a penny hang room upstairs - a room with a rope tied taut from wall to wall over which people could hang for a penny to go to sleep - and a report that someone once tried to enter with a dancing bear which caused great consternation amongst the customers!

A newspaper report of 1859 tells of the landlord being summonsed to court after a constable had visited one night to find 30 men, women and boys in the tap room with a man playing a fiddle and "girls of bad character" and people dancing. The fiddling (I'm thinking of the chap with the fiddle but...) and dancing went on until the early hours of the morning and the landlord was summonsed to appear in court. Apparently despite all these people on the premises the poor constable could produce no evidence of complaints or witnesses and the landlord got away with a fine of just two pounds, including costs!

Coach Trip to Sidmouth, August 2023, Index

Seaton Trams and a Donkey Sanctuary

Monday 28 August 2023. It dawns as a summer's day and more or less stays that way. Hooray!

Before breakfast, having crossed the road from the hotel to the seafront. Today another excursion on the coach awaits us but we are not travelling very far today. We are heading for Seaton and its tramway, where we once spent a week using Seaton as a base in 2014.

We have a half hour before the tram ride. Due to a late departure it was getting towards lunch, but having stayed in Seaton before, we knew we were unlikely to find anywhere to eat and so it proved to be. So we wandered slowly looking at a very few and very closed cafes and went back to wait for our tram. As we were a coach party we had a tram of our own. Everyone else made a dive for the bottom so it was either climb the very narrow stairs or not go. I made it...

All the historical details about where and when the tramway and trams came from can be found in the 2014 articles. I'll just clarify here that only three of the tramcars were originally full size and have been cut down and the rest were all scratch built but based on actual tramcars. There's even one modelled on a Blackpool open-air Boat tram.

We reached the far end and trooped into the cafe for a cuppa and a sandwich, then a look around the station - this used to be a branch line originally - and gift shop. Then our tram came back out of its siding and the queue of people waiting to go back had to let us through due to it being a special charter. They weren't particularly happy some of them...

Then it was back to Seaton and onto the coach and a short hop to the donkey sanctuary. Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't have any great interest in donkeys. In any case after climbing up and down those narrow stairs twice over I just wanted to sit down on a bench and stay put. So Miss Franny went to give the donkeys my apologies and I found a nice nearby bench and sketched the view. Which only contained one donkey a long way away. Good, because I'm hopeless at drawing donkeys. So that weird-looking cross between a bison and an anteater is a donkey, ok? Miss Franny said one donkey had complained I wasn't interested in them but to be honest: he-aw he-aw he-aways complains, that one...

Coach Trip to Sidmouth, August 2023, Index

Abbotsbury, a Place of Gardens and Swans

Sunday 27 August 2023. Today our excursion takes us to Abbotsbury where there are two attractions quite close to each other.

Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens is a 20 acre garden, once a walled garden of the Earls of Lichfield who had a house here. It commenced in 1765, the house burned down in 1913, and the garden has remained whilst the earls returned to their home at Melbury House in Dorset. The gardens occupy a sheltered and wooded valley which leads down towards Chesil Beach and include a high viewpoint of the beach. The environment has its own micro-climate and can sustain outdoors many plants that would normally require to be kept in greenhouses. It is Grade I listed.

The gardens were a hard slog for me, I have to use a walking stick these days and there are lots of uneven slopes with a mix of surfaces and it was hard to find our way around. For a start, the maps we were given were printed upside down compared to all the maps displayed around the trails and there were no Exit signs until you were within a stone's throw of it. There were undoubtedly some lovely gardens, thankfully quite a few benches, but also a lot of fairly steep slopes. I didn't take any photos which was a shame, but I was more interested in remaining upright, so the picture is a watercolour of the lily pond that I did once home. I know I'm a bit rubbish at watercolours but every now and then I feel the urge to have another go!

Finally we managed to work out where we were on the map (because of the lily pond!) but then still managed to turn the wrong way and ended at the exit end of a rope bridge that there was no way I would have tried anyway. In fact later when we were waiting for the last passenger to come back to the coach I had visions of her hanging upside down from it, with her head in the water and her foot tangled in the ropes...

Anyway at least we actually found a signpost that gave more information than just a pointer without text. It said "Exit" and we made our way back to the cafe and courtyard dining area which we soon found was full of wasps... The place was refusing cash and insisted on card payment - like a red rag to a bull as far as I'm concerned - and of course they hadn't signposted that either. You were only told when you got to the till having stood in a long queue with a fully loaded tray. It was obviously not the young girl's fault who was serving, but if His Lordship is reading this, get it bloody sorted!

After lunch we were back onto the coach and taken the short distance to Abottsbury Swannery. The swannery was started when swans were reared in order to feed the monks at the nearby abbey set up by King Cnut in the first half of the 11th century. (This is the same Canute who demonstrated his non-divinity by failing to hold off the incoming tide). Swan roasting is slightly frowned upon these days and in any case King Henry VIII chucked the monks out in 1539.

They are mute swans, but not so much that you'd notice from the noise... Two blokes were ringing their legs (the swans that is, not their own...) and whilst one caught a swan then held it in a reverse cuddle which calmed it down, the other fitted an identifying ring. This activity had been paused for a bit whilst Covid and Avian Bird Flu affected both keeper and kept and the swannery was starting a count of the swans which before Covid had reached over 600 birds.

It is the only place in the world where you can walk through a large colony of nesting mute swans. There are two pathways set out where you can see both adults and small enclosures where chicks and cygnets are reared. Many of the them return here as adults to mate and raise their own families. White feathers are all over the place. If you go, you are warned not to pick them up. In times of Avian Bird Flu, the last thing they need is any risk of you taking it to all corners of the country...

Coach Trip to Sidmouth, August 2023, Index

Exeter Cathedral

Saturday 26 August 2023. We decided to go into the cathedral at Exeter and have a look around.

Cathedral Close usually, I imagine, is a haven of peace and tranquility but a drumming troupe were being very successful at destroying all of that very loudly and with a great deal of repetition of rhythm, something akin to rhythm, and sometimes (most of the time) just general noisome row.

A craft market was taking place before the door of the cathedral with all sorts of home-made articles from jewellery, to soap, artwork, and beer.

Quite a large number of statues still stand in their niches on the West front of the cathedral. The cathedral was founded in 1050 CE and rebuilt by the Normans whose twin towers still exist. Apart from these and most of the external walls the cathedral was rebuilt again during the late 13th and 14th centuries.

We paid to go inside, but the chancel area and most of the south aisle were roped off due to restoration work. The price was modest but whether that was because of the works restricting access or their usual price I'm not sure. There were no signs to say one way or the other. Consequently you were left feeling a little aggrieved as the chancel with its choirstalls and (especially here in Exeter) the misericords are usually the place to find the best carvings and woodwork. From the back of the nave, though, you get a spectacular view.

Exeter has the longest uninterrupted medieval vaulted ceiling in the world. It is stunning. Moreover, it is well lit by the windows the absence of which can leave many cathedral roofs in shadowy darkness. Henrietta Anne of England, the youngest daughter of King Charles I, was baptised here in 1644.

The Martyrs' Pulpit towards the chancel end of the nave. Carved in the 1870s in sandstone, it has six panels depicting martryrs who have died for their faith. It is dedicated to Bishop John Coleridge Patteson, who only a few years prior to this pulpit being made had been killed in 1871 by the islanders of Nukapu in the Soloman Isles.

Without being judgemental, I'll just point out that being a missionary requires one to persuade a population that the god or gods they have worshipped for centuries if not longer are either worthless or are the same as yours anyway and that your way of worshipping is better than theirs. You won't be able to provide any actual proof of this. Hardly surprising that they might take a bit of umbrage really. And indeed the panel depicting him shows his body being placed into a canoe by three natives, to be returned to his ship. Not the act of a people who killed for fun...

The screen separates the nave from the chancel, where the crossing would be if the cathedral had a central tower. Above it is the organ. The keyboards are on the other side to that which we see here and there is a minstrel's gallery with carved angels playing musical instruments.

The Astronomical Clock has a bottom dial dating from 1484 whilst the upper dial showing the minutes was added in 1760.

At the bottom of the door below the clock is a small round hole dating from the early 1600s. It allowed the Bishop's cat to get behind to chase out (let's be optimistic) the rodents that were attracted to the animal fat with which the clock was lubricated!

The monument to Valentine Carey who, following a spell as Dean of St Pauls in London, was Bishop of Exeter from 1621 to his death in 1626. He had returned to London to die and was buried in St Pauls. Any monument he had there did not survive the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Coach Trip to Sidmouth, August 2023, Index
English Churches and Cathedrals Index