Atlantic Dolphins Come To Look At The Humans

Tuesday 8 April 2014. Thomson Celebration spent a day at sea as we sailed from Madeira to Agadir on the coast of Morocco. We were making good use of our balcony and, having missed out on our previous dolphin and whale sighting, I had hung the camera strap over my chair with the telephoto lens attached so I could grab it in an instant.

Staring at the sea for hours is pretty boring after the first 20 minutes of anticipation wears off. So I was reading (or dozing) when I became aware that a small crowd were gathering and pointing on the deck above me.

I peered out to where they were pointing and saw in the distance a bit of disturbance on the surface. Dolphins in the wild do jump out occasionally but not to order. They do surf as a group too, coming out and diving back in unison but generally these are shallow dives without clearing the water altogether.

So most of my shots show them under the water. Also we were on Deck 9 - something like being on the 9th floor of a building, so we were a long way above them! The telephoto lens was very necessary but meant that finding the very fast-moving critters was just a touch difficult!

This was my only shot of a dolphin out of the water and this one was quite a distance from the ship. They did come quite close to the side of the ship. I suspect they like to swim and jump the troughs of the wake that ships create from cleaving through the water. But to do that they are swimming fast and difficult to follow with a long lens.

This is my best shot and just a split second after the head of the dolphin fell back into the water. So close and yet...

Colourful Coasts Cruise Index

The Last of the Four Funnel Liners

This afternoon we decided to make the most of the sunshine and had a walk round Lytham, to find there was an antiques fair in the Lowther Pavilion.

I came across a postcard sent from New York on November 7 1924 by a passenger who had just arrived on the Cunard ship Mauritania (although the postcard shows the later Aquitania).

Evidently the crossing had not been as smooth as Babs would have liked.

Indeed she was so disoriented on arriving back on terra firma that she inadvertantly wrote her message with the postcard upside down, realising and rotating it before writing the address of her friend on Central Drive, Blackpool.

She wrote:

Dear all,

Here I am in U.S.A. Sailed 1st Nov on "Mauritania" it's been 6 long days and very rough. Hope to winter in Bermuda and Nassau but will write you soon.

Hope you are all well.

Best love and Cheerio,
Babs

The Mauritania was built on the Tyne and her maiden voyage was on 16 November 1907. She won the Blue Riband for the fastest westbound Atlantic crossing in 1909 with a record that stood until twenty years later. Even on her final Atlantic crossing in 1934 she managed 24 knots, the original speed she had to meet in order to secure the mail contract when brand new. She was on her way back to England to be scrapped, docking in Southampton next to the Olympic, sister ship to the ill-fated Titanic and also awaiting the scrapyard.

One of her former Masters, Sir Arthur Rostron came to see her leave Southampton for the Rosyth shipbreakers. He had captained the RMS Carpathia during the Titanic rescue.

And what of the Aquitania? She was the last of the great ocean liners with four funnels. Built on Clydebank and launched on 21 April 1913 she was one of the first post-Titanic-disaster ships to be fitted with enough lifeboats for all crew and passengers, two of which were fitted with Marconi radio transmitters.

A month after her maiden voyage the First World War broke out and she acted as both a troop carrier and hospital ship during the war.

She served during the Second World War also and her long service ended in 1949, precipitated when a piano fell through the floor of one deck, crashing down into the dining room below and upsetting a corporate luncheon that was taking place... Her 36 years of service made her the longest serving Express Liner of her time, a record only broken by the Queen Elizabeth II.