< September 2011 >

All content copyright © David Richerby, 2011–12

Contents

Sunday, 4th September

Tuesday, 6th September

Wednesday, 7th September

Thursday, 8th September

Saturday, 10th September

Sunday, 11th September

Ships

Yakovlevs Aerobatic Display Team

The Yakovlevs also performed yesterday, as part of the On the Waterfront festival. There were patches of blue sky then but I didn't have a long enough lens on my camera for it to be worth shooting. I can't say that an aerobatic display is the most appropriate thing ever held on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 but it was, nonetheless, an excellent display. The stall turn was incredible: as the aircraft started to tumble I was convinced he'd lost it.

Monday, 12th September

Hurricane Katia

This is what happens when the tail end of the tail end of a hurricane comes by. These portaloos were in a nice, neat row last night.

Ships

Wednesday, 14th September

Ships

Light on the Mersey

Thursday, 15th September

The day's main event was the arrival of Cunard's Queen Mary 2. When she was built, she was the largest passenger ship in history, though Royal Caribbean have since built two larger ships. She's still the largest ocean liner in history: that is, a ship carrying passengers on a specific route (Southampton–New York) to a regular schedule, rather than on cruises.

Ships

Queen Mary 2

Birkenhead Docks

Views of Liverpool

Ocean Countess

In fact, there were two cruise visitors to Liverpool today. Cruise & Maritime Voyages' ships always berth in the main dock system which isn't very, er, romantic. As it happens, Ocean Countess was built for Cunard in 1975 and sailed as Cunard Countess until 1996.

A gannet

I've no idea what this gannet was doing on the shore at Wallasey but I doubt it did, either. They prefer cliffs and the open sea.

Manannan

The Isle of Man ferry arriving from Douglas.

Fireworks

Saturday, 17th September

Ships

Mein Schiff 2

Sunday, 18th September

Cormorants

Ships

Tuesday, 20th September

HMS Albion, the current Royal Navy flagship, is in Liverpool for six days. She's affiliated with the city of Chester, where her crew will parade to celebrate the ship's tenth birthday.

Wednesday, 21st September

Ships and boats

Helicopter

I think the helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76C, was taking the dragon boat racers sight-seeing. It's not often you get to photograph a helicopter in flight from above!

Thursday, 22nd September

Friday, 23rd September

Saturday, 24th September

Ships

On board HMS Albion

Sunday, 25th September

Monday, 26th September

Ships

HMS Albion's departure

Tuesday, 27th September

Ships

Liverpool waterfront

Canning Dock at sunset

Wednesday, 28th September

Sorry about the poor quality on this one but it was shot from over a mile away on a misty morning.

Thursday, 29th September

Two tugs

Another Place

It looked like the sunset was going to be good so I took the train a few miles up the coast to see Another Place, a hundred iron casts of Antony Gormley's body along a few miles of beach between Crosby and Blundellsands. The turbines in the background of some of the shots are Burbo Bank offshore windfarm.

Friday, 30th September

The Steam Packet's conventional ro-ro ferry Ben-my-Chree (“Girl of my Heart”) normally works the Heysham–Douglas route but occasionally comes into Birkenhead, too. Low quality again — the mornings have been very misty, lately.