< April 2012 >

All content copyright © David Richerby, 2012

Contents

Sunday, 1st April

Tuesday, 3rd April

Thursday, 5th April

Balmoral

The cruise ship Balmoral. Her next destination is Belfast where she'll begin a cruise retracing the route Titanic took to the point where she sank. Seems a bit ghoulish, to me.

Other ships

A pigeon

Friday, 6th April

Monday, 9th April

The puppet thing is for an event in a couple of weeks' time, when it will parade around the city, along with a giant girl and a giant dog.

Tuesday, 10th April

Sunday, 15th April

Marco Polo

Other ships

Monday, 16th April

Saga Pearl II

Saga Pearl II arrived this morning on her penultimate cruise. (Oh, the irony — Saga retiring a ship for being too old.) She was supposed to leave in the evening but stayed overnight because of bad weather forecast in the Irish Sea.

Other ships

Tuesday, 17th April

Ships

Weeding Prince's Dock

Once a year, they trim back the plants in Prince's Dock to stop them taking over. The little boat thing trims them underwater and then pushes the clippings into the corner of the dock for an excavator to take them out.

Liverpool Docks

Wednesday, 18th April

Saga Pearl II

The saga is over. Strong winds in the Atlantic and the exposed position of the berth at Cobh meant that Saga Pearl stayed two nights in Liverpool, which is very unusual. Cruise ships aren't supposed to stay overnight as part of the conditions imposed when government and European Union money was used to build the terminal.

TS Pelican

Thursday, 19th April

Friday, 20th April

Ships

Sea Odyssey

The storyline is something like this. A giant girl's giant father somehow died on the Titanic and his giant brother went off to retrieve the letter he'd written to her. Uncle and girl will be wandering around the city for three days before they meet up and he gives her the letter.

Giant diver

I'd expected to be largely indifferent to all of this but the giant diver was actually very cool, since he was powered by bungee-jumping maniacs. His legs are lifted by two guys grabbing onto a rope, jumping off a platform, pulling it to the ground and then running round to the back of the queue to do it all again.

Giant girl

I was, however, very disappointed with the giant girl. She was just sitting on the back of a car, doing next to nothing, and the whole thing really wasn't helped by the bored guys sitting around and smoking. OK, I get that little girls get tired and need to be carried but I thought the point of this was to be an entertaining spectacle, not a perfect reproduction of a little girl. She stood up again, after I'd followed her for a few hundred yards trying to get better shots.

Liverpool

Saturday, 21st April

RFA Wave Knight

And now it's RFA Wave Knight's turn for refit at Cammell Laird. She only recently arrived back in the UK after a year's deployment in the Gulf.

Ships

Sea Odyssey

The puppets

By the way, the guy who built the giant puppets really hates it if you call his puppets puppets.

Artificial geyser

Not sure how this relates to the giants but, apparently, it heralds their arrival. In any case, it's extremely realistic.

Sunday, 22nd April

Ships

Sea Odyssey

I didn't go see the uncle giving the letter to the girl but I did get a good view of them sailing away in their beautiful pea-green boat.

Mediator

I've been wanting to get shots like this for a while but this is the first time I've had the opportunity while there's been a ship berthed in Alfred Dock, which is just inside the entrance to the Birkenhead Docks. It must be a pain for the ships' crews, as the public can walk right up to the ship and onto the gangway.

Monday, 23rd April

Tuesday, 24th April

Wedneday, 25th April

Patricia is owned by Trinity House, which is responsible for lighthouses and navigational buoys in British waters. She also takes paying guests on board for about a week at a time while she works, in a somewhat unusual form of cruising.

Thursday, 26th April

Friday, 27th April

Ships

HMS Dragon

The Navy's newest ship, HMS Dragon. She was only commissioned a week ago.

Saturday, 28th April

Sunday, 29th April

HMS Dragon's departure

I went down to photograph HMS Dragon's departure from street level but I'd not realised how hard it was raining or how long it would take her to leave. SoI went back inside and took photographs from my balcony which is partly shaded from the rain by the one above.

Ships

Monday, 30th April