Ocean Majesty visits London

Ocean Majesty visits London, 3rd July, 2009

Last week Ocean Majesty arrived in London. I have in the past seen her pass through Tower Bridge, but on this occasion, I wasn’t around for the Bridge lifts, and merely saw her moored alongside HMS Belfast.

Ocean Majesty visits London, 3rd July, 2009

I have to say that she isn’t looking all that majestic at the moment, with a long scuff mark on the forward port side of her hull, and what looks like a really bad panel beating job at her stern!

Ocean Majesty visits London, 3rd July, 2009

I was walking along the north side Thames Path while I was photographing Ocean Majesty. In the picture above, the tower at Guy’s Hospital and some of the More London buildings are visible, while in the next picture, More London and City Hall are in the background.

Ocean Majesty visits London, 3rd July, 2009

Now let’s step back four years; and here she is passing through Tower Bridge in 2005, when I was lucky enough to be viewing from the top of City Hall, but when the weather wasn’t quite as good as it was last week.

Ocean Majesty visits London, 3rd July, 2005

More of my 2005 pictures can be viewed by visiting Ocean Majesty and Seabourn Pride, 3rd July 2005 on my website.

Silver Cloud visits London

Silver Cloud, 20th June, 2009

Had I been keeping an eye on the Port of London Authority – Cruise Ship Diary and the Tower Bridge Lift Times, I would have realised that Silver Cloud was going to be in London yesterday, and I would have hauled my DSLR up to town. However, I hadn’t been, so I didn’t, and I had to make do with my cameraphone.

Silver Cloud is a regular visitor to London, and appears at least once during most summers. I do actually have better pictures of her on my hard drive – but they’re not from this year!

I’ve even got a better picture of Silver Cloud online: it’s from three years ago and was taken from Tower Bridge. At the risk of totally eclipsing my cameraphone effort above, I’ve included it below.

Silver Cloud, 22nd September, 2006

Mayan Queen visits London

Mayan Queen

Unlike the day when I photographed Scarlett Oyster, the sun was out for this picture of Mayan Queen, which was snapped on my cameraphone. It doesn’t do a bad job when conditions are good! 🙂

Mayan Queen was not on the Port of London Authority Cruise Ship Diary, and I would guess that she’s a private yacht, albeit a nice big one. The other craft in the picture include HMS Belfast, a Thames passenger boat, and at the left, the vessel to the right of the grouping is Dutch Master

I’ve also cropped in for a close-up.

Mayan Queen

Scarlett Oyster visits London

Scarlett Oyster

Now that I’m working in The City of London again, I am renewing my interest in the shipping on The Thames. I can find out when boats like this one are visiting because their high mast means that they require a Tower Bridge lift, which has to be booked in advance, and for which a schedule is published.

This boat was a sailing yacht, and she was in London for a couple of days.

The picture was captured using my cameraphone. I could have hauled my DSLR up to town, but decided against it as the weather wasn’t that good, as you can probably see!

I’ve cropped in on Scarlett Oyster heself in the picture below. She is tied to a pontoon which is tied to HMS Belfast and you can see the crew crossing across the pontoon, from where there is a ladder up to the stern of HMS Belfast, which in turn has a gangplank to the south bank of The Thames.

Scarlett Oyster