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Displaying items by tag: Waterford Estuary

As the summer draws closer to an end, particularly for land-based holiday-makers, those offshore onboard cruiseships continue to be drawn to our shores writes Jehan Ashmore. The cruise-ship season remains busy, stretching into September.

Azamara Journey, a cruiseship built a decade ago and weighing 30,277 gross tonnes (gt) is due tomorrow (21 August) to anchor off Dunmore East. The vessel will use tender-boats to transfer passengers to the fishing port which lies on the southern approches of the Waterford estuary leading into the River Suir .

Several days after Azamara Journey's call, a further three cruise-ships will be touring the south-east. On 2 September the Crystal Symphony (51,044gt) sails overnight from Holyhead and is scheduled to take anchorage off Dunmore East and two days later a similar call is expected by the Silver Whisper. The 2001-built vessel is operated by the six-star rated Silversea Cruises.

La Diamant is due on 5 September to berth at Belview, the main port of Waterford and then is bound for the Isles of Scilly. La Diamant is owned by the only French cruise operator, Compagnie du Ponant based in Marseilles. La Diamant (8,238gt) has 172 passengers and 144 crew.

The cruise-operator specialises in offering a fleet of small bijou ships which include sail-assisted vessels. Compagnie du Ponant are a subsidiary of CMA-CGM Group, one of the world's largest container shipping companies.

Another Silversea Cruises fleetmate, Silver Cloud is due to dock on 8 September at Belview or upstream in the city-centre quays, in the heart of the newly rejuvenated 'crystal' city. Silver Cloud is on a cruise from Iceland and after the Irish call, the vessel heads for Fowey with the cruise culminating in the Pool of London.

The location of where vessels berth throughout the estuary is subject to the draft of the ship, weather conditions, tides and occupancy status of berths.

Published in Ports & Shipping
Page 3 of 3

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.