Saturday, March 27, 2010

Ocean liner Queen Mary 2 leaving Cape Town. Get the best view here !

CLICK images to see LARGE
The Queen Mary 2 who was only one night in town caused quite a stir in Cape Town,  she was mentioned on the news.... I even got calls from friends to alert me :) and  people were grinding to a halt and parking on the streets where-ever they happened to get sight of  her !

The QM2 is on a 108-day world cruise after leaving Cape Town she sails for St Helana Island, Rio de Janeiro and Miami before heading back across the Atlantic to Southampton.




Frankly I was like a jack in the box myself :)  I was on my shoot from 4.30 till 7.30, drove  between top of Signal hill and  top road of Signal Hill to the  Radisson Hotel then the pier near the Table Bay Hotel, also nipped over close to the stadium to shoot the workers closing the Western side gap in the facade, then when she was leaving at 6 PM I walked around the base of Signal Hill, away from the mass of other people and started shooting till after dark




I saw the original Queen Mary, which is now a floating hotel in Long Beach, California and have been on many an ocean liner as a child, cruising from the Caribbean, where I grew up, to Europe, so I am fascinated and always interested to see them
Here is an interesting review with photos ofrom someone who took a cruise on her



                              The massive Queen Mary 2 attempts one of the more tricky manoeuvres
                               a three-point turn in Cape Town harbour



She is one of the biggest ocean liners
if not the biggest ..



Captain ! Not much room left aft !


Finally ready to go !



Bon voyage !



Really special to witness this :)



                                                                     What a sight to behold !




and she sailed right between Green Point and Robben island


and this is where I suddenly got distracted by the beauty of our own  Queen
and forgot all about QM 2 who rapidly disappeared into the sunset
when I arrived home minutes later all I could see were her lights fading away
 in to the night

4 comments:

  1. ...that's pretty amazing - the port pilot aged no doubt.

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  2. Spectacular images!

    So it was you in one of the helicopters!
    I thought the stadium was BIG!
    This is bigger!
    It wouldn't fit into the stadium!
    I’m so used to the stadium being the biggest structure around, that seeing the ship was shocking.
    Was most fortunate to see it pull out of the harbour at dusk -
    Must say it was quite a show watching it be turned by the tiny tugs - when it's hooter went off I nearly jumped out of my skin,
    Bag pipes band played them out of the harbour
    They are off to Rio I believe [the ship - not the bag pipes!]- 7 days to get there
    all the best - roll on june!
    Odette

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  3. great account of your qm2 experience. good value.

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  4. Thank you guys I enjoyed the experience

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