It is a bit ironic that even though I live in Gosport, one the pictures I most regularly take is of Portsmouth’s waterfront. This morning is a good example of that. As soon as I arrived at the waterfront, of of the features I look at is the sky, and what that does for the skyline. As you might expect, even when it is a clear blue sky, there is always something to make its appearance unique. Cloud formations are the best. You might see something similar, but you will never see that same sky in exactly the same way again.
The other thing that you can never tell is the shipping movements. Normally, I would expect to see a Brittany Ferry, one or two Wight Link ferries, and a wight link cat, and of course the Gosport Ferry. There are though a number of other ships that could come in; The Whitchampion or the Janey W are both bunkering (refuelling) ships – actually, that’s worth a brief diversion, why are they called bunkering ships? Well, it’s a hangover from the Steam Ship days that needed coal, which was stored in coal bunkers, hence bunkering.
Back to ship types; we get container ships quite often. Not big, and the containers are all refrigerated, bringing in produce; fresh fruit (especially bananas) and vegetables.
We did used to get the occasional fairly small cruise ships coming in. Since the channel and harbour were dredged to accommodate the Navy’s Aircraft Carriers we are seeing mid-sized cruise ships, recently, Virgin’s Scarlet Lady has been based here, and has been moving about a lot.
Bills Posts 