Archive for May 2012
Back in Aasiaat which is located on an island in the outermost southern part of Disko Bay in a very beautiful archipelago area and it is often referred to as “the land of a thousand islands”. I only counted 984, but may have missed a couple.
I spotted this old fishing boat next to the rusty drums and liked the colours, I don’t know weather the boat is still used but did notice it’s still tied to a mooring, maybe thats just incase there is a very high tide.
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I was going to say “Like Ships Passing in the Night” but this is Greenland, in the middle of summer, so there was no night!
After spending a month on a boat towing icebergs you would think I would of had enough of ships/water anything to do with the sea, but no, I never will. I was brought up with the sea at my door step (well very close) and it was the first thing I would see when I woke, now I live in London and the only time I get to see the sea is when I’m working, thats why I love my job.
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Keeping up my transportation theme, here’s a shot of an AHV (Anchor Handing Vessel) towing a rig into Invergordon. Invergordon is where rig’s go to die. A lot of the rig’s in the North Sea are very old, some around 40 years old, and this is where most of them will end up, stripped, cut up and crushed. See my other post.
These aren’t just big hunk’s of metal, these have been second homes to a lot of good, hard working people, some have been on the same rig for all it’s life.
When we towed the J.W. McLean into Invergordon for the very last time, the death march was played over the loudspeaker system, the shore was lined with people (I might have imagined that bit) It was a sad time.
Here you can see a cruise ship carefully navigating it’s way between the condemned rig’s.
Some get stripped and just the leg’s are left behind.
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A couple of years ago I worked a lot in the Black Sea, one of the ports we would pass through was Varna. I couldn’t resist snapping these guys working on this old ex-Soviet Submarine as we entered the port. Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and the third-largest city in Bulgaria. Commonly referred to as the marine (or summer) capital of Bulgaria, it’s also the headquarters of the Bulgarian Navy and merchant marine, as well as the centre of Varna Province and Bulgaria’s North-Eastern planning region, Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics. (NUTS) I just love that acronym.
On one of my brief visits I managed to check out Cosmonauts Alley which contains trees planted by Yuri Gagarin and other Soviet and Bulgarian cosmonauts.
One more fact, the oldest golden treasure in the world was discovered in Varna, consisting of coins, weapons and jewellery dating to 4,600 BC.
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This is my Silly Sunday shot, silly because I had my camera setting all wrong, I hadn’t checked the setting, the IOS was set at 6400, don’t ask me why! I don’t know, so instead of the bin I tried running it through Snapseed and well, not bad. The moral of the story is don’t bin anything. And yes the birds are real.
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In yesterdays post I mentioned the Inuit people, the locals, the people of Greenland. Friendly and charming folk who live in a very diverse climate, 6 months of hot dry windy summer and then 6 months of dark freezing windy winter takes the toll on them. Their tough bony hands and leathery tanned faces tell a story of these harsh conditions, illustrated by these teenagers waiting to catch a bus to their prom night.
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Well it looks like summer is finally here in London and this is my seal of approval. (sorry). I just thought it was a cool photo. (there I go again).
Back in Greenland again, while towing an iceberg on a long (24 hours) summers day this fellow drifted past us. Now we have onboard an environmentalist, he is a local, an Inuit and it’s our duty to report to him whenever we see any wildlife, so I called him, and up to the bridge he came, we stepped out onto the deck and I pointed out the iceberg with the seal on it, he then made some notes. Out of interest I asked him what type of Seal it was and his reply was “dunno but good eating“. I think he was joking, he knew what type of seal it was.
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That’s good bye in Norwegian incase you thought it was a spelling mistake. Leaving Florø behind and the North sea ahead we pass one more house that stood out, well stood on top of a large rock might describe it better. These crazy Norwegian’s will live anywhere. But I’m glad they do because this is a functioning lighthouse right in the middle of the shipping lane. The guy in the boat circled it a few times, maybe to let the occupants know he was there or maybe like us just fascinated with the structure.
And yes I’ve changed my theme again, I didn’t think my photo’s were big enough, hope you like. Remember you can click an image to see it full size, but you shouldn’t need to now.
And the follow me button is now on the left.
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After leaving Florø harbour we head out to open water, on the way we pass some pretty nice houses in some great locations. If you think getting the morning paper was going to be difficult living here? Wait until you see tomorrows post.
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Florø is Norway’s most westernmost town, It was built on the site of a farm ‘Flora’ in 1860, but they drop the “a” and replace it with a “ø”. The “ø” is the Danish word meaning “island” added to the end since the town is located on an island. I bet you didn’t know that, ok maybe you did. I had one of the nicest pizza’s in my life here, who would have thought that?
Very picturesque, but like most town’s in Norway the industrial side of life always finds it’s way to the waters edge.
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