Boats, Ships and Trains

Best enlarged The departure of the P&O cruise ship Grand Princess was delayed for several hours when fog rolled in off the Atlantic to smother the 'Narrows", the only entrance to St. John's Harbour, a narrow channel between the Southside and Signal hills. It has a least depth of 11 metres and at its narrowest point near Chain Rock is 61 metres wide. The ship has a beam of 36 metres and a draught of nearly 8 metres. I can think of many worse places and circumstances in which to be fogbound!

Best enlarged The departure of the P&O cruise ship Grand Princess was delayed for several hours when fog rolled in off the Atlantic to smother the 'Narrows", the only entrance to St. John's Harbour, a narrow channel between the Southside and Signal hills. It has a least depth of 11 metres and at its narrowest point near Chain Rock is 61 metres wide. The ship has a beam of 36 metres and a draught of nearly 8 metres. I can think of many worse places and circumstances in which to be fogbound!

Best enlarged The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland. The canal was constructed in the early nineteenth century by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford, and is a sister canal of the Göta Canal in Sweden, also constructed by Telford. The canal runs some 60 miles (97 km) from northeast to southwest. Only one third of the entire length is man-made, the rest being formed by Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy. These lochs are located in the Great Glen, on a geological fault in the Earth's crust. There are 29 locks (including eight at Neptune's Staircase, Banavie), four aqueducts and 10 bridges in the course of the canal. The canal has several names in Scottish Gaelic including Amar-Uisge/Seòlaid a' Ghlinne Mhòir ("Waterway of the Great Glen"), Sligh'-Uisge na h-Alba ("Waterway of Scotland") and a literal translation (An) Canàl Cailleannach.

Best enlarged The Scottish Highlander is a boutique hotel barge cruising the Caledonian Canal in Scotland, from Inverness to Fort William. She is a Luxe motor Dutch steel barge. She is a member of the fleet of hotel barges owned by European Waterways. She was built in 1931, by Gebroeders Van Zutphen, in Vreeswijk, the Netherlands as a trading barge. She was christened the Vertrouwen, meaning "trust" in Dutch. She served as a trading barge for her first 60 years, transporting grain and various commodities throughout the Netherlands. In 1991, she was purchased by J.P. Leisure Limited. After a renovation in the Netherlands she sailed to Inverness in April 1993 to begin her career as a passenger ship. In 1999 she was purchased by Derek Banks to become part of the European Waterways fleet of hotel barges. From 1999 to 2000 she was completely renovated and was renamed Scottish Highlander. She was refurbished again in 2006. As a working hotel barge she cruises in Scotland on the Caledonian Canal with up to 8 passengers.

Local islanders leaving Gan island for their home islands after their days work. Scanned from a 1972 35mm slide

Best enlarged Saltford Lock is a canal lock situated on the River Avon, at the village of Saltford, between Bristol and Bath, England. The Bristol Avon Navigation, which runs the 15 miles (24 km) from the Kennet and Avon Canal at Hanham Lock to the Bristol Channel at Avonmouth, was constructed between 1724 and 1727, following legislation passed by Queen Anne, by a company of proprietors and the engineer John Hore of Newbury. The first cargo of 'Deal boards, Pig-Lead and Meal' arrived in Bath in December 1727. The navigation is now administered by the Canal & River Trust. The lock and weir are overlooked by the remains of the Kelston Brass Mill, which was working until 1925. It is a grade II listed building. The Brass Mill was one of a series of mills working in brass in the Avon Valley during the eighteenth century. Many of these mills, as at Saltford, employed waterwheels to power processes used by the company. Abraham Darby started making brass at Baptist Mills on the Frome in Bristol in 1702. Brassmaking was much later transferred to Keynsham's Avon Mill, because of its better water supply. River transport was used to deliver brass ingots and coal up to Saltford; Weston Mill, Bath and other mills of the company. Alongside the lock is the Jolly Sailor pub, whose garden extends over the lock to the small island between the lock and weir. The lock was opened in 1727 and destroyed in 1738 (probably by rival coal dealers) to stop the use of the river for transportation. The pub was built in 1726 for the bargees, when the navigation opened. The wooden fireplace has holes made by newly promoted captains of the barges using hot pokers.

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Best enlarged Scarborough registered Elvina (SH129) licensed for shellfish.(March 2017)

Best enlarged North Eastern Guardian III is a 26 m aluminium single hull vessel, owned by the North Eastern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (NEIFCA). The vessel was built and delivered in November 2008 by UKI workboat in Finland. The vessel is powered by twin 1000 KW Cat C32 diesel engines capable of a top speed of 26 knots. North Eastern Guardian III is unique in her class. She has been designed and equipped to operate as a state of the art research/monitoring platform carrying Acoustic Ground Discrimination, sub sea surveying and biological/benthic habitat assessment equipment. NEG III remains the most modern and versatile vessel in the inshore fisheries fleet. The vessel is berthed in Whitby North Yorkshire and undertakes offshore fisheries patrol and research work throughout the Authority’s district. This resource is also available for chartering by external organisations and to date has supported habitat assessment and monitoring work, bird and cetacean survey work and fisheries assessment projects. Whitby East Pier Light (or Whitby East Breakwater Light), was built in 1854. The stone built lighthouse stands 55 foot high ( approx 16 mtrs) and had a light visible from 8 miles (approx 13 km). This was replaced in 1914, by the new Whitby east pier light (not in view). The new light was built as a wooden framework tower on 'legs' Currently operational, it displays an automated fixed red light (red for port).

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Best enlarged The two larger vessels Sea Swallow (LN20) and Bonnie Lass III (MT126) are licensed for catching scallops (Mar 2017)

Best enlarged Specksioneer \Speck`sion*eer"\, n. The chief harpooner, who also directs in cutting up the speck, or blubber; -- so called among whalers.

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Best Enlarged The history of St Andrews Harbour is one that spans the centuries and is inseparably linked with the life of the coastal town it serves; indeed at one time the very life-blood of it. No doubt the Harbour's footings are to be found in nothing more than the unimproved shores of the Kinness Burn, around which the early inhabitants of the town, then still known as Kilrymont, would go about their simple lives of fishing and farming. During medieval times and through to the 16th century the harbour would see significant development with the construction of the original stone built piers and quays to serve the many travellers and merchants of the time; the town developing as an important academic, ecclesiastical and trading centre. Today the 18th to 20th century extensions and developments to the Long (North) Pier and Cross Pier form the well-sheltered havens of the Outer and enclosed Inner Harbours, which are home to a small, but growing, flotilla of pleasure craft and a small fishing fleet that in its heyday would have numbered fifty vessels and more. Catheral Ruins St Rule's tower is located in the Cathedral grounds but predates it, having served as the church of the priory up to the early 12th century. The building was retained to allow worship to continue uninterrupted during the building of its much larger successor. Originally, the tower and adjoining choir were part of the church built in the 11th century to house the relics of St Andrew. The nave, with twin western turrets, and the apse of the church no longer stand. The church's original appearance is illustrated in stylised form on some of the early seals of the Cathedral Priory. Legend credits St Rule (also known as St Regulus) with bringing relics of St Andrew to the area from their original location at Patras in Greece. Today the tower commands an admirable view of the town, harbour, sea, and surrounding countryside. Beautifully built in grey sandstone ashlar, and (for its date) immensely tall at 100 feet, it is a land- and sea-mark seen from many miles away, its prominence doubtless meant to guide pilgrims to the place of the Apostle's relics. In the Middle Ages a spire atop the tower made it even more prominent. The tower was originally ascended using ladders between wooden floors, but a stone spiral staircase was inserted in the 18th century. The Cathedral of St Andrew (often referred to as St Andrews Cathedral) is a ruined Roman Catholic cathedral in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. It was built in 1158 and became the centre of the Medieval Catholic Church in Scotland as the seat of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and the Bishops and Archbishops of St Andrews. It fell into disuse and ruin after Catholic mass was outlawed during the 16th-century Scottish Reformation. It is currently a monument in the custody of Historic Scotland. The ruins indicate that the building was approximately 119m (391 feet) long, and is the largest church to have been built in Scotland. Founding and development The cathedral was founded to supply more accommodation than the older church of St. Regulus (St. Rule) afforded. This older church, located on what became the cathedral grounds, had been built in the Romanesque style. Today, there remains the square tower, 33 metres (108 feet) high, and the quire, of very diminutive proportions. On a plan of the town from about 1530, a chancel appears, and seals affixed to the city and college charters bear representations of other buildings attached. To the east is an even older religious site, the Church of St Mary on the Rock, the Culdee house that became a Collegiate Church. Work began on the new cathedral in 1158 and continued for over a century. The west end was blown down in a storm and rebuilt between 1272 and 1279. It was dedicated on 5 July 1318, in a ceremony before King Robert I . When intact it had, besides a central tower, six turrets; of these remain two at the east and one of the two at the western extremity, rising to a height of 30 metres (100 feet). A fire partly destroyed the building in 1378; restoration and further embellishment were completed in 1440. The cathedral was served by a community of Augustinian Canons, the St Andrews Cathedral Priory, which were successors to the Culdees of the Celtic church. Greyfriar (Franciscan) and Blackfriar (Dominican) friars had properties in the town by the late 15th century and possibly as late as 1518. Abandonment and ruin In 1559, during the Scottish reformation, the building was stripped of its altars and images; and by 1561 it had been abandoned and left to fall into ruin. At about the end of the sixteenth century the central tower apparently gave way, carrying with it the north wall. Afterwards large portions of the ruins were taken away for building purposes, and nothing was done to preserve them until 1826. Since then it has been tended with scrupulous care, an interesting feature being the cutting out of the ground-plan in the turf. The principal portions extant, partly Norman and partly Early Scottish, are the east and west gables, the greater part of the south wall of the nave and the west wall of the south transept. At the end of the seventeenth century some of the priory buildings remained entire and considerable remains of others existed, but nearly all traces have now disappeared except portions of the priory wall and the archways, known as The Pends.

Kyleakin (/kaɪlˈɑːkɪn/; Scottish Gaelic: Caol Àcain) is a village situated on the east coast of the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland. The village is along the strait of Kyle Akin opposite the northwest Scottish mainland town of Kyle of Lochalsh. Its name derives from 'Strait of Haakon' named after the King Haakon IV of Norway whose fleet moored there prior to the Battle of Largs in 1263 which ended Norwegian rule of the island. The village of Kyleakin is also the site of Castle Moil, an ruined fortress built in the late 15th century. Legend states that there were much older fortifications on the site, and that it was originally built for a Norwegian princess known as 'Saucy Mary' who would charge a toll to any boat using the narrow channel by hanging a chain from the castle to the mainland to prevent unpaid crossings. Her remains are said to be buried on the top of Beinn na Caillich (Gaelic for "mountain of the old woman"), the large mountain to the rear of the castle ruins. However, some local historians contest this and claim that she was laid to rest by another mountain of the same name a few miles west in the village of Broadford, so that she may forever face the land of her birth.