Wednesday Walk - Watching a Cargo Ship Coming into the Harbor.

This post is for the #wednesdaywalk challenge and the #makemesmile challenge collaboration. This collaboration initially took place once a month, but due to its popularity, @tattoodjay (of the #wednesdaywalk) and @elizacheng (of #makemesmile) decided to make it a weekly thing.

If you want to know more about the rules, visit this week's post by @tattoodjay where you will find all the rules at the bottom of his post after you've enjoyed his beautiful photos from his walk.

Last weekend I thought to head out to Point Beach in Durban. I've been hoping to be there when a ship enters the harbor and take some photos of this process for quite some time now.

Being on Point Beach would be perfect to do this, as it is situated right next to the channel through which the ships enter the harbor.

So, we headed out to Point Beach.

We couldn't find parking close to the beach unless we were willing to pay some ridiculous rate for parking facilities.

We found a nice parking space (even in the shade...lol), about two blocks away from the beach, behind an apartment building. We decided to leave the car there and walk down to the beach.

But just as we came out from behind the building, approaching the main road leading to the beach, my wife and I responded simultaneously, "There's a ship coming in!"...lol.

Yes, we first heard the sound of the ship's engine, and as we came around the corner, there it was...a huge cargo ship coming in.

Well, there was not enough time to first get to the beach, and then across the beach to the channel. The ship has passed that point already anyhow.

Scouting the area to find a spot from where I could take some photos, I saw a space where I might get a good view of the ship entering the harbor.

I would have to go up on the main road, which is running parallel with the channel entering the harbor, but away from the beach...in other words, I would actually be moving closer to the main harbor area where the ship would enter the harbor.

I saw this area and realized that I should be able to get some nice shots from the top of this area.

I crossed the road and went to the highest point...

The two photos above were actually some of the last to be taken, but this is where the fun started, so I'm sharing them first...lol.

As I got to the top, I saw that I could go down to the left, and then slightly down alongside the fence, to get as close as possible...but take note in the photo below, that the sprinklers were on...lol.

Yet, I got my first shot of the ship coming in, accompanied by two tugboats!

(For a nice summary of the part that tugboats play in bringing a ship safely into the harbor, I found this nice, short, 2-minute video on Youtube).

The ship was coming in slowly, and I was able to zoom in a bit for the next shot...

In the next photo, I went a bit closer to the bottom (and became a target for the sprinklers...up to my knees...lol). But in this photo, you can see how the tugboat at the front of the ship is starting to turn its nose out, away from the ship...moving sideways...

Zooming in on the tugboat at the back, steadily holding its position.

And just in case you missed the name of the ship…lol.

And zooming in on the tugboat at the front, facing away from the ship by now…

Then, the tugboat at the back also started turning outward, with its nose away from the ship…

Now both tugboats were facing away from the ship.

By now the ship was slowly moving in behind the embankment in front of me and I no longer had a clear view of the process entering the harbor.

I went back down to the road and approached a gate to a parking area inside the harbor. The gates were open, but they had booms down. Speaking to the security guards, they informed me that I wasn’t allowed to come through the gates.

Since the 9/11 tragedy, it became very difficult to get access to the harbor. You can only gain access when you are a passenger on a cruise liner, or you need to drop someone off as a passenger or pick someone up. Otherwise, you would have to have permits for your reason of entry, such as picking up a load or to deliver a load, or whatever good reason you might have…

But they had no problem with me taking photos, standing at the gate.

Lucky for me, the ship was to dock right there, and I was still in time to get the following shots.

In the next two photos, the tugboats were assisting the ship to move sideways into its final position. In all the previous photos, you can see the trail of the boats and the ship on the water behind the ship and the boats, but on these two photos you will note that you can see that trail in front of the tugboats (especially the one at the front of the ship).

My last photo is a shot of the gate where I stood to take the photos of where the ship was docking. You can see the nose of the ship and the one tugboat sticking out (to the left).

I took this photo, standing on the pavement across the road, but not facing straight into the harbor to see the ship in full, because the road is making a 90-degree bend at the gate. I didn’t mind getting wet from the sprinklers but getting hit by car wouldn’t be so nice…lol.

And that’s it for today, folks.

Thank you for reading my post. I do appreciate it!