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Published: November 29th 2014
An Evening out with a Princess.
I dutifully waited at the station yesterday afternoon to collect Caroline off the 5pm train, the station in Fremantle is just over the way from Berth F at the passenger terminal.
When I parked the truck, it was 4.55 and Caroline’s train was just coming in, and as it was a really warm afternoon (the start of Summer time is only 2 days away now) I left the truck running and the air conditioning was set on cool.
As I had driven through down the cappuccino strip in the centre of Fremantle, on the way to collect Caroline I had noticed just how many people were out and about in the town, walking around with shopping bags and the like and strangely they all appeared to be of a similar same age group, so when I pulled into the pickup area at the station, I noticed that there was a huge passenger ship in port which was the Diamond Princess.
The last time we saw the Diamond Princess was in Sydney about 6 years ago and was covered in our Blog XXXX.
When Caroline’s cheery face appeared she
An evening out with a Princess
The Diamond Princess from Caroline's train carriagejumped in the cool of the Cab and we trundled off back to our base.
“My daily train commute home takes me past some lovely beach scenery, I tend to read on my commute, but as soon as it gets to the beach, I just love to watch the ocean, no sooner than the beach disappears from sight we slowly enter the Fremantle Docks and the train eases over the bridge from North Fremantle to South Fremantle and to the right the water way reveals a vast dock area and most nights I see ships of varying descriptions moored up and having their cargo unloaded, mostly the dockside is full of cars and caravans. Tonight the sight was spectacular to see the almighty Diamond Princess towering over the passenger terminal. It was an exciting sight.”
We got home it was Friday night and we were tuckered but we had a plan to go back later on so Caroline could take some shots but needed to check the port movements as we knew she would sail tonight, she was scheduled for a 21.30 departure, so after dinner and a rest, we headed back to the port about half hour
beforehand.
Caroline had picked the best vantage point to see this mighty liner depart, which was South Mole, so we headed off in to the evening with the Camera and our binoculars.
We parked at the end of the South Mole by the navigational beacon and waited, to see the Diamond Princess get ready to leave, but we waited and waited and nothing was happening, the bow lines were still attached and hatches were still open.
We chatted to a couple of other people who had turned up to look, they got bored waiting and left, we then looked on line and found the departure time had been put back until 10.30pm, we were only 15 minutes off by then so we waited a little longer and our efforts were rewarded, finally the bow lines were dropped, she pushed back and left the dockside and positioned herself for the optimum position to move forward.
I was excited as it was the very first time I had ever seen a giant of the sea move at such close quarters, yes I had seen her in Sydney when she was tied up then and even though we lived
An evening out with a Princess
The Diamond Princess just leaving her berth in one of the most historic sea ports in the world (Southampton) again they were always tied up or way out to sea, Caroline had an office just by the cruise liner berth on Southampton waters and always saw the big ships come in.
The next thing that happened I though was amazing, the Diamond Princess passed us, all 116,000 Tonnes of her and she didn’t even make a sound, nothing, the only noise was from the ships horn and then a chorus of horns from the cars waiting on the South Mole.
As she slid passed it just fascinated me how something so big and so powerful and just glide passed in absolute silence and I would guess we were less than 100mtrs away, it reminded me of how a swan moves on the water, graceful on top and the motion of its giant feet moving below the surface
We watched her disappear into the darkness whilst she heads out to sea and on to Bali for her next stop.
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