Gravesend 11th February

My first post! Been meaning to get this blog going for some time, but time is at a premium and I've spent what little spare time there is hunting ships.

Traveling time to Gravesend from my home near Oxford has been dramatically cut since the introduction of the Javelin High Speed train from St Pancras. What used to take 3 1/2 hours now takes 2 so I got a bit more time on The Shore than usual. Saying that, its only my second visit to Gravesend so most of it is all new to me!

Arrived just before 8. The last time I visited I figured out the route from the train station to the Tilbury Ferry, through St Georges shopping centre (passing Simply Spuds which does a good cheap cup of tea/coffee), down a few flights of stairs to the ground floor, through St Georges Church and further down the hill till you see the Tilbury Ferry sign.

The bulk ship Zagreb was on Tilbury Power Station but nothing else was moving so I walked along to The Shore. It was chilly to say the least with plenty of ice about as well as a northerly wind so I battened down the hatches (2 hats/gloves/scarf) and waited to see what would turn up in the glorious morning sunshine. First to round the corner past Grays outbound was Trans Fjord (9034743) on her way to Rotterdam. All of the crew I spotted had a cup of tea in their hand and I was already thinking a quick trip to the Asda cafe might be in order.

Before that though I overheard on VTS that the Cembay (9183465) was outward bound for Bremen and I managed to snap her just before a small procession of smaller vessels made their way seaward. The Port Health
Authority vessel Londinium III, survey vessel Yantlet and the tugs Sea Challenge II and Argonaut all followed the Cembay past me. Apart from a sudden cloud over the Cembay, all of the vessels were looking good in the bright sunlight.

Just to the south of The Shore (it's a road as opposed to the actual shore itself!) is a retail park on which is a 24 hour Asda. I was thoroughly frozen and only fortified by a coffee I'd paid in blood for in London so I decided to get some brunch from the cafe within Asda itself. The price for scrambled egg on 2 toast plus a latte was just £2.65! Not bad I thought, but then it arrived at my table. Two slices of white toast (well I say toast but I think they were merely passing acquaintances with the toaster as they were still white), both soggy from water in the egg, and the whitest scrambled egg I'd ever seen. At least it was hot....

Back to the shore. Just passing Grays, outbound, as I arrived was the Eli Knutsen (9409261) on its way to Le Havre. She looked very clean in the bright sunlight, that was until the P&O ro/ro Norqueen fired up her engines in the dock and covered the river in yellow/black clag. She has certainly looked cleaner, and by the time she made her way out of the lock at 10am the exhaust had calmed down, a little at least. That was almost it for the day but just before I made a hasty retreat to Gravesend station I was just able to catch the container ship Orion lightly loaded inbound.

I enjoy visiting Gravesend, really! The light is normally very good for photographing throughout the day and there are a few sheltered spots giving good views of passing ships. Some locations give you a chance to take a photo without the clutter of the multitude of cranes/pylons/chimneys/warehouses interfering in the background.

I'm still in the process of building a site to host all my photos as well as an in depth guide to my favourite locations. This blog will just be a record of my trips out, as much to prompt my memory as much as anything else!