Boat Arrivals from the Ship Canal

This morning I turned our VHF radio on to hear a ship called Bregen entering the ship canal, and was in discussion with the VTS who mentioned 2 convoys of smaller craft heading towards Ellesmere Port. So we grabbed cameras and headed out to the ship canal to catch the Bregen making its way up the ship canal.

Then we returned to the boat for some lunch, and returned back to the ship canal and the port entrance locks, just in time to catch the last few boats of the second convoy arriving. This was Liam and Kelly on Ariel & Joe on their final approach to the Port entrance.

Safely  inside the port entrance waiting their turn up through the locks and into the lower basin.

The boats waiting to make their way up through the smaller lock.

The two larger boats had to come up through the big lock, which took a while as the swing bridge below the lock would not open, even with one of these boats pulling it, but eventually they got it open enough to get in the lock.

The swing bridge across the smaller lock could not be swung until the other one was closed, to maintain emergency vehicle access to the Holiday Inn, but once the big swig bridge was closed the small one was opened for the smaller boats to use.

Then gradually they all entered the lower basin to take up their moorings for the weekend.

They were all very glad to be off the ship canal, which in this wind was not the best place to be, and its icy bite was having its effect.

Keith.