Weather Watch

High winds and rough conditions meant that the port has been on weather watch for more than 24 hours. With pilotage operations at the pilot station suspended Friday afternoon there was little harbour activity to report Saturday. Conditions will be reviewed  again at 2130 hrs ADT Saturday.

Self-piloted vessels,  such as Oceanex Sanderling and Nolhan Ava that did not have to embark or disembark a pilot were able to sail on Friday evening, but other ships that arrived Friday and required pilots to depart, remained in port over night. Arriving ships either put back out to sea to await improvements or by-passed their Halifax call.

It was a gloomy sight that greeted overnighting cruise ship passengers this morning. Pearl Mist remained tied up at pier 23 and Serenade of the Seas loomed over at pier 22.

Driving rain probably convinced most passengers to remain aboard.

Serenade of the Seas did manage to sail late Saturday morning, but whether they carried the pilot over en route to Boston is not known to me. Container ships Zim Yokohama and Brighton also remained in port all day.

Two cruise ships opted to by-pass Halifax. Adventure of the Seas from Sydney, NS carried on for Bar Harbor and Amadea from Baie-Comeau kept on for New York.

Commercial traffic such as Maersk Patras is holding off until Sunday morning along with CMA CGM Elbe. The Netherlands warship HNLMS De Ruyter also put back to sea.

Movements within the harbour returned to normal today. The tanker BW Lynx moved from Imperial Oil to anchor in Bedford Basin Friday evening due to high winds, but returned to Imperial Oil Saturday evening.

The Halifax Police Department boat Garrett Cotter was out and about for a time this morning despite the unpleasant conditions.

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Both container [pier worked two container ships today and CN Rail began to set up a display near the waterfront.

Halterm welcomed CMA CGM Elbe a 95,263 gt, 112,500 dwt ship with a stated capacity of 9365 TEU including 1458 reefers. The ship was built in 2014 by Dalian Shipbuilding Industry in China.

With a capacity similar to some of the more conventional looking CMA CGM ships, it appears much larger due to the split superstructure favoured by many of the very large 10,000 TEU plus ships.

Halterm also had the regular weekly Maersk/CMA CGM ship. Despite no call last week form sister ship Maersk Patras, today's caller Maersk Penanag appeared lightly loaded on departure.

It did however appear to have lots of empties on its after deck.

At Cerescorp MOL Partner was back (lots of pictures of it in previous posts), and a ship I had not photographed before.

Granville Bridge was built in 2006 by Hyundai, Ulsan and measures 68,570 gt and 71,326 dwt, with and can carry 5624 TEU, including 600 reefers.

The ship is still wearing the "legacy" colours of K-line. After that line, MOL and NYK merged container ship operations into Ocean Network Express (ONE) more and more of the magenta coloured containers are showing up. For now at least, only new ships are being painted in that colour.


On shore CN Rail brought in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours of its intermodal containers to the parking lot opposite pier 23. They will be assembled as part of a 100th anniversary celebration.

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If you don't like the weather...

The old Halifax saying "If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes" certainly proved true today (although it was apparently not in  effect Thursday and Friday.) A gray drizzly day greeted early arriving cruise ship passengers this morning. It didn't seem to dampen the spirits of the largely British guests from P+O's Aurora.

By noon time however there was a complete about face as a largely cloudless sky emerged with a balmy 20degree C air temperature. This was the greeting for an unusual mid-day arrival of AIDAviva.

Unlike the earlier arrival, the decks were crowded with passengers, one in particular occupying the "pulpit" position at the very tip of the bow, as the crew rigged heaving lines from the docking platform.

It was still clear for the departure of Crete I from Fairview Cove.

and for the arrival of the CMA CGM Elbe for Halterm.

 

Its bow pulpit was occupied by one solitary sailor - his shipmates likely busy out of sight with their headlines.

 
The departing Pearl Mist had perfect conditions too.

Cloud began to build in a bit as Aurora sailed, but that merely helped to reduce the glare off the whiteness of the ship.

The sun was also shining brightly on the dazzle painted Sackville as it sat on the Synchrolift at HMC Dockyard. It has finally emerged after several months in the submarine shed for replacement of wasted hull plates. The work should ensure that the last surviving World War II corvette can remain afloat for some time to come.

Since all the ships noted are familiar visitors to Halifax, I have foregone the usual technical info, as it has appeared in earlier posts.

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