Busy Port Day

Several hundred attendees at the Port of Halifax annual Port Days event were hardly noticed on the waterfront today amid about 7,000 cruise ship passengers and activities surrounding the G7 Environment ministers meeting at the Nova Scotian hotel nearby.

Aside from an increased police presence, it was pretty much business as usual in the southend of the port. Port Day attendees however were told that the future may look very different - more on that later.

Three cruise ships called in Halifax. As posted yesterday, there was the early arrival of Regal Princess. Since its first arrivals here in 2015 it has had "decorative" painting added to the bow.

 

After their usual day in port the regulars Rotterdam and AIDAviva had already sailed when Regal Princess backed out of its berth at pier 22. (This followed a nearly ten minute horn malfunction, that blasted the south end of the city and no doubt polluted the aural environment for the G7 representatives!).

The heavy police presence on the land side of the water front, including dozens of officers on bicycles, was also seen on the water with the Halifax Regional Police boat Garrett Cotter zipping back and forth.

Built in 2004 by ABCO, Lunenburg, NS the 710 bhp aluminum hulled vessels is registered as C07536NS./ Interestingly that registration shows ownership vested in the Halifax Port Authority. 
[Although not as famous as the Australian criminal of the same name, this Garrett Cotter was the first chief of Hailfax police, then called City Marshal, appointed in 1864.]

The RCMP was represented with a fibreglas Rigid Hull Inflatable dating from 2015 when it was built by Kantar Marine Inc of St.Thomas, ON. It is registered under C17083NL, a Newfoundland designation, but ownership is shown as RCMP "H" Division, Halifax.

Not to be left out the Canadian Coast Guard  landed a helicopter at George's Island late in the afternoon. However this may have been a normal technician run.

The autocarrier Goodwood was sailing form Autoport, in deep shadow.

 The RCN had HMCS Summerside and Glace Bay in the harbour, but this seemed quite incidental too.

See a subsequent post for Port Days coverage.

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Rotterdam arrives

The cruise ship Rotterdam arrived and tied up in bright sunshine this morning unlike the short look -in last week. It apparently reached New York and sailed on schedule after its transatlantic crossing.

Many cruise lines are adjusting their fall and winter schedules due to severe hurricane damage in some of the ports of call. While this may mean some changes in the Halifax cruise season, it is hard to pre there will be as the routes of developing storms are far from certain and the next one may reach our waters.

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Rotterdam - shortest stop on record

Rotterdam, co-flag ship of Holland America Cruises (with Amsterdam) made one of the shortest port calls on record today. It was less than an hour and a half  from arriving at the pilot station to clearing again, and within those tight confines obviously had no time to tie up securely at pier 31. Shortly after 0800 I saw the ship in the stream off Halterm heading seaward, so it must have made very good time outbound. 

The ship is en route Rotterdam to Boston via St.John's and was originally scheduled to spend the day in Halifax. However its name was removed from the official Cruise Halifax web site at some point.

In view of the high winds and driving rain today, and iffy forecasts for the next few days, perhaps the line decided not to lose time en route to Boston and scrubbed the official visit. Why it called in at all remains a mystery.

File photo from 2002 - definitely not today.

Built in 1997 by Fincantieri Marghera, Italy, the 61,849 grt ship has a capacity of 1404 to 1685 passengers and a crew of 620. It made its first call in Halifax May 13, 2002 and has called fairly regularly since. Its current schedule sees it touring Europe in the summer, and South America in the winter, with a brief fall season on the eastern seaboard.

After arriving in Boston September 9, the ship is due in Halifax again September 11 and 25 and  October 5 and 9.

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