Month: February 2014

It has been a beautiful day today – the sun has shone and it has not been exactly warm but pleasant for late February.

I was working away in my hobby room when I saw the seagulls start to move. I managed to catch tow photos. The first is over the roof of the Anglo-Norden site and the second is down by the Sea Cadet’s hut.

Nothing to say – just enjoy the view

I thought that I might use a couple of different images to mark Suntis’ arrival this week.

These are titled “Having a rest” and “Our Battered Flag”

 

My, how the Red Ensign has suffered in the wind. Mind you, you can tell how strong the wind is by the way the flag is extended.

We had a nice sunset last night so I thought I would give you a couple pf shots from then.

Firstly, the seagulls all came home to roost – well to float, anyway.

Then the sun went down.

We had a quick trip around the Island yesterday. For those not familiar with the term, the Island is the other side of the Wet Dock from us.

Unfortunately, I only had my phone with me so most of the pictures are not up to scratch. These three did work, though.

First off, we have one of the legacy cranes.

A quick view of our apartment block.

Oh, and Anglo Norden’s facility.

It is extremely windy today and quite overcast so we decided – to have a day out! Well, why not.

First off, we went to the National Trust Centre at Dunwich Heath. Dunwich is up the coast from us between Aldeburgh and Southwold (remember them Dan?).

First up come Dunwich. This is a National Trust centre. It was extremely windy. The cliffs are marked out with warnings not to go near as the recent weather has made them very unstable. As the whole of this coastline is slipping into the sea, it is a wise precaution. The interesting thing about Dunwich is what you cannot see.  Check out the Dunwich web site for details of how the original port was lost to the sea centuries ago!

This is the Coastguard building – now National Trust. You can see from the flag how windy it was.

 

Lastly, again for Dan – a shot of Sizewell Power Station!

It was a cheap day out – until we joined the National Trust (NT) – £76!!!

As we now had free entry to all NT sites, we went down the coast to Sutton Hoo.

Sutton Hoo is too interesting for me to relate the whole story so check out the web site. The visit was very interesting. It is a pity that all of the relics are replicas but, when you think about it, give the value of them, the security on the site would have to be tremendous. All of the originals are now in the British Museum.

 

I have also uploaded these images to my Account at Flickr. This LINK will take you to my home page so you can see many of my recent photos and this LINK will take you to the set of images corresponding to these – but at much higher resolution.

 

We went down to Alton Water today – just near Tattingstone on the way to Manningtree. We parked by the lake (reservoir) and had our lunch. We then had a pleasant drive home via Bentley and Capel St. Mary.
I liked the dead heads and the fungi on the tree. The last two shots are of the famous Suffolk “Big Sky”

 

This morning, we had a UK Border Force Zodiac going out. This looks like a very fast boat. Then, we had another fast one – a Fairline.

 

 

Later in the day, it looks like the Fairline was coming back.

 

Lastly, I always like images of boats turning in the commercial dock This is Lady Anneka – registered in the Netherlands.

 

I thought that you might like to see the MarineTraffic iPad app that we use to check up on these things. This is a screen shot of the commercial port just when Lady Anneka was doing her turn.

They have been putting in some more container type modules over the way.

Not sure what they are for but we will keep an eye on them.

There were three ships in the commercial port this morning.

 

The furthest is the Riza Sonay – as described the other day. The other two are the Ametysth – registered in Cyprus – and Arklow Faith which is registered in Ireland. Arklow Faith is obviously unloading grain. Ametysth had left by the afternoon but the Sormovskiy-3051 – registered in Russia – had arrived and berthed at Griffin Wharf.

 

Sorry about the exposure but it was taken through the Hobby Room window at 5.15pm so not a good time of day to mess about like that.

 

Firstly, we had a very large ship – around 7,500 tons deadweight. It is the Riza Sonay, registered in Istanbul, Turkey. Due to the wind, she was brought in by two of the local tugs: Gray Salvor and Svitzer Intrepid.

 

We could see that there was another boat down the Waterfront along with Alert but we missed it coming in. We did get it HMC Seeker leaving, though.

 

Lastly, we had a yacht sailing up and down the Wet Dock. We don’t normally see sails so this was a nice sight. It was obviously practicing as it did the round trip twice.

What a change in the weather. It is sunny and fresh – just like a good Winter morning should be. Fresh – well a bit cold actually but we expect that, don’t we?

Here are a couple of shots of what the Waterfront should look like.

Also, the Canada Geese are back.

With a drop in the wind, the seagulls can swoop again. they have been mostly riding the wind.