Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Seeing off the QE II from Fremantle

As I write this first line it looks like my ADSL modem has given up the ghost - even though some of the lights flash there's no final connection to the internet. It actually been dropping off line several times a day over the past week. My guess is it was trying to tell me something. Look's like I'll have to buy a new one some time today.

Last night we took our youngsters to the Fremantle War Memorial hill to watch the departure of QE II. We took a picnic tea - chicken and salad sandwiches, some chilled cans of ginger beer and a flask of iced water. The water turned out to be more popular with the kids than the soft drink.

There was TV team with all the gear set up when we arrived. They were preparing to do a thirty second crossover for the six o'clock news. It was amazing to consider it took five people to do it. Once that was over they packed up their gear and left.

We could see the ship below us in the harbour. The sun was getting low so the glare was pretty awful. I wondered if I should have picked a better vantage point, but it was too late to mess about.

A couple of tugs turned up and turned on their high pressure fire fighting gear about 15 minutes before the ship cast off. This provided me with a few photo opportunities, but it was hard with the sun where it was. Now an then the ship gave some long blasts on its horn. Very loud deep blasts. There was no mistaking it was from a big ship. We could also hear on the gentle breeze occasional stains of a band playing dockside.

I suppose there were about five hundred people in the good natured crowd on the hill - all getting roasted from watching face-on into the sun. The ship slipped away at about 7:30pm and there was a small cheer.

The two tugs escorted the liner from its starboard (and leeward) side, water jets still spraying. The harbour has slight dog leg turn and then it's a straight exit out between the moles. From where we were, we were looking directly at it's stern. A flotilla of small private vessels escorted the old Queen out to sea for a kilometre or two before it made an obligatory 90 degree turn to the north where the fairway buoy is located. I'm quite pleased with a series of some 75 pictures I took and have put a small selection in a dedicated folder on my Picasa site. Actually, I reckon they are a bit spectacular.

I had to laugh at the purple prose in The West Australian this morning. A female journalist wrote, "With smoke rising steadily from her distinctive red and black funnel and flanked by two tugs she made her way through the harbour before executing a 360-degree turn with the precision of a ballerina." I suspect the woman must have found geometry and math a challenge at school.

Anyway we watched the ship make its 90 degree northward turn just as the horizon kissed the sun, and you can see my photos to prove it. We watched it for another ten minutes, while enviously imagining the passengers on board would be getting the call for dinner. We then came home for a well deserved ice cream.

Good news! I just rang my ISP and a gentleman with an Indian accent guided me through the process of resetting my modem. All is well again in cyber land.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website.

Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio website or my Picasa site. Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay. Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them.

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Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!