20 Aug 09 - Tees

28th August 2009

Well, with all the time I’ve had to spend sorting out ship photographs from exotic foreign parts, I’m afraid that the local area has been being sadly neglected. As it happened, an opportunity presented itself to rectify this to some extent, when Nathan Hobday proposed, and very kindly and efficiently organised, a boat trip on the Tees for a gang of North East ship photographers. I jumped at the chance to participate in what would prove to be a most interesting “cruise” giving a quite unique perspective on the river. In order to maximise the sightings, I decided to make a day of it and 0600hrs on Thursday 20 August found me back on the South Gare and very happy to be there. The weather was, to quote the late lamented Douglas Adams “Mostly Harmless”. The morning, in particular, stayed dry against the odds, but there were a couple of quite heavy squally showers in the afternoon, one of which occurred just as we turned to back up the river at the end of the boat trip. This involved much manoeuvering for position to find a sheltered spot on the boat and keep camera equipment dry. Fortunately it didn’t last long. It was a surprisingly productive day in terms of ships with 14 new sightings (if you count the truly crap, long range shots of stuff in the anchorage).

Sunrise	Corus	Cliffwater	Cliffwater
Cliffwater	Cliffwater	Cliffwater	Cliffwater
Cliffwater	Cliffwater	Redcar	Seaton Carew