10 July 2009, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

We made a successful circum navigation of the Isle of Skye and by midnight entered the North Channel which is the sea area between Northern Ireland and Scotland. Further to the South it is called the Irish Sea but here at the top of Ireland it is only considered a channel. Belfast is located at the end of a fjord type inlet or Lough as they call it here locally and we picked up the pilot at the very entrance of this Lough. The pilot was quite a surprise; he was Dutch. What would once have been impossible to think about is now quite common. Other nationalities than the local one, can be pilot. Thus you now find Dutch pilots everywhere but also Greek pilots in Belgium If you can speak the local lingo, you can be pilot anywhere inside the common market. As long as you are a citizen of a country inside that common market or have taken the local nationality. Thus we proceeded up the river with a pilot who conversed with the shore side in the local brogue but with a Dutch accent.

The berth in Belfast is right across from the famous Harland and Wolff shipyard where the Titanic was built. The shipyard is not a shade of its former glory anymore but some repair work is still being done here. The large cranes of the shipyard are still there and I believe they have been designated as an Industrial Monument to a bygone age. The original graving dock with its pump house is still there as well and there are several tours going on, all cashing in on the history of the Titanic.

The Cap Arcona was a very famous German passengership sailing on the South America service. Near the end of the WW2, it was used to house prisoners on board in the port of Hamburg. As no reliable count was kept of who was on board, nobody knows how many perished when the ship was bombed and burned out near the very end of the war. Photo courtesy: Capt. Albert Schoonderbeek photo collection

I still find it very peculiar that this tragedy is still so alive in the memory of the world and still manages to attract so much attention. I have about 40 books about the ship and anything that goes with it in my library, including some originals from 1912 and I know that that is not even 10% of what is out there. Although with 1507 deaths it was a big tragedy but there we were several others who had a high casualty count but they have now been largely forgotten. The Empress of Ireland with the Storstadt collision, barely two years later with over a 1000 deaths and of course the much higher numbers during the 2nd world war. The Wilhelm Gustloff with over 5300 and the Cap Arcona, where estimates sometimes talk of over 6000. All of these do not speak to the imagination that much but the Titanic does.

However the famous Harland and Wolff is something of the bygone days and only a flat industrial area to our port side provides the last evidence of a once great past. The city of Belfast is working hard on making the cruise berths more attractive and has started with re-designing the docks. Ours, the Stormont wharf, had just been extended so that more than one ship can dock there. We were the only cruise ship today, so I could pick and choose where to dock. As there is no terminal yet, a tent had been erected near the gangway location. According to the pilot discussions were going on to build a terminal and it might happen sometime in the future. More and more ports are recognizing the economic potential of having cruise ships calling. Plus there are nowadays enough cruise ships out there to ensure a steady stream of callers to make it profitable. Belfast airport is fairly near and that would even make the place feasible as a turn over port. Something that some smaller cruise company’s are already doing. With this dock I would not mind it at all. The approach channel (Victoria channel) is nice and wide, there are strong tugboats for inclement days and the dock area is very large so plenty of space for provision trucks. To top it off, they have wheel chair friendly shore gangways as well. The only thing missing still; is a terminal but then we did not have one in Greenwich either.

The pilot on departure advised that tomorrow was a public holiday where half of Northern Ireland celebrates the Battle of the Boyne. Officially it was fought on July 1st but due to the change of the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, when 11 days were lost, it is now celebrated on the 12th. This victory 300 years ago of the protestant Dutch King William over the Roman Catholics (backed by the French) eventually gave rise to the “troubles” in Northern Island of the 1970’s. It also resulted in Northern Ireland not being part of the rest of Ireland but part of Great Britain. A situation that is still highly contentious today but at least they do not blow each other up over it anymore and things are on the whole very peaceful, resulting in the fact that the cruise ships call more and more at Belfast.

We left Belfast also in a very peaceful way; at 11 pm in the evening as this was an evening call and set sail for Dublin where we will spend the whole day tomorrow. We had a dry day today but tomorrow it looks like rain. Irish rain, so it does not really count as such.

Note: for more information about the Wilhelm Gustloff, see my article The first mass market cruise ship ever also on this blog.