Oriana (II) & Queen Mary 2
QM2 had joined the ranks of dented Cunard ships on the 21st July 2009.  While on a four night cruise, a sudden squall happened in Zeebrugge causing her bow lines to break.  Some tugs helped her into the berth but she'd had a scrape aft starboard side.  They did a patch up job and she continued to Rotterdam a few hours late.  Upon her return home on the 24th she was docked starboard in QEII.  Since the new terminal opened she's never in her old berth so we'd planned to go down to get her hopefully reversing again and try out my new camera properly.  Then we heard about the accident and couldn't wait to see how they fixed it.  Oriana was also in and both were due to sail at 4.30pm.  It was busy on the water and surrounding area.  There was the tug Shannon at Hythe, who began service in 1981 and had been sold by Svitzer to the Enviromental Monitoring Unit to be converted to a survey ship.  Then the R.V. Callista came up the water, which is used by the Oceanography Centre.  We also had the yacht Le Grand Bleu in 49.
It was nice to see Mary where she should be.  The little Williams Shipping tug Wilanne was busy around her stern with a paint float, preparing to return it to wherever it's stored.
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			(C) Copyright Patricia Dempsey 24th July 2009 Not to be reproduced without permission