Sunday, the 7th of March, 2010


Cold wet fun.

We’re having a cold snap for the next few days, I am sure that Admiral Voulla has sent over some traditional spring weather from the land of the long grey cloud. The temperature this morning says 2degC on the port authority clock. – and it is raining.

As always though, it is fun here. I was woken this morning not by the sounds of the birds nesting in the water outlet of the boat next to me, but by the sound of men shouting in a very agitated manner.

Before I continue, it will be necessary for me to communicate to you some sort of lay out of the surrounding area. If I don’t do this, then any of my subsequent ramblings about why the voices I heard were so agitated would make no sense to you at all. I will endeavour to do this through the use of similes albeit not at the level of the master of similes – P.G.Woodhouse – I will do my best.

The dry dock here is a hole. It really is nasty. It makes everything around it bad. Imagine a scrap metal merchant’s yard in Middlesbrough, Slough or Swansea. It is a boat graveyard. This is the place that boats come to die.

That said, this yard contains many boats valued at over €1,000,000 – but the type, value, and longevity of each boat seems to be denoted by its distance away from the slipway. Boats that are (relatively speaking) new, and in very good condition are docked very near the main slipway. While boats such as Natasha, who were on their last legs when they arrived and on having soaked up the local ambiance of the boatyard, they have given up the ghost and lay down to die.

For the picture I am trying to conjure in your head what this means is that Natasha is parked at the very back of the boat yard – overlooking the already deceased and the skeletal remains of long deceased fishing boats.

Outside of the boatyard – to the back of Natasha are two cargo vessels, moored side by side. It was these that all the shouting was about.

About half a dozen people and two tugs had arrived to remove the outer one of these.

In true local style - there was little thought and any that did occur was directed toward the task in hand as opposed to the consequenses.

Here are the pictures, I will let you guess what happened.

One of the two tugs arriving

A bit of a list on

The boss wasn't too happy when he saw me taking photos...

...but sometime around midday an environmental team arrived and cordoned off the area.  They then floated an oil retaining bouy around the outside of the ship to contain any leaks.  Knowing the way things work here, I am guessing that this only happened because I happened to be there with my camera at the time.