Floating Hotel

Victoria is now well into cruise ship season and between now and October we will see hundreds of these huge floating luxury hotels. The one pictured above is the Radiance of the Seas while it was making the turn to enter the Ogden Point Cruise Ship Terminal. The rocky point in the foreground on the right is Work Point, which marks the western side of the entrance to the Inner Harbour. Ogden Point is just off camera to the left. Click the name of the ship above for a virtual tour of its interior. These ships are quite extraordinary and are much removed from the ocean liner I boarded 50 years ago the first time I crossed the Atlantic. In those days an ocean liner was a means of transportation. Now it is a way of life. Some of these ships have been built as condominiums where the residents live aboard more or less permanently and decide collectively where to cruise, etc.

Floating Palace

I decided that one thing I can do to see things freshly is go out at different times of day. This photo was taken just after sunset, by which time I am normally at home and settled into a film or a book before bed. The subject is not new - this is the cruise ship Celebrity Infinity, which I have photographed during some of its earlier visits. To me these cruise ships always look beautiful but at dusk they look even better.

Sea Princess

To provide a little contrast to yesterday's post on the tiny little Harbour Ferries, just around the corner from Fisherman's Wharf is Ogden Point, where monstrous cruise ships such as this, the Sea Princess, tie up to disgorge their passengers.

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I'm going down to Seattle for the next few days so until Thursday these posts will be going up automatically (I hope!).

Father and Son

Inside Ogden Point Breakwater.