Aurora & Ocean Nova

The military kept the Aurora company at the anchorage today. She should have come tomorrow for the 70th Liberation celebrations but as the weather did not look too good for tender operations she came a day early. The Ocean Nova was anchored to the west of her and HMS Northumberland to the east.

The guests on board the Aurora were treated to a small display with a Sea King helicopter exercising with the local lifeboat. She still looks rather strange with that blue funnel of her new colours instead of the buff one. She left just after tea time heading for Zeebrugge and Bruges before heading back to Southampton early on Sunday morning.

The Ocean Nova, looked small by comparison headed out through the Little Russel for Alderney, a rare sight with more liners using the passage between Herm and Sark, the Big Russel. With Vivian beacon in the foreground, and Brehon Tower and Herm in the background, the guests on board saw a lot of the Channel Islands today.

Superyacht High Power III

She came out of the rising sun, a 70m Motor Yacht, calling into Guernsey, to top up her fuel tanks on her way south to Gibraltar. One of the most spectacular visitors so far this year, not a cruise liner but worth getting up early for.

High Power III picked up her pilot as she approached Guernsey from the north and entered St Peter Port on  the early morning high tide before going stern first into No 1 berth to fuel up. Until June 2012 she was known as Numptia,  built for a customer who "wanted to create a home on the sea for all generations of his family" (quote from Boat International). Having taken three years to build, she was one of the stars at the 21st Monaco Boat Show.

High Power III has the capacity for 200,000 litres in her fuel tank and took most of the morning and into early afternoon to complete refueling. She left mid afternoon with the pilot on board and the St Peter Port pilot boat in company. In the background is Brehon Tower, situated halfway between Guernsey and the island of Herm, home to seals and in World War 2 a German flak battery.