Hanseatic

Not the publicity images you normally see of Hapag-Lloyd's Hanseatic, which are normally in the Antarctic or the waters of the Arctic. On a calm Sunday evening, as all the boaters return from their weekend in Herm or one of the other Channel Islands, this small Liner sits at anchor as her guests enjoy an evening ashore in St Peter Port. She will leave as darkness falls bound for Alderney, having spent time in Sark and Herm.

With just under 200 guests to cater for the pontoon at St Peter Port was not crowded for the tender departures back to the Hanseatic. With a high tide there was no problem of sloping pontoons to get on board.

She is on a Islands cruise having started with 6 days cruising the islands of the Azores.  She then sailed for La Coruna before heading for the Channel Islands. She has visited all the major ones and after leaving Honfleur will head for Hamburg. In August she will sail the Northeast Passage crossing from Europe into Asia, Christmas will find her in her true home of Antarctica. But on this Sunday night she was in more peaceful seas.

Caribbean Princess

On the 1st May, Caribbean Princess completed her Atlantic Crossing from Fort Lauderdale to Liverpool, then Hamburg and Le Havre before arriving in Southampton. Yesterday she commenced a round Britain cruise with St Peter Port her first port of call.

71 years ago Royal Navy ships were off Guernsey when the occupying forces surrendered and the Island was liberated after 5 years of occupation. The guests on board the Caribbean Princess were able to enjoy some of the celebrations as she did not depart for Cobh until mid afternoon. Liberation Day is Guernsey's national holiday and the Stars and Stripes flying outside of some Guernsey homes would have been a welcome sight to the American guests on board.

Some American guests joined the liner in Southampton having flown across the Atlantic. The liner will visit Guernsey many times this summer on Princess Cruises programme of British Isles cruising. Castle Cornet becomes a music venue today with various concerts being played throughout Liberation Day before a firework display brings the celebrations to an end.

71 years ago tonight would have been the first night of freedom for the Islanders for 5 years.

Albatros

Today is the day after a Bank Holiday in the Islands and as is normal a glorious sunny day, after the previous dull and dismal one, a fine welcome for the Albatros of the German Line Phoenix Reisen. With under a 1,000, mostly German guests on board she arrived this morning for a full day visit to Guernsey. She left Bremerhaven on Friday night and her last port of call was Torbay on the South coast of England.

Originally entering service in 1973 she was refurbished in 2004 but looks so different from the larger "resort" liners favoured in current years. The tenders also look more traditional as some of the last ones of the day return guests ready for the departure to Honfleur.

Not too far for the tender ride today with the Albatros anchored just outside the harbour. The scene takes on more of a summer look with the French ferry, Victor Hugo, now running most days from the Normandy coast. Unfortunately the eastern arm of St Peter Port harbour with its portacabins is not as attractive as it could be.

L'Austral

Le Boreal is our normal visitor at this time of year from Ponant Cruises but she had an incident in the South Atlantic in November 2015.  This involved the evacuation of the crew and guests into life rafts with Royal Air Force Sea Kings from the Falklands and a Royal Navy ship taking them to Stanley. She made her way back to Europe for repairs aboard the COSCO Heavy Transport ship, HLV Kang Sheng Kou.

So, L'Austral, one of her sister ships, arrived at midday from Brittany and made her way past Herm, and its White House Hotel, to anchor only a short tender ride from St Peter Port.

Normally many of the guests on board would be French and their  primary destination would be Victor Hugo's house in Hautville, on the outskirts of St Peter Port. The house is owned by the City of Paris and is open daily except Wednesdays through till the end of September. He lived in Guernsey for 15 years and the Island provided the background to some of his works. Some of the American guests on this Vassar cruise may have studied French Literature and this will be their chosen destination. The liner is chartered on a 'Stepping Stones of Western Europe' cruise with Dwight David Eisenhower II as a guest speaker.

What a glorious sunset does for the light as L'Austral left for St Malo on Wednesday evening. The large Tricolore flies proudly. The liner entered service in 2011 and caters for guests who do not want large liner cruises preferring this more 'superyacht' experience. She will end her cruise by sailing under Tower Bridge on Saturday and dock alongside HMS Belfast.

Amadea

She is almost home, her last port of call before arriving in Hamburg. Amadea left Europe before Christmas last year, sailed down the coast of Brazil, visiting amongst other ports Rio de Janiero and Buenos Aires, before sailing around Cape Horn into the Pacific.

The beginning of February this year found her off the coast of Chile visiting the "Cape Horners" port of Valparaiso, before continuing to Peru and Ecuador. In March she was sailing through the Panama Canal visiting Cuba and other Caribbean Islands and by the end of the month she was back this side of the Atlantic in La Coruna before heading north and home.

With the trees still looking wintry with no summer growth the Amadea opens the season in Guernsey being the first liner to visit in 2016. With an arrival at breakfast time she was on her way to Germany early afternoon. Sunday will see in her Hamburg where this well traveled lady rests before heading south to the Canary Islands in mid-April.

The waters outside St Peter Port Harbour look very empty at this time of year, no ferries or visiting yachts yet, only the Amadea looking part of Castle Cornet. A lack of tourists on top of the Castle as well on this warm April day.

Amadea is the first liner to use the pontoon with the longer access ramp giving a less steep climb from the tenders to the shore. St Peter Port continues to improve the arrival for guests and this is the second year to use this area to land in the heart of St Peter Port

Guernsey is still good out of season

Today is the 1st November. We missed the end of the liner season in Guernsey as we headed south for some late summer sun. As it happened we need not have bothered, the last week in Guernsey has been sunny and warm.

Currently it is spring tides and with very low tides, a easterly wind and blue skies yesterday, we took advantage of this to put the kite up with the camera attached to get some photos of St Peter Port "out of season". It's a winter scene, no visiting yachts on the pontoon, no tenders, no ferries, no liners at anchor, but not a bad place to live this last day of October.

To the west this view of St Peter Port shows the buildings tumbling up the hill and how it expanded away from the harbour. In the lower part of the image you can see the line of houses on the Strand with their view looking out over the Islands.

Not many riders on the Guernsey Vaeux at this time of year with plenty of room compared to the summer months. But for those you take the ride the Lion and Camel rock at Albecq still take the sun on this lovely October day.

Azores

Another day, another liner. This time the Azores back to St Peter Port on a "Treasures of the British Isles " cruise out of Bristol, although her previous port of Le Havre in Normandy seems a little out of the way. It's the time of year when islanders are making the most of the late summer sunny days. This was the first of two ferries returning from Sark this Sunday.

This tender from the Azores makes its way up the southern fairway to the cruise liner pontoon. As with the Marco Polo yesterday, the Azores was also once a trans-Atlantic ocean liner. Launched in 1946 as the Stockholm she was one of the smaller liners at the time carrying just under 400 passengers.

When she leaves St Peter Port the Azores  will be chasing one of yesterday's visitor, the Prinsendam,  to Tresco in the Scilly Isles before finishing her cruise in Bristol on Tuesday. At this time of day the local fishing boats return to port and the pleasure boaters finishing their sailing for the weekend.

Anthem of the Seas

The weather was not at its best for the arrival of the Anthem of the Seas as it appeared out of the gloom before most of Guernsey was awake. Apart from two early morning joggers there was no one else to see the liner off St Martins Point. Any guests on board hoping to get a English newspaper when they come ashore this morning will be disappointed as the low cloud and fog precludes any flying.

As one of the top 5 largest liners in the world the Anthem of the Seas towered above the lighthouse on the Castle Breakwater. Just under 5,000 guests could come ashore today, but only a dog walker saw the liner maneouvering into its mooring position. 

Plenty of tenders today for the guests who want to come ashore, although time is running out for the guests who want to enjoy the facilities on the liner. who will be back in Southampton on Saturday morning. With the North Star ride, the bumper cars and robotic bar tenders the Anthem of the Seas is a wonderful sight to see in Guernsey. The liner that was delivered in April 2015 is on its only visit to Guernsey this year and will spend 2016 sailing from New Jersey.

What a difference a few hours makes. The fog has gone, the sun is shining, its hot and  the English papers and post have arrived. The enormous size of the Anthem of the Seas makes it tower over Castle Cornet. The North Star ride is down at the moment as more guests get on, soon to see a unique view of St Peter Port.

The soldiers manning these bunkers seventy years ago would have seen very different shipping during the Occupation. Today the view was the Anthem of the Seas bound for Le Havre.

Prinsendam & Aurora

The Aurora is back on a short cruise from Southampton to Zeebrugge and then onto Guernsey. A quieter time than her last visit when she had an "air display" as a helicopter was exercising with the St Peter Port lifeboat. Anchored on Saturday afternoon the Aurora showed off her new colours to those enjoying the sun.

If any guests want a snack whilst they are in town there is a good selection along the sea front of St Peter Port, some with a view and some in the narrow shady lanes. The number of visiting yachts is beginning to rise as the summer season gets under away.

For company the Aurora had the Prinsendam, anchored closer to St Peter Port. This Holland American liner is on a two week Celtic Explorer cruise, which will include a circumnavigation of Ireland. These two liners are both part of the Carnival Corporation providing very different experiences of cruising. The home port of Aurora this season is Southampton with the Prinsendam based in Ijmuiden in the Netherlands.