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Live reports from www.cruisecritic.com - many more reviews on this site! WOW - just plain WOW!! On board now - in the Golden Lion pub, watching the waves - quite rough seas, with whitecaps reaching up to the 3rd and 4th decks above sea level, but ship is sailing smoothly through it. Food has been great, service mostly good (a few rough edges), the ship is STUNNING!! AND HUGE!!! Last night was formal #1, and EVERYONE was formal! NO JEANS Dame Shirley Bassey was supposed to sing last night but was postponed due to the rolling of the ship, they said. Funchal tomorrow. I'm writing from the Pub which looks MUCH better than photos. They have WiFi wireless internet if your laptop is so configured. "Only" 50 cents a minute. WOW - Big wave just hit the windows here on 2 deck... more later Story of the departure of QM2 on her maiden voyage below
pinched from the excellent Liners List So it was not with the most hopeful of outlooks that I turned in on Sunday night. I wondered whether I would awake to find trees lying across the street and my neighbours semaphoring from upper rooms as the turbid waters swished through all of our lower storeys. But no! Monday dawned relatively calm and dry and the weather thereafter simply, miraculously, got better and better. Ann Haynes telephoned from Southampton to report that the Queen Mary 2 (should we drop the '2', I wonder, now that we are used to her?) had been turned round the previous evening and was now pointing down-river. I guessed that this confirmed that the storm was imminent but as I set out from home the sky was clearing, the breeze was no more than that, and if there was any torrential rain around it was a long way from north Hampshire. Trees cast long shadows across green fields lit by the low sun as my train rolled across the Hampshire basin, past Winchester, past Eastleigh to the first glimpse of the Itchen (the former excursion steamer 'Southsea' still rusting at her berth at the head of the river waiting for restoration) and on into Southampton. My good friend Stephen Macey was waiting and we almost immediately caught a free shuttle bus outside the station to take us down to Town Quay. Here I became aware that this really was going to be a BIG EVENT. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that everyone on the bus was talking about the Queen Mary. They were either going to wander down later to the Quay or Mayflower Park, or were asking how to get there, or what time the celebrations would kick off. In the two weeks since her arrival on a misty damp morning the Queen Mary had become the biggest story in the City. There was a real, tangible buzz. Our first sight of her was over the rooftops and cranes as the bus crossed over the main road to the Red Funnel ferry terminal. From the end of the Quay - already populated by several dozen early arrivers staking out good positions - the view was dominated by her vast stern and towering funnels (I use the plural as I read the 'Rotterdam' uptakes as funnels and later on fancied that I saw plumes of fumes issuing from them). The sky was clear and cloudless, save for perhaps a front moving in from the south west. Would we be lucky? We were, and how! The fleet of excursion boats at Ocean Village had already absorbed a vast crowd but there was still a lengthy queue of the last-comers. We were admitted to the jetty and walked along to board Blue Funnel's 'Wight Scene', packed to capacity, as were the 'Ocean Scene', 'Solent Scene', 'Solent Cat', 'Maid of Poole', 'Jenny M' and seemingly every other boat from along the coast as far as Weymouth to the west and Portsmouth to the east. The night sailing under an extreme weather warning had for very obvious reasons deterred the small boat owners, though there were a number of yachts out later on, but I have rarely seen such a line up of south coast excursion boats at Southampton. We left in convoy, turning right out into the Itchen, and already the vast ship ahead was the focus of attention. Her size is hard to judge unless calibrated against something familiar. In this case it is the Queen Elizabeth II Terminal and the dockside cranes, which she dwarfs. When QE2 is in port her funnel and mast are visible from this vantage point. In the case of the QM her whole superstructure towers over the Terminal and now, facing toward the sea, her bow extended some tens of metres beyond the seaward end of the berth. Our view of that towering bow as we passed almost under it was breathtaking. We chugged along her great length, 'Ocean Scene' ahead, a few passengers waving from balconies and the Promenade Deck rail. As the sun dropped in the sky the hull and superstructure were briefly illuminated in raking light and Wight Scene's humorous skipper (as are all of BF's skippers) kept up a witty repartee as a number of us exhausted roll after roll of film. As dusk fell and her lights began to shine brightly the photo opportunities became progressively as hard to catch as they grew more tempting to try. I earnestly hope that the deck rail was steady enough that at least one of my shots of the jewel box lit liner against a deep lapis sky is sharp enough to project without embarrassment! News began to filter through to us that sailing was delayed. It must have been chilly on deck as we slowly pootled up and down, some 100 metres off from the great liner amidst the flotilla which included one of the 'Wight Link' Portsmouth/Ryde ferries (which some ferry expert will immediately mail in to name and to correct me that she was actually a Lymington/Yarmouth vessel!), apparently chartered as she carried film crews, and later on one of Red Funnel's raptor class Southampton/Cowes ferries. The first of the latter to have been lengthened in Poland (Red Osprey?) had just returned - a passenger for that journey would have been a hardy soul! And throughout the whole great event Red Funnel's 'Red Jet' fast ferries and car ferries ploughed their hazardous course through the melee. Not a lot was happening, it was at last too dark for slide photography and I decided that it was time to claim my 'price included' tea and bun and maybe a stiffener against the weather. However, even with a g&t in paw and with David Hutchings and Stephen Macey and the Mayes family and Ann Haynes to chat to I was distracted by that magnetic presence beyond the saloon and before long I felt irresistibly drawn back outside to wonder further at the QM. As many have said, and continued to say, photographs do not do her justice. Not only is she more elegant in reality but also, perhaps through sheer size or perhaps, given that her size is an abstract quantity until compared with something, because she is not just another white slab-sided hotel on a barge, she has a real presence. Something magical about her draws the eye and attention. So back out into the cold, and as the skipper briefed us with broadcasts of the crackling ship to shore messages and the delay lengthened, I scanned her from stem to stern and back, with binoculars and without, noting the shapes and colours and angles and lines, drinking in the vision of this great new liner and the atmosphere of the occasion. In the darkness ghostly forms swished by - yachts and motor boats, the excursion flotilla, the hooting of the Red Funnel ferries fighting a safe course through. Waiting, waiting and waiting some more. Venus shone brilliantly, low in the dark ink sky. The QM2's lighting scheme is noteworthy. I mentioned in my report on her arrival that she has eerie blue and ultraviolet floods at key points that illuminate the verticals of her superstructure. Her name boards are lit in individual white 'led' style bulbs and more conventional floodlights show off her funnel(s) and downlight along her hull. It was magical in this suspended animation, drifting slowly on a coal black sea up and down the length of this leviathan with nothing at all to do but to watch her, to peer at the lit windows through the binoculars for glimpses of internal architecture and to accept the occasional generously offered (or buy) g&t, and after a decent christening's worth of those, bitter. At last the news came through that she was singling up. One of the huge Fawley tugs had appeared to skipper's surprise and chatting over the radio with her master he learned that she would lead the fire hose display so warned the photographers to guard their cameras carefully for flying sea water would wreak rapid and terrible destruction! 'Redbridge' lay to the Queen's stern but no line was attached. The last lines were dropped and I peered to observe the first very gradual movement of the QM's superstructure against the dockside lights. She was under way! Three long, luxuriant blasts with the now well-known burst (and audible whoosh) of live steam confirmed as much. Maybe too many gins past sobriety I barely noticed the smart manoeuvring of our own skipper, who managed to steer 'Wight Scene' down river, across the Queen's bow (she was preparing to reverse) and into the widening gap on her port side between hull and quayside. Of course, she had been turned the previous night but fireworks were planned up river off Mayflower Park so with the weather perfect she had to reverse to the rendezvous, an undignified entrance for the star of the show! But at least there was a show. As the flotilla jockeyed for position and maritime mayhem was acted out all around her the Queen, escorted by tiny police inflatables barely large enough to rise above her boot-topping but carrying flashing blue lights aloft, slowly slid up river. Our skipper repeatedly played a medley of suitable songs at maximum volume over the tinny PA (Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia, a few bars of the American anthem but sadly no Marseillaise) and there was waving and cheering and the sound drifting across the water of a real band ("playing our music" the skipper announced with mock pique) from the ship opposite! My gaze was utterly held by this remarkable vision. It was mesmerising and thrilling. I was again, as two weeks before, completely unaware of our progress and surprised to find that in seemingly an instant we were off Town Quay where a vast, densely packed crowd lined the railings cheering and waving. Flashguns in the darkness betrayed a similarly packed crowd along the Mayflower Park waterfront. The Queen slowed imperceptibly to a halt and three further long blasts echoed across the water and around the City as the sign for pyrotechnics to begin. Our position was perfect, close in to the ship off her port bow just forward of the bridge. Firework-laden barges were stationed between her amidships and the shore and the police inflatables were busy fending off errant excursioners hell-bent on fiery annihilation. An immense, stomach-buffeting explosion announced the start of the most spectacular display. Perhaps because of the enormous, twelve storey reflecting wall of steel immediately behind them the fireworks exploded with visceral blasts. Amidst the pummelling of explosion after explosion and the spectacular soaring of star-bursts I remember two moments of sublime beauty. Briefly a filigree of brilliant silver flashes dowsed the ship, as if some magical net of shimmering thread had been thrown over her; and then toward the end of the display as a dense pall of smoke hung over the water her stern was almost engulfed in the fog, now illuminated orange, as if she were emerging from a mythical fiery furnace. Her superstructure towered and high, high above us and the smoke her floodlit funnel seemed to have broken free from this earthly bond. And then it was over. Commodore Warwick bade the City farewell with three
long blasts and she was away. I really sensed that this was the moment when
frippery and fol-de-rol were cast off and for the first time the Queen and her
crew had a real job to do. 10 knots is incredibly fast when you are in a small
boat. As we passed the ship's home terminal she saluted the crowd on the
dockside while alongside her the excursion boats and launches strained to keep
up. Deep creaming wakes showed how hard that effort was. We briefly boxed in
'Red Falcon' (correct me someone!) as we jockeyed for position within the
pursuing flotilla, crossing the Queen's towering stern and wake and back again
affording one last magnificent view before she outran us. 'Wight Scene's'
skipper pealed off as we passed Hythe Pier. Queen Mary ploughed on, receding
into the darkness shining brilliantly with jewelled lights. From a distance as
we entered the Itchen and before we finally lost sight of her she shined more
brightly and loomed more expansively than the refinery at Fawley, a vast crown
jewel in the night. |
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