Night Boat
I was offered a free ticket to one of the Thursday evening pleasure boat cruises around Poole Harbour. The weather was not good - windy and wet - but who cares? I put on my winter coat and my sweater, and my waterproof trousers. Grabbed the secondhand Pentax, my wet weather camera.
On Thursdays in summer, the town of Poole has a fireworks display, with the fireworks being launched from a barge moored out in the harbour. And so on Thursday, all the pleasure boats set off out from the Quay at about 8pm, for a two hour cruise, returning at 10pm to catch the fireworks.
Sat on the downstairs deck, roofed overhead, but with the wind and the rain blowing in through the sides, as we went chugging along past Brownsea Island and out of the harbour, with the light slowly fading. Fish and chips were handed out, to be eaten cautiously, with the wind trying to steal the chips. (Makes a change from seagulls).
The Studland to Sandbanks chain ferry at the mouth of Poole Harbour.
A night cruise to Studland. Studland beach on the left. Nearing Old Harry Rocks, it was time to turn back.
Swash Channel buoy, at the harbour mouth.
Poole Harbour in the blurry darkness. (Very blurry. But shooting handheld at f5.6 , 1/125, ISO6400, the results are a bit grainy, so say the least).
All the pleasure boats beginning to gather in the harbour, drawn by the fireworks, like moths to a flame.
The ferry from Cherbourg, the MV Barfleur, arriving. Poole Harbour is very shallow, and at night the channels are marked by a great confusion of flashing buoys; different coloured lights, at different time intervals. The ferry has to follow the very narrow new main channel, which was especially dredged to accommodate her. The pleasure boats can follow the older shallower channels.
Poole docks.
At 10pm the fireworks began:
The fireworks barge.
The fireworks were very beautiful, even if - between the roof of the deck and the gathered crowd of spectators - I didn't manage to take any clear photos. It's years since I last saw an organised display. I'm glad I went, though I'm not sure I would do it again. It was a very, very long evening. Didn't get home till close on midnight.
And I was so tired yesterday that, at the supermarket, one of the assistants had to chase me out into the car park as I was wheeling away my trolley, to tell me that I had forgotten to pay. So embarrassing. I had remembered to ask the assistant for the refund for my car park ticket, but then just walked out without presenting my card... It is so chaotic at the self checkouts with the summer tourist crowds, and there I was causing further mayhem and an even longer queue. Perhaps I need to stop using the self checkout until my brain comes back online at the end of the summer.