#Wednesday Walk - Watching the Silver Cloud Entering Durban Harbor.

This post is for the #wednesdaywalk challenge and the #makemesmile challenge collaboration. This collaboration initially took place once a month, but due to its popularity, @tattoodjay (of the #wednesdaywalk) and @elizacheng (of #makemesmile) decided to make it a weekly thing.

If you want to know more about the rules, visit this week's post by @tattoodjay where you will find all the rules at the bottom of his post after you've enjoyed his beautiful photos from his walk.

The past two weeks were hectic and topping that we had major internet issues as well.

That meant I missed last week's #wednesdaywalk and didn't post anything.

But today is a new day and here I am again...lol!

Today I would like to share some photos from an outing which will eventually form part of a bigger project I am busy working on.

This project will include various ships arriving at and leaving Durban Harbor. To do this, I am watching the Durban Harbor schedule. I am also using a ship tracking site tracking the locations of various ships.

The Silver Cloud

I noticed that the Silver Cloud was expected to arrive at noon in Durban Harbor on Saturday, April 13.

The Silver Cloud is an Expedition Ship that also undertakes cruises to Antarctica. It has a strengthened hull to break sea ice in those icy cold areas.

I kept track of the vessel since it left East Londen on Friday. By Saturday morning I saw it was ahead of schedule and close to Durban.

Then I saw the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) was indicated as 9 am. Yet, the scheduled time was showing at noon.

Still learning about these schedules, this confused me, not knowing whether the ship was in the harbor by now or was still at sea...?

According to the GPS map, it showed the ship at sea, although very close to Durban.

Well, it was already after 9 am and I still had another stop to make before we could go to the harbor.

So, I suggested to my wife that we go down to the harbor and see if we can at least see the Silver Cloud...even if it was already docked in the harbor. This would have been second prize though, because unless you are a passenger, no access is granted to go inside the harbor. So it would have been only from a distance at best.

We drove all the way around the harbor. There was no sign of the ship. It was 11h30 by now.

Then, as we came around the last bend toward the entrance to the harbor, I saw it!

It has just entered the channel toward the harbor. I was just too late to make it to the point I had in mind from where I wanted to take photos, which would have been right on the side of the channel.

So I went for the second best option and headed for another spot which is slightly elevated and I knew I would have a good view from there too.

So, I'll know in the future to be at the point I had in mind at least 30 minutes before the scheduled docking time.

This was the first shot I took.

It came in slowly and on its own steam. At this point, there was no tugboat involved.

The following two photos show some passengers on the top deck and others on their private balconies, leisurely watching and enjoying the process of entering Durban Harbor.

As the ship approached the harbor, a tug boat arrived on the scene and hooked up with the ship to guide it toward its final destination in the harbor at the passenger terminal.

Slowly but surely, it started turning toward the passenger terminal.

We got back in the car and drove toward the outside of the passenger terminal.

I went as close as the security officer would allow me to get some more shots.

I wasn't even allowed to go into the parking area. The security guy told me that recently a photographer from a local newspaper wanted to come and take photos of a ship in the harbor. Even though she is from the press, she was denied access.

So...if you are not a passenger...no access! Make peace with that!

However, I got some last shots of the vessel approaching the terminal. They were not the kind of photos I would like to get though...

Here, they were slowly approaching the terminal.

Getting closer...

And in the last photo, they were about to disappear behind the buildings to dock at the terminal building.

The windows at the very top, visible just above the bridge, is an observation lounge, called Tor's Observation Lounge.

And that's all for today.

Thank you for reading my post! I do appreciate it!