Where in the world ?

[bluemarble]

3 hours ago, Host Hattie said:

I have seen Blackpool Tower from QM2 if that counts 😂

 

If you have a photo of Blackpool Tower taken from QM2, then maybe we can add that to our list as a sail-by port. 😉  There are a few others like that on our list such as Scarborough.

[bluemarble]

4 hours ago, sfred said:

Another Africa possibility is Walvis Bay, Namibia?   Google says there are desert quad bike excursions to the nearby Namib desert.  Both QV and QE have been there. 

 

I had Walvis Bay, Namibia on my short list along with about a half dozen other possibilities around the world. Walvis Bay is the only one left on my list in Africa, so I'll concur with that identification now that we've apparently narrowed down the continent and eliminated other possibilities.

 

As far as identifying the ship, we know it's an old photo and the Polaris Trailblazer 250 was produced from 1990 to 2006. It does look pretty new in that photo, so I wouldn't figure the photo was taken much after 2006. That leads me to the conclusion that it was probably not taken during a voyage on one of the current Cunard ships.

 

I have itineraries placing both QE2 and Caronia in Walvis Bay in the early 2000's. Other ships in service during the 1990's (for which I don't have itineraries) may well have called there as well. So, I'm not sure I can narrow it down to a specific ship at this point.

[Solent Richard]

6 hours ago, sfred said:

Another Africa possibility is Walvis Bay, Namibia?   Google says there are desert quad bike excursions to the nearby Namib desert.  Both QV and QE have been there. 

 

Yes, Spot on Sir. Walvis Bay Namibia. Well Done. And what a fab day out that was.

[Solent Richard]

1 hour ago, bluemarble said:

 

I had Walvis Bay, Namibia on my short list along with about a half dozen other possibilities around the world. Walvis Bay is the only one left on my list in Africa, so I'll concur with that identification now that we've apparently narrowed down the continent and eliminated other possibilities.

 

As far as identifying the ship, we know it's an old photo and the Polaris Trailblazer 250 was produced from 1990 to 2006. It does look pretty new in that photo, so I wouldn't figure the photo was taken much after 2006. That leads me to the conclusion that it was probably not taken during a voyage on one of the current Cunard ships.

 

I have itineraries placing both QE2 and Caronia in Walvis Bay in the early 2000's. Other ships in service during the 1990's (for which I don't have itineraries) may well have called there as well. So, I'm not sure I can narrow it down to a specific ship at this point.

 

Excellent Detective work there Bluemarble. We were on a 37 night QE2  South African 'Line Voyage' in 2002 - our first introduction to sailing in the Grills.

 

We also visited another port not on your list  St Helena though as you will see from this chap's cruise blog, we didn't get ashore...

 

http://www.pcurtis.com/qe02-p3.htm 

[bluemarble]

2 minutes ago, Solent Richard said:

Excellent Detective work there Bluemarble. We were on a 37 night QE2  South African 'Line Voyage' in 2002 - our first introduction to sailing in the Grills.

 

We also visited another port not on your list  St Helena though as you will see from this chap's cruise blog, we didn't get ashore...

 

http://www.pcurtis.com/qe02-p3.htm 

 

Very good. Looks like that was an excellent voyage indeed and many thanks for adding another port to our list.

 

St Helena is already on our port list. You may not have noticed it since I listed it under "J" as the port of "Jamestown, St Helena". @Lanky Lad posted a wonderful photo of St Helena taken from QE2 on a voyage a couple years earlier in 2000 which also included the ship RMS St Helena in the shot. I remember it well from my struggles trying to identify RMS St Helena, being way too slow on the uptake of his hint that the ship was a good clue to identifying the port.

 

Since we've started a new browser page, here is an updated list of the ports we've seen so far, including the newly added "Walvis Bay, Namibia".

 

Where in the World 2021-03-22.txt

[Host Hattie]

3 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

If you have a photo of Blackpool Tower taken from QM2, then maybe we can add that to our list as a sail-by port. 😉  There are a few others like that on our list such as Scarborough.

I think I only had my phone so I didn't even try and take one. If I'd realised how important it would turn out to be I'd have made more of an effort !

[sfred]

2 hours ago, Solent Richard said:

Yes, Spot on Sir. Walvis Bay Namibia. Well Done. And what a fab day out that was.

 

Thanks!  The research showed several websites selling quad bikes like the one in your photo.  Perhaps just the thing for a day's outing around Hampshire?

 

Part of me was still hoping it would turn out to be Blackpool.  Maybe if someone is on the upcoming QE UK-only voyages there will be a chance for a sail-by photo.

[Solent Richard]

One more from me to pull out of the hat and definitely not on the list under either of its popular names. 

 

An early morning approach ...

 

[bluemarble]

17 minutes ago, Solent Richard said:

One more from me to pull out of the hat and definitely not on the list under either of its popular names. 

 

An early morning approach ...

 

 

The look and feel of a Scandinavian port, combined with your clue that it has two popular names, has led me to Helsingør / Elsinore, Denmark for this one. Yes indeed a new port for our list under either name.

 

My research tells me this view is showing Kronborg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the center along the waterfront.

[Solent Richard]

19 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

The look and feel of a Scandinavian port, combined with your clue that it has two popular names, has led me to Helsingør / Elsinore, Denmark for this one. Yes indeed a new port for our list under either name.

 

My research tells me this view is showing Kronborg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the center along the waterfront.

Spot on again Bluemarble: Well done to you again.

 

The photograph was taken from Queen Mary 2 in October 2013 on a cruise entitled 'Scandinavian Explorer' .

[bluemarble]

7 hours ago, Solent Richard said:

Spot on again Bluemarble: Well done to you again.

 

The photograph was taken from Queen Mary 2 in October 2013 on a cruise entitled 'Scandinavian Explorer' .

 

Looks like an interesting port. I see it's been a fairly popular call for QM2, but I don't see any calls there by QV or QE, nor do I see it any of the itineraries I have for QE2 starting with 1996.

 

By the way, for those keeping score, this is now the 260th port we've seen on this thread according to the list I've been keeping.

[Solent Richard]

14 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

Looks like an interesting port. I see it's been a fairly popular call for QM2, but I don't see any calls there by QV or QE, nor do I see it any of the itineraries I have for QE2 starting with 1996.

 

By the way, for those keeping score, this is now the 260th port we've seen on this thread according to the list I've been keeping.

Helsingør / Elsinore is a  tender port. That may have a bearing.

[bluemarble]

How about this webcam image of QM2 at a port that's not on our list yet? Not sure if this is going to be easy or diabolical.

 

[sfred]

The Olympic rings suggest a port at, or nearby, a host city.  Running down the Wikipedia list of Olympic cities, there are only a few located at seaports that we haven't got on the tracking list yet.  Two that are possibilities are Sochi Russia or Incheon (Seoul) Korea.  QM2 has been to Incheon.  Not sure about Sochi.

[carlmm]

1 hour ago, sfred said:

The Olympic rings suggest a port at, or nearby, a host city.  Running down the Wikipedia list of Olympic cities, there are only a few located at seaports that we haven't got on the tracking list yet.  Two that are possibilities are Sochi Russia or Incheon (Seoul) Korea.  QM2 has been to Incheon.  Not sure about Sochi.

 

So far it did not help me either to look at those cities which were not olympic cities but hosted the olympic sailing events. Some we already have seen (Kiel, 1972 for Munich and Tallinn, 1980 for Moscow) for other like Busan I do not get a match.

[bluemarble]

Good job identifying those Olympic rings. They are indeed useful in identifying the location of that webcam image. None of the suggestions made so far are correct though. There is something unusual about this QM2 port which may tend to make it a bit diabolical to identify. I'll leave it at that for now.

[sfred]

Ah... I think I found it.

 

Weymouth England?  The sailing competitions for the London Olympics were held there.  There's a photo on Google for the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy of the Olympic rings that match the shape in the webcam image, with two supporting columns attached to the lower two rings.  And QM2 has been there during the pause in operations. 

[bluemarble]

13 minutes ago, sfred said:

Ah... I think I found it.

 

Weymouth England?  The sailing competitions for the London Olympics were held there.  There's a photo on Google for the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy of the Olympic rings that match the shape in the webcam image, with two supporting columns attached to the lower two rings.  And QM2 has been there during the pause in operations. 

 

That's it, at least the "Portland" part specifically. Last August we saw a photo on this thread of several ships including QM2 anchored offshore near Weymouth. I had already added Weymouth to our master Cunard port list because of that earlier photo showing the Weymouth Bay anchorage.

 

Up until last week to my knowledge none of the Cunard ships had been within nearby Portland Harbour though. That changed on March 18th when QM2 spent the day docked there. On that basis I've taken the liberty of treating Portland Harbour as being a different port from the anchorage in Weymouth Bay.

 

Here is the original image I captured last week from the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy webcam, shared here with their kind permission.

 

 

Here also is a capture of the QM2 bridge webcam from that same day. You may recall @Ray66 posted an image similar to this one on the "QM2 location" thread last week.

 

 

So, although I long ago ran out of port photos and images from my webcam archives to share here, I still found a way to contribute a new one, even if it took the pause in operations to call this a Cunard port.

[sfred]

My thanks to @carlmm for his idea of olympics sailing venues.  That broadened the set of potential places.  Then I found the image from the National Sailing Academy, which matched the olympic rings and the blue cargo cranes in the background.  I hadn't noticed the distinction between Weymouth and Portland, although looking again at google maps I see it now.

 

 

[bluemarble]

Perhaps it's time for some more specific suggestions on Cunard ports we haven't seen here yet. Not wanting this thread to end quite yet, these are the ports on my list of the top 100 most visited ports by the current Cunard fleet that we haven't seen here yet.

 

#27 - Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

#71 - San Francisco, California

#81 - Shanghai, China

#88 - Port Kelang, Malaysia

#99 (tie) - Bay of Islands, New Zealand

#99 (tie) - Laem Chabang, Thailand

 

Contributions showing any of these ports would be great. I promise I won't guess any of them. 🙂

 

Of course photos of any other Cunard ports we haven't seen here are most welcome as well.

[North West Newbie]

OK. Let's try this one....

[sfred]

Excellent, thanks @North West Newbie.  That would be Port Kelang  (also spelled Port Klang), Malaysia.  The building at the far left of the photo is the Boustead Cruise Center.

 

I've been to Malaysia a lot for work, but always to KL and JB (Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru).  It is one of my favourite countries.  Maybe one day I'll get there on Cunard.

 

@bluemarbleI really wish I could contribute photos for Shanghai and Bay of Islands.  I've been to Shanghai on QM2 in 2017 and Bay of Islands on QE in 2015, but not a single photo to prove it.  I'll ask the wife to look again in her phone.  Sometimes things magically turn up.

 

 

[Essiesmom]

Here is one of your missing ports, though not a Cunard ship...

 

 

[Essiesmom]

And this is another, though it has been 19 years since this was taken...

 

 

 

 

[sfred]

Thanks @Essiesmom.  Good photos.  I've already guessed one for today (Port Klang) so I'll let another person have a chance.

 

Meantime, I nagged (encouraged!) the wife to have another look through her phone, and we found this picture.  Not of, or from, a Cunard ship, but at least we found a picture with a nautical theme.