Where in the world ?

[bluemarble]

On 3/18/2023 at 10:15 AM, bluemarble said:

Let's try this devious webcam capture. It shows a Cunard ship arriving at a port we've already seen. Since there's not much to go on, I've only blurred out the date this time. The caption at the lower right may not provide much help on it's own. But if you reverse the words as well as the direction that will give you the name of the beach where the camera is located. That's a start anyway.

 

 

Here's my follow-up hint for this one. I'm going to keep you working for it though as this hint may not be particularly revealing.

 

Rather than saying this image is "devious", it might be slightly more helpful to change the last few letters of that word and say it is "devilish" instead.

[NE John]

1 hour ago, bluemarble said:

 

I think you meant Odessa rather than Yalta, right?. I found several photos of the Odessa cruise port that match your second photo extremely well. One of the best matches is found in this 2016 article from Ukraine Travel News showing QV there.

 

Odesa is waiting for the cruise boom

 

The "Port of Odesa" Wikipedia page also provides a pretty convincing match.

Good catch @bluemarble  Thank you. 
I have pictures of the port of Yalta but none of the QE in port. Most of my other Cunard ship specific photos have been shown on these pages earlier. I’ll dig more though. 

[bluemarble]

2 minutes ago, NE John said:

Good catch @bluemarble  Thank you. 
I have pictures of the port of Yalta but none of the QE in port. Most of my other Cunard ship specific photos have been shown on these pages earlier. I’ll dig more though. 

 

No need to confine yourself to photos of ports we haven't seen here yet. We've had numerous repeats and welcome any shots you think might offer a different perspective on a port we've already seen. We've also long since relaxed the requirement that your photos have to show a Cunard ship or that they were even taken during a Cunard cruise. Photos showing a Cunard ship are preferred but no longer necessary. Anything to keep this game going!

 

By the way, we have seen Yalta on this thread before so don't go digging too deep for one of yours unless you'd like to include it. Thanks to your contribution we can now move Nessebar from the unseen list to the seen list but Yalta is already on the seen list.

[carlmm]

1 hour ago, bluemarble said:

 

Here's my follow-up hint for this one. I'm going to keep you working for it though as this hint may not be particularly revealing.

 

Rather than saying this image is "devious", it might be slightly more helpful to change the last few letters of that word and say it is "devilish" instead.

Alright  ...

Burnie, Tasmania. West Beach camera.

[exlondoner]

2 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

I think you meant Odessa rather than Yalta, right?. I found several photos of the Odessa cruise port that match your second photo extremely well. One of the best matches is found in this 2016 article from Ukraine Travel News showing QV there.

 

Odesa is waiting for the cruise boom

 

The "Port of Odesa" Wikipedia page also provides a pretty convincing match.

Sob. I thought I was doing so well.

[bluemarble]

10 minutes ago, carlmm said:

Alright  ...

Burnie, Tasmania. West Beach camera.

 

That's it. Well done. You've found the Tasmanian devil-ish West Beach camera. That's a view of QE's arrival at Burnie earlier this year on January 25th.

[sfred]

17 hours ago, bluemarble said:

My guess for this photo is Nessebar, Bulgaria.

 

Congratulations @bluemarble.  I never would have guessed.  Even knowing the port, I can't find that specific building on google maps.

 

8 hours ago, NE John said:

Final hint: I don’t believe any cruise ships are going anywhere near this area anytime soon. 

 

Hopefully we won't need QM2/QV/QE to serve as troop ships!

[NE John]

34 minutes ago, bluemarble said:

welcome any shots you think might offer a different perspective on a port we've already seen.

Here’s a different perspective - - where was this photo taken on this ship?

[North West Newbie]

Just now, NE John said:

Here’s a different perspective - - where was this photo taken on this ship?

 

From the starboard forward glass elevator?

[sfred]

34 minutes ago, North West Newbie said:

 

From the starboard forward glass elevator?

 

...and QM2 is departing from the Brooklyn terminal.  You can make out the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges in the background at the left of the photo.

[NE John]

Correct on the QM2 and the port. What about where on the ship? It’s not the forward glass elevator. 

Hint: use your imagination. 

[sfred]

9 minutes ago, NE John said:

Correct on the QM2 and the port. What about where on the ship? It’s not the forward glass elevator. 

Hint: use your imagination. 

 

It looks like you're at the level of deck 12, so that would make the photo from the starboard bridge wing.  If correct, what a great place to be for departure!  How were you able to be there?

[NE John]

12 minutes ago, sfred said:

How were you able to be there?

We had a once in a lifetime opportunity to sail out on the Bridge of the QM2 during a TA a while back. 
DW worked for an organization and, more importantly, worked closely with the NY Port Pilots for many years. The pilots heard about our Crossing so they invited us to hang out on the Bridge as the QM2 left NY harbor. We stayed on the bridge as long as the pilot stayed on, usually until QM2 gets to the bend around Coney Island.
 

There was an eerie silence from the crew on the bridge when we sailed under the VN Bridge. Waiting for scrapping sounds?  I was assured there’s plenty of room…

The only other civilians there were an elderly British couple who looked like his and her lord and ladyship (tartan cloaked and all). 

Very limited picture taking was allowed but I got the ok for this one. TA was before 2016 BC cabins addition. 

[sfred]

Wow - I'm very jealous!  I think even QM2's bridge viewing window is closed during arrivals and departures.  What a great opportunity.

[NE John]

2 hours ago, sfred said:

Wow - I'm very jealous!  I think even QM2's bridge viewing window is closed during arrivals and departures.  What a great opportunity.

 

2 hours ago, sfred said:

I think even QM2's bridge viewing window is closed during arrivals and departures.

We were not in the bridge window area - we were in the actual bridge with the captain and senior officers. Oh yea, there was also a NYC special ops well-armed officer in the bridge too. 

[sfred]

24 minutes ago, NE John said:

 

We were not in the bridge window area - we were in the actual bridge with the captain and senior officers. Oh yea, there was also a NYC special ops well-armed officer in the bridge too. 

 

Yes, I understand.  I was saying that you usually cannot even go to the viewing area during arrivals and departures, much less being in the bridge itself.  As you say, a unique opportunity.

[sfred]

What have the Romans ever done for us???  

 

Well, in addition to the aqueduct, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, public baths, safety, order and peace... 🙂  ... we also know that numerous Cunard ships were named after provinces of the Roman Empire.  Which got me to wondering how many of the seen Cunard ports in our game are in places that were formerly Roman?

 

Turns out that of the 609 seen ports and cruise-bys so far, 189 or 31 percent, were in the former Roman Empire.  Not too shabby.  This compares to 226 or 37 percent that were in the former British Empire. 

[NE John]

8 hours ago, sfred said:

Turns out that of the 609 seen ports and cruise-bys so far, 189 or 31 percent, were in the former Roman Empire.

First, that’s my second favorite Monty Python quote (first is “Hey, I didn’t eat the mousse)

 

Maybe think to expand view and add the Byzantine/Ottoman empire coastlines to the Roman Empire ports?
This adds some new areas from the Black Sea, the Middle East, and even some Persian Gulf exposure. 

OK, I’m a maritime history, ship, and map geek!

[exlondoner]

33 minutes ago, NE John said:

First, that’s my second favorite Monty Python quote (first is “Hey, I didn’t eat the mousse)

 

Maybe think to expand view and add the Byzantine/Ottoman empire coastlines to the Roman Empire ports?
This adds some new areas from the Black Sea, the Middle East, and even some Persian Gulf exposure. 

OK, I’m a maritime history, ship, and map geek!

Just of out interest, how much of the British Isles are you counting as having been part of the Roman Empire?

[NE John]

14 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Just of out interest, how much of the British Isles are you counting as having been part of the Roman Empire?

@sfredmay want to chime in on this question?

I would imagine up to Hadrian’s Wall. 

[exlondoner]

21 minutes ago, NE John said:

@sfredmay want to chime in on this question?

I would imagine up to Hadrian’s Wall. 

Well, it’s tricky, isn’t it. There was the Antonine Wall for a while. And what about Wales? I certainly don’t think you can include Holyhead.

[sfred]

1 hour ago, NE John said:

Maybe think to expand view and add the Byzantine/Ottoman empire coastlines to the Roman Empire ports?
This adds some new areas from the Black Sea, the Middle East, and even some Persian Gulf exposure.

 

56 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Just of out interest, how much of the British Isles are you counting as having been part of the Roman Empire?

 

16 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Well, it’s tricky, isn’t it. There was the Antonine Wall for a while. And what about Wales? I certainly don’t think you can include Holyhead.

 

Thanks @exlondoner and @NE John for your questions and suggestions.    For the UK, I included England, Wales, Isle of Man, Guernsey, and Gibraltar as being part of the former Roman Empire, and excluded Scotland and Northern Ireland.  This was the easiest way to define the Microsoft PowerBI formula in my dataset, given the fields I had available to utilise. 

 

My (limited) knowledge of Welsh history, supplemented by Wikipedia,  is that the Romans occupied a large portion of Wales.   Wikipedia says that :"The Roman Empire held a military occupation in most of Wales, except for the southern coastal region of South Wales, east of the Gower Peninsula, and some southern sites such as Carmarthen, which was the civitas capital of the Demetae tribe."  The Wikipedia entry for Holyhead says that "The town centre is built around St. Cybi's Church, which is built inside one of Europe's few three-walled Roman forts (the fourth boundary being the sea, which used to come up to the fort). The Romans also built a watchtower on the top of Holyhead Mountain inside Mynydd y Twr, a prehistoric hillfort."  For Llandudno, I see a museum entry describing a nearby Roman fort  Milford Haven is unclear, as it was only founded in 1793.

 

So on balance, I (perhaps incorrectly?) included Wales.  Happy to revisit that if needed?

 

For the Middle East and Black Sea regions, I included Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria.  The maps I found of the greatest extents of the Roman empire included these areas.

 

Overall, there's probably some plus/minus inaccuracy in the calculation of the 189 Roman ports, depending on whether the Romans covered the entirety of modern country boundaries.  Given the limitations of my model's formula, we'd have to make some manual adjustments for a more granular calculation.

[sfred]

2 hours ago, NE John said:

First, that’s my second favorite Monty Python quote (first is “Hey, I didn’t eat the mousse)

 

OK, I’m a maritime history, ship, and map geek!

 

Me too!  🙂

[NE John]

Has Cunard docked In Wales? What’s is the main Welch port for a Cunard ships? Cardiff?

As a native of Philadelphia, I’ve always love the Welsh names around that area. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by NE John

[sfred]

9 minutes ago, NE John said:

Has Cunard docked In Wales? What’s is the main Welch port for a Cunard ships? Cardiff?

As a native of Philadelphia, I’ve always love the Welsh names around that area. 

 

The three "seen" Welsh ports in our game are Holyhead, Llandudno, and Milford Haven.  We don't have Cardiff on either the seen or unseen lists.  I guess Cunard has not been there?