Another day ... another trip ... a short one!
I had worked halfway through the night so I slept out before making my way to Eindhoven (NL) to pick up Onno and Vadym of Onnozone and drive on towards Scheveningen (NL). Why Scheveningen?
We are the 1st of May 2024 and at around 1 pm I arrived in Eindhoven where I picked up Onno and Vadym to go to Scheveningen, another fair distance to drive and since today is a public holiday and the weather is good, we are not alone on the roads. We arrived at about 3 pm and walked around the dock called "Eerste Haven" of this small but interesting port where our subject of the day was docked, the Ocean Albatros!
After a walk around this dock and a drink, we went to see the famous Scheveningen lighthouse that sadly wasn't open at this moment. We decided that we would spend some time relaxing and since Scheveningen charges huge amounts of money just for parking your car, we went to the South Western side where it is cheaper to park and you can walk around onto the breakwaters of the port and also relax on the beach or in the small beach restaurant.
At 7 pm the Ocean Albatros was scheduled to leave and we made sure we were positioned on our previously choses spots for this photoshoot. Sure enough by 7.30 pm she had left port completely and we went back home.
About the ship:
The Ocean Albatros is one of 8 sisters built from 2018 in China, she was the sixth of the class being built and she wasn't even officially christened yet on the day we photographed her as this happened only on May 7th in Copenhagen. The ship is part of Albatros Expeditions who also operate her sister Ocean Victory. The design of the ships is somewhat unusual as these ships were designed with an X-bow design where the bow is actually inverted to reduce drag, fuel consumption and motion in rough seas. This design came from Ulstein and has first been used in offshore supply vessels, and now also on these smaller sized expedition cruise ships. The Ocean Albatros measures 104 meters long, 18 meters wide and with a crew of 100, she can accomodate 189 passengers and her hull is ice strengthened for polar expeditions. Her speed is somewhat slow at 13 to 15 knots but she packs a wide range of RIB's for polar cruising and offers fantastic experiences for her passengers. Only time will tell how popular this ship will become and what the future holds for her.
About the lighthouse:
This lighthouse is like a lot of Dutch lighthouses built from cast iron panels, craftfully created to fit exactly into place when constructing this lighthouse, no 2 panels are the same! This lighthouse was built in 1875 to replace an older beacon. This new lighthouse is 30 meters high, has 8 floors and 159 steps in a spiral cast iron staircase. The base of this lighthouse isn't round but an dodecagon shape. The lighthouse is still in use today to guide ships in the Dutch waters and the port of Scheveningen, although in the 1960's the original light floating on a bath of mercury was replaced by a more modern electric lightstand on ball bearings.
Overview album:
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