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Displaying items by tag: WhaleWatch Cruise

#CruiseLiners - On this Valentine’s Day the yacht-like cruiseship Saga Pearl II is due to depart Portsmouth International Port (PIP) at 17.00 this afternoon to see the Northern Lights in Norway. It won’t just be guests on board hoping to see incredible sights.

According to PIP, a team from ORCA, a marine conservation charity based in the UK's second busiest ferryport, will also be joining the crew of the Saga Cruises ship on the 15 night holiday. It will be the first survey of 2018 for ORCA, one of eleven journeys they will be making from Portsmouth with Saga this year to learn more about marine mammals and habitats in which they live.

The cruise from the historic maritime city of Portsmouth explores Norway's coastal waters and heads into the Arctic Circle. Last year's cruises to the same area saw everything from humpback whales to harbour porpoises, and sperm whales to pilot whales.

ORCA has also just announced it is to partner with another cruise ship operator at Portsmouth. Noble Caledonia specialises in small cruise ship holidays accessing incredible natural habitats that larger vessels can’t visit. A “unique and innovative marriage” between the charity and Noble Caledonia is expected to expand a citizen’s science programme onboard the small luxury liners.

Tim Cochrane, Noble Caledonia Managing Director, said “I am delighted to be able to introduce this concept into our expedition tours and to be working with ORCA: I know that our guests will relish being part of this exciting initiative as part of their holiday with us such that they can take away even more than the lasting memories our holidays provide. The opportunity to join in with some of the scientific research being undertaken by our knowledgeable and experienced expedition team members, many of whom are experts in their own fields, will, I am sure, enhance guest experience on our expedition tours”.

Saga Pearl II is the smallest of the operator's fleet and as Afloat reported the intimate 449 passenger cruiseship has in recent years called to Warrenpoint, where there are plans to boost cruise tourism. 

Published in Cruise Liners

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.