John Oram's photos with the keyword: P&O Aurora

Fred Olsen Borealis at 101 berth, City Cruise Terminal Southampton with Whitchampion bunkering. In the distance on 106 berth is P&O Aurora. 5300_DSC_3626E

Coronavirus brought the cruise industry to a halt worldwide with ships idle in numerous locations. TUI's Marella Explorer 2 was one of three anchored off Bournemouth on Sunday 5 July 2020. This became four in the evening with the arrival, reportedly from Torquay of P&O Arcadia which moved to an anchorage just east of Marella Explorer the other TUI vessel present. Marella Explorer 2 left Bournemouth on the afternoon of 6 July reportedly for the Nab anchorage. Arcadia later moved to the position previously occupied by Aurora which had sailed reportedly to Dover, leaving Bournemouth after Marella Explorer 2. The movements are difficult to keep up with and my photographs are the result of a lot of shooting and editing. A combination of unsettled weather with endless variations of sun and cloud together with the time of day and the movement of individual ships at anchor creates a whole range of results with often far too much blue in the picture. The end products are the result of rather subjective judgements on colour. 5300_DSC_1860CE

Coronavirus brought the cruise industry to a halt worldwide with ships idle in numerous locations. P&O Aurora was one of three (later four) anchored off Bournemouth on Sunday 5 July 2020. Aurora left Bournemouth in the early evening of 6 July reportedly for Dover. 5300_DSC_1855CE

The morning of Sunday 5 July 2020 saw a tentative change in the weather which remained unsettled to that lighting conditions varied by the minute. It was a time to be bold with my record of the three ships anchored off Bournemouth as the cruise industry remained in a coronavirus induced hiatus. Staring across the sun from West Cliff, one could see TUI's Marella Explorer and P&O Aurora. Marella Explorer 2 was a little further west. 5300_DSC_1840CE

It is more than two years since I last added to my series 'When Worlds Collide' which, simply, shows cruise ships in unexpected settings. In 2020 the world's cruise ships all found themselves in unexpected settings far from the itineraries or ports they had imagined for 2020, the year coronavirus changed lives and livelihoods. While no fewer than six ships crowded Weymouth Bay, three were at anchor off Bournemouth. Haze and drizzle had made it impractical to photograph these earlier in the day and Marella Explorer and Marella Explorer 2 remained less easy to see clearly than P&O Aurora which I shot on an evening walk using the structures on Bournemouth Pier to frame the slightly ghostly figure of the ship. TZ70_P1020390CE