| At the north end of Galveston Island is a gap through which a
large amount of shipping passes to and from the port of Galveston. This is
just one of the freighters passing through. |  |
 | One thinks of
tankers as being huge with millions of barrels of oil inside. But there are
hundreds of smaller more specialized tankers. The Stolt fleet has dozens of
these which combine carrying oil with carrying oilfield equipment. |
| There is a ferry which crosses the port entrance. This is another
free ferry although we didn't travel this one, but just watched. We used the
bridges to get off the island. |  |
 | All sorts of
traffic moves in and out of this port besides oil equipment and oil related
chemicals. This is a roll-on roll-off ferry registered in Cork but who knows
where it was travelling to. |
| The port is full of oil related equipment. The oil industry has
developed a number of strange and specialized ships. I think that the ship
here with the bright red bits is a pipeline layer. To the left is an oil rig, to the right is an
oilfield tender. There are several dry docks and shipbuilding/repair
facilities. |  |
 | Some of the oil
rigs are quite large and are often custom designed for a particular
location. Some have few legs and others have many. |
 | This is another
port with a ship museum, in this case featuring this Scottish barque. Unusually it had its
sails out. Fortunately the wind was slight. Later in the day the crew (or
volunteers) were busy furling the sails as the wind rose. |  |
| There are mooring areas for smaller boats for both fishing and
pleasure. In amongst them were both brown and white pelicans, together with
guillemots and other fishing birds. |  |
 | The town is
full of buildings most of which seem to be listed. They are attractive,
particularly in the afternoon sunshine. |
| There are several buildings in this style. One is a hotel but
the lower floors of others contain tourism-related shops. From the styles most
of the buildings were built in the early 1900s. |  |
 | This is the
hotel with a ballroom on the other side of the road. The arch just
brightens up the street. |
| Overshadowing the harbour was the Grand Princess, until recently
the largest cruise liner in the world, belonging to P&O. It is 951 feet long, carries 2600
passengers and has over 1300 crew. Currently it is running week-long cruises
in the Caribbean. It left at 1600hrs with a horn blast that woke the whole
city up. |  |
 | The liner is
just departing. The bit right at the top is a nightclub 16 stories above the water
level. It is certainly taller than any of the buildings in the town. |
| We went back to the end of the island to see the cruise ship
leave. Watching it made us realize how much larger it was than any of
the freighters we had seen earlier. |  |
 | It quickly
picked up speed as it headed
south but it wouldn't arrive at Cancun until two days later. I hope
they keep with the good weather, although perhaps you don't notice the waves
very much in a vessel this big. |
|