Still awaiting repair

Victoria Pier is still undergoing repairs three months after the damage caused by a massive tidal surge. Clearly no urgency here and no sign of anyone actually doing anything either.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Old Leaky

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the dry dock that wasn't, erm, very dry.  Those old lock gate have sprung a leak and the Humber is finding its way back in. Strangely whoever owns this place is pumping out water 24/7 while the high tide is simply returning the favour, it all seems a bit futile. Speaking of pointless activities I took a short (40 seconds) video of the in rushing water.

Ppick up a penguin

Imagine, if you can, that you're a flightless bird from the Southern hemisphere used to ranging up to 16 miles a day in the ocean for your food and living in groups of dozens  if not hundreds of your fellow birds. OK I know that being a penguin is not everyone's idea of fun but I expect penguins are having a blast. That is until the concerned conservationists get you in their bleeding heart sights. Then they'll whisk you up to be an exhibit in this state of the art animal prison with a new home that "runs over three floors and features a swimming pool, diving pool, beach area, nesting area and the penguins very own outdoor balcony with views overlooking the River Humber". It's been built with your "penguin comforts in mind". Whoop-de-doo!

From March 3 you can, for a not inconsiderable fee, stand and gawp at five unfortunate Gentoo penguins as they 'perform' for your entertainment in a £750,000 exhibit. The place says it's "For Conservation, not profit" well phooey! This is just a vile crowd puller and nothing whatsoever to do with conservation. At a similar venue in Scarborough the penguins are being dosed with anti-depressants probably to stop them drowning themselves ...

Sammy's Point

The bit of land on the east side of the junction of the river Hull and the Humber, where the Deep is now squatting, was once a large ship yard run by one Martin Samuelson. In the 1850's and 60's about one hundred steam vessels were made here by Martin Samuelson and Co before they sold out to another company and moved onto other business. Samuelson's name however became attached to this spit of land and Sammy's Point it remains.

I came across this oil painting of the shipyard, painted from the other side of the river, on the BBC's site where it is wrongly named (nobody's perfect).

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Half empty or half full?

It was only in October last year that I posted how plans were being put forward to turn this dry dock into an amphitheatre [ 1 ]. After months of work all the silt that had accumulated in the dock had been washed out and the place looked ready to go. Well, as I may have mentioned, the Humber rose to record heights one night in December and refilled this dock. No problem you might think; just wait for low tide open the dock gates and let the water out. I'm guessing the dock gates don't work too well after the years of neglect so it's a case of slowly pumping out the water. Seeing the place as it is now I hope gives the planners pause for thought and they build a higher wall else their amphitheatre will be a duck pond. 

While I'm here can I point you in the direction of this excellent blog post about Hull: "Hull: City of Culture". It's a fairly comprehensive review of Hull's' architectural delights and horrors and examines some of the causes for the city's woes. As the author says "Hull is a super place, one of the most distinctive and unusual towns in England, whose assets are being absurdly wasted."

Are you still here?

About a year ago I posted how this tidal power project had gone under as it were [ 1 ]. Now the good folk who live near it want it gone, removed, scrubbed and the foreshore returned to its former condition. Given that it was only supposed to be there for three years and it's doing no good just sitting there I suppose this is only right and proper however the Department of Energy and Climate Change has responsibility for decommissioning the device so it may be around for a while longer as they are having active discussions over it's future. (I wonder what  an inactive discussion would sound like.)

The Weekend's Reflections are here.

Again with those emigrants

Some time ago I posted a picture of this statue showing the guy with a thousand yard stare, well now you can see what he was gawping at; Albert Dock and the Humber. Personally I find this thing a tad schmaltzy for my taste: the man with the vision thing, the woman tending to the babe, the young lad carefree it's all a bit too much. But it's a Mormon sponsored thing so I guess we can't expect much else. 

On the subject of emigration we are still awaiting the hordes of Romanians and Bulgarians who we were promised would flood our shores once restrictions were eased this year. I guess they've found better places to go or they're waiting for the rain to stop.

Stable door

Albert Dock at high tide

As the horse goes clip-clopping down the street those who ought to have known better have come to the astonishing conclusion that the stable door was open all along. Oh yes, they say in what is called an official investigation into the floods of last year, the Albert Dock defenses were the lowest in the city and yes, they couldn't lock the gates because the tidal force would have buckled the gates but the flood would have happened any way as there was too much water. So to close the stable door temporary flood defenses are been piled up along the dock and a permanent fix has been brought forward by two years [ 1 ]. Let's hope old man river will wait that long.

Keep Out

Victorian Pier is undergoing repairs to damage caused I think by the floods at the end of last year. There's bright orange plastic fencing to keep out the unwary.

Shovette

Nice name for a push tug, Shovette, here moored for some reason by the horse wash.

Weakest Link

Exceptional conditions show up the vulnerable spots in any defense. So it was earlier this month when the highest tide ever recorded breached Hull's defenses at this spot by the Albert Dock. There's local dispute as to whether or not the dock gates failed but what is known is that the dock quay was overtopped by a couple of feet and water rushed across town as far as Ferensway. There's another predicted spring tide round about New Year's Day, let's hope there's no low pressure system wandering down the North Sea at that time.

Windows and mud

Here's the view across the entrance to Humber Dock or the Marina as it's now called. This the old Steam Packet Wharf that I mentioned in a previous post. As you can see it's just a little bit silted up.

Entrepôt

Here's another post of the Minerva Hotel. Built in the 1850's it served as the offices of one Richard Cortis an emigrant agent who was in the business of transporting hundreds of thousands mainly from Scandinavia through Hull and on to Liverpool and from there America. On arrival at Hull many ships would berth at the Steam Packet Wharf (below) adjacent to the Minerva. The male passengers were allowed to disembark and enjoy the pleasures of the town until evening when they must be back on board, women and children were kept on board until forward transport could be arranged.

Norway's declaration of a constitution on this day in 1814 may have raised nationalist passions but did nothing to stem the flow of its people to find a better life elsewhere. The figures are really quite alarming, from a population of  then around 2 million in one year alone, 1884, 28,804 people left. A million or so left in the century up to 1914. Norway's loss was Hull's gain, or rather the shipping company Wilson Line's gain. 

Now, of course, it's all changed and Norway is a rich and prosperous place with a high standard of living. Hull however has not fared so well, perhaps I should emigrate. Go East, old man!

Today's rather rambling post is part of City Daily Photo's Norway Constitution Day theme. 

Good old fashioned fog

Spurn Lightship from Castle Street

A strange sort of day yesterday; one minute I was taking pictures in clear blue sunny conditions then I walked a few yards towards Castle Street and into one of the thickest fogs I've seen for a long time. With visibility down to around twenty yards thankfully there was no air pollution to turn it into a pea souper. Undeterred by the lack of light or indeed subject I managed a handful of shots of the gloom.

Marina

Victoria pier from the Horse Wash

Neptune sunk

In March last year I posted about the installation of this tidal power generator [ 1 ]. Sadly earlier this month the company running it announced that it had gone into liquidation [ 2 ]. It seems the use of a vertical turbine was technically flawed and unsuitable for commercial use. It's one of those instances were the small scale models gave misleadingly optimistic results that the full scale could not deliver. This is a considerable setback to the development of tidal power on the Humber. 

More Gloom

A nice bit of gloom over Albert Dock. Those with good vision will be able to pick out the Humber Bridge stretching away in the distance. The small bridge in the centre carries the public footpath up and along the top of the buildings on the left as I mentioned in a previous post here.

Navigation

I mentioned a few day ago the difficulties of getting into the old harbour of Hull [ 1 ]. This barge skilfully managed the trick. It was coming upstream from the right of the picture but the current of the Humber meant that it had to go past the entrance to the river Hull on the right and the do a u-ey and let the current push it into the river. Turning a 55m tanker through 180 degrees in the Humber's current is no mean feat. This tanker is the Rix Eagle and plies from Immingham on the south bank carrying oil.

Pilot Office

Though the port of  Hull made its fortune by trading with the  ports of Northern Europe actually getting in and out of the river Hull in a boat was and remains a perilous operation. The currents of the Humber constantly change with the shifting sandbanks. A 1693 British Sea Atlas giving directions for sailing into the Humber starts with the following warning: "To sail into the River Humber you must have a care of  the Dreadful-Sand which is but 6 and 7 feet at low water". So from the earliest days there was a form of pilotage run by the Hull Trinity House and which was given royal backing when Henry VIII witnessed a Scottish vessel trying and failing to enter the port. After that all ‘strangers’ (foreign vessels including Scottish ships) visiting the port (Old Harbour) had to be brought in by a brother of the Hull Trinity House. Over the years the system was further regulated to keep out rogue elements who might be tempted to plunder wrecked ships. In 1821 this imposing Pilot Office was built at the corner of Nelson Street and Queen Street. It remained the central office for the Humber pilots until 1998. The building was then sold off for redevelopment as flats. The system of Humber pilots being self-employed which had existed for centuries was broken by the Associated British Ports in 2002 after a bitter dispute. Pilots are now directly employed by the ABP.

There is a very full history of the Humber pilots here.

More monochrome blogs at The Weekend in Black & White.

Watergate, how one thing leads to another.

I've walked down Humber Street a number of times but only today noticed this blue plaque; it's right next to that old dry dock that I posted a few weeks back. I suppose they put plaques high up so no-one will steal them still it defeats the purpose if you don't see them at all. Anyhow inspired by a sign to an old rubbish tip I looked up Hull's Watergate and found an old picture/map of Hull by Wenceslas Hollar (1607 -1677). I thought the top bit of the picture would make a good heading for the blog and while I was fiddling with that I changed the background colours as well and before I knew it the blog had a brand new look. If you're interested the Watergate is shown right in the middle of the picture.

Below is the full image, the date is unknown (thanks to Wikimedia Commons).

Deep diving bell

Not really in the mood for posting today. Anyway here's what I assume is a diving bell parked up behind the Deep. This was taken early this year when they were installing the Tidal Power gizmo that you can see in the background. Right that's your lot, until tomorrow ...