This year (Christmas 06/ New Year07) their visit was to Santos in Brazil.
Santos is the largest port in South America. It is located on the South East coast near to the industrial areas of Sao Paulo.
Peter was able to show us stills and film of his visit on his recently purchased digital LCD projector.
The port has a large container port; oil, chemical and gas facilities; a vehicle import wharf and general cargo. The bulk wharves handle ore; citrus fruit juice; coal; sugar; fertilisers; soya; vegetables; forest products; grain and salt. There is also a passenger terminal, which over the holiday period was busy operating 3-4 day cruises to Rio de Janeiro.
Peter and Christine soon found a good vantage point on the waterfront near the beach area of Santos where the channel narrowed to the entrance to the harbour but still retained a good view of the ships in the offshore anchorage. The weather was however not always ideal with several days of fog and/or rain.
There was obviously a huge variety of shipping to see and the presentation started with a selection of still pictures taken from the waterfront vantage point and from a harbour trip. This showed that Wilson�s ship building area was busy building and fitting out tugs and offshore supply vessels.
Peter then showed us three videos that he took of shipping passing in and out of the harbour. He apologised for the noisy sound track but everyone thought this added to the atmosphere. There were a lot of ship spotters to be seen and viewing the passing ships appeared to be the evening entertainment for local people. Whenever a cruise ship passed out of the narrows there was long and repeated horn blowing and often fireworks, even during daylight hours. The tide difference at Santos is about a metre so ships sail on most states of the tide. Cruise ships seen included Costa Fortuna, MSC Armonia and Blue Dream.
To Peter�s great delight on one day two SD14s were to be seen, one in the anchorage and the other, the Brazilian built ship TINA, departing Santos.
We thank Peter and Christine for coming to Ingatestone once more and showing us their shipping experiences from around the world.