Cruise Ship Visits Holyhead
by Jenny Jones
(Wales)
cruise Wales
Major cruise liners will visit Holyhead over the coming weeks. On 7 August the giant ms Westerdam, of the Holland America Line, is due at the Anglesey port.
The 936 ft long Westerdam can carry just over 1,900 passengers and has a crew of around 800. She leaves Rotterdam today (2 August 2010) on a 12-day cruise around Britain and Ireland under the Celtic Legends theme.
Making passage in a clockwise direction, ms Westerdam has an impressive ports of call line up. She first heads south west from Rotterdam throught the English Channel for Portland Harbour in Dorset, one of the largest man-made harbours in the world.
From Portland this modern Holland America cruise ship makes here way to St Peter Port in the Channel Islands. Then she takes a north westerly cruise and makes her way past the Scilly Isles an across the south Irish Sea to Dunmore East in County Waterford, Ireland.
After sailing up the east Irish coast, passangers will then enjoy a visit to Dublin, the capital of Ireland and a major international port, before the ship turns east sailing from Dublin to Holyhead port, in west Anglesey.
The Holyhead to Dublin link is a very busy commercial route with a number of car ferries carrying both business and leisure traffic.
After the cruise visitors off the Westerdam have had the opportunity to visit a number of local Anglesea attractions such as South Stack, Beaumaris Castle and Llynnon Mill, Westerdam will make her way northwards past Carmel Head, Skerries Lighthouse and Isle of Man before calling at Greenock on the Clyde.
This will be followed by a short fetch across to Belfast, Northern Ireland, before a long cruise past the Western Isles, around the north of Scotland and back to Queensferry near Edinburgh. The final stop is at Newcastle-upon-Tyne after which she returns to Rotterdam.
Holiday visitors to Holyhead will be able to see the cruise liner Westerdam as she berths near Holyhead Breakwater, either at anchorage or alongside the former Anglesey Aluminium jetty.
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Photo "Cruise Wales" provided by Chris Glase
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