Day 7 Thursday 8th September Transit to Dublin and then Dublin
After leaving Stornoway, Oriana sailed South overnight. In the morning there were sea mists and the odd squall of rain.
After a late breakfast I went out on deck to take up my favourite position at the stern and look for any wildlife around the ship. I did manage to see a number of seabirds tracking alongside. Later in the morning there were eight (or more) fishing boats on the ship’s port side.
The skies had begun clear with patches of blue sky as we neared Dublin Bay in the early afternoon.
Due to tides Oriana had to wait until 2.30 pm to get into Dublin. The weather was not helping with winds of 25 knots forecasted. This would make turning Oriana in the inner harbour to get her docked on the Ocean Pier would need two tugs to help.
The picture below doesn’t really show how close the stern came to the quay. At one point the upper decks at the stern appeared to be over the dock.
We had to queue in the restaurant to be allocated a ticket to leave the ship and catch one of the courtesy buses into Dublin. The weather was not kind and as we walked through Dublin the rains came down.
We went into the Blarney Bar to shelter and have a drink. Then it was back to the ship after a very curtailed visit into Dublin.
The traffic around the city was dreadful as the ship’s visit coincided with a bus strike. The courtesy bus tried hard to dodge the traffic but the short trip back to the dock took over 30 minutes.
Our lunch was in the Peninsular restaurant and was a curry accompanied by a bottle of London Pride (again).
Our evening dinner was in The Beach House restaurant. We all had the fillet of beef on lava rock. Mine was accompanied by the tiger prawns to start and followed by cheesecake.
From Dublin the last post from the ship left at 19:30 and for a post card cost a £1.
The ship stayed at the Ocean Pier to allow passengers to enjoy Dublin until the late evening.
