Spirit of Tasmania IV has finally made it to Tasmania!
I'd known when she would arrive for some time so I had the afternoon booked off in my calendar, I headed up to the bluff early to secure a car park, Id taken my drone and a couple of cameras with my long zoom lenses, made my way up to the lighthouse and waited, we first sighted her through the fog/rain around 2:50pm, her scheduled arrival at the bluff being 3:30pm, photos at this point aren't great due to the poor visibility but this is what we could see:
While I was standing there, messaging back and forth with Rob (who was onboard, you can just see him in the above photo if you know where too look), I got a call from Justin, they had decided to put a boat in the river and go out for a look, and he had a spare seat! I couldn't pass that up so I gave up my parking spot and made my way down to the boat ramp outside The Eli, I was lucky enough to get a car park right there, I was so excited to be going out to see SPOT IV up close that I completely forgot to grab my 360 camera and take with me 🤦🏻♂️. That's ok though, I had both my phones, they would do.
After waiting for another of Justin's family to arrive, we headed out, the delta was quite rough leaving the Mersey, truthfully with my hemorrhoids the way they are at the moment this was probably a bad idea, but I didn't care, I was going to get up close and personal with the new Spirit!
As it turned out not many people took boats out, plenty of spectators packed the bluff to see it, but I only counted two other boats, and the Julie Burgess came out as well. SPOT IV is bigger than you think it is, she looked big from the shoreline, but the closer we got to her, the more you realize, wow she is actually huge, its going to look completely ridiculous docked in the Mersey! I cant wait to get onboard!
Rob had been onboard since WA, the plan had always been to try and get a photo of him, that was made much easier being this close.
She is now on her way to Hobart for fit-out work, I am hoping to make a trip down there to see her again before she heads to Geelong for testing, but with all of the wedding prep that's happening at the moment I may not get time.