The captain advised the passengers yesterday that the ship had been
asked to arrive at Port Hedland earlier than scheduled. So, instead of docking
at 9 a.m., the ship docked at 6:30 a.m.
We ate breakfast on Deck 11’s Windjammer
buffet since when we were ready for breakfast there was still 10 minutes before
the dining room opened. We found Bob and
Maureen as we were leaving and arranged to meet to take the shuttle into Port
Hedland. The shuttles are complimentary, since this is a working port and it is
not safe for passengers to walk through the port facilities.
This morning’s sky had a few breaks in the
white and gray clouds. The warm moist
air enveloped you as you stepped out onto the deck and we were grateful for the
gentle breeze blowing. Temperature is
about 26 C. It looked like it would rain,
but the skies partly cleared by noon. But the clouds gathered again around 2:30
p.m. when the temperature had risen to +34 C and finally, around 4:30 p.m., a
thunder storm drenched the ship, but the soaked surfaces were drying up by 5:30
p.m. The ship was still in port, delayed
from the scheduled 3 p.m. departure due to the priority of the iron ore
carriers. The ship departed during
dinner and had to travel near top speed of 24 knots per hour for some time to
make up for the late exit
This area was home to the Karriyarra
aborigines for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. Their name for the harbour was Marapikurrinya,
meaning hand pointing straight. The first European to see the deep natural port
was a Dutch captain in 1628, whose ship ran aground on the sandbar by the
entrance. Peter Hedland’s ship also hit a sandbar in 1863 when he was looking
for a harbour. The river entrance on the American west coast near Astoria,
Oregon, also has a sandbar and difficult river currents, where the Columbia
River empties into the Pacific Ocean.
Port Hedland sits on an island joined to
the mainland by an eight km causeway. The region surrounding Port Hedland and
inland for hundreds of kilometers is known as the Pilbara. The region had vast deposits of iron ore
which were first noted by Australian explorers in the mid 19th century, but not
commercially mined until the 1960s. Inland from Port Hedland are deposits of
high grade iron ore that can supply 25% of the world for at least the next 50
years; plus quantities of lower grade ore can be mined when the high grade iron
ore is exhausted. The open pit mines
operate using driverless ore trucks to take the ore to the railcars. The
railcars form long driverless trains requiring four engines to haul them to
Port Hedley where the ore is loaded into ocean freighters to go to Asia. When the port opened in 1966, 29,500 ton
capacity ships could be loaded in a day.
Now, the huge ships can be loaded at a rate of 40,000 tons per hour. Water
is sprayed on the ore as it is dropped into the cargo holds, to reduce the red
ore dust which used to cover everything in the town. Port Hedland is the
largest iron ore loading port in the world. The ocean was shallow in the area
so a channel needed to be dredged through the former Mangrove swamp to allow
the huge freighters access to the deep harbour to get the loads out to the
ocean. There is a large sand bar of
dredged material that keeps growing. It is a difficult harbour to enter due to
the seven meter tides and the strong and tricky river currents at the entrance.
Looking out from Deck 12, you can see the port operation. We saw two ships depart the port accompanied
by two or three tugboats nudging them into the middle of the channel. Within the port facilities, there were
massive piles of white salt and piles of iron ore. You can see truck trains of
iron ore. These are truck tractors that are
hauling three or four trailers behind them. Looking
out to the many wharfs you could see which ships were ready to leave as they
were sitting low in the water loaded with iron ore. Other ships were waiting to be loaded. Other
resources shipped include manganese, discovered in the 1930s, and salt, which
is reclaimed from the sea, in ponds where the sun evaporates the sea water and
levels pure salt. Salt is used by industries to make many chemicals. There also
are traces of gold separated from the water that can accumulate and be worthwhile
to salvage at the bottom of the salt ponds. Today reached a high of +34 C with a breeze to
assist the evaporation in the low lying tidal flats. In spring (October and
November) temperature can reach into the 40s C.
Asbestos used to be mined in the area, but
is no longer. When the dangers of the
mineral were discovered many of the workers and families living nearby died
from their exposure to asbestos and Australians refer to its toxicity as their
Chernobyl.
The loaded ore carriers have a clearance in
the channel of as little as 25 cm and must exit at high tide. The Radiance of the Seas clearance is about
eight meters.
We stopped at the Information Center for a
map and to update the tabloid using the Wi-Fi; then explored the historic west
end of Port Hedland finding the Dalgety House Museum. The museum is housed in
the old Dalgety Company building where the business distributed food and
supplies to the pastoral lands inland. We learned about the local history of
Camel racing as well as horse racing and Gymkhanas. There was information about the Karriyarra
people and their culture, the arrival of Europeans, the mining, disastrous cyclones
and the disappearance of the Adelaide Steamship Company ship SS Koombana
carrying 83 passengers and 74 crew bound for Broome, in March 1912 in a cyclone.
It was a blow to the coastal communities since there were local officials on
board the ship. It had operated along the coast bringing supplies and a means
of travel and even had the luxury of refrigeration.
Port Hedland is located in the most cyclone
prone coast in Australia. Port Hedland’s
worst cyclone was in 1937. It damaged
the railway, built in 1911, that brought fresh water to the port and other
means of getting fresh water were needed. The average rainfall is 303 mm
compared to Perth’s rainfall of 773 mm.
After learning some of Port Hedland’s
history we continued our walk and stopped in to the pub in The Esplanade Hotel
where Larry ordered a Rogers beer brewed at Little Creatures Brewery in
Fremantle and Gulong. The temperature
had climbed to 32 C and the humidity seemed high.
The shuttle stop was at the Visitor
Center. During the morning some
passengers were able to hold baby kangaroos, Joeys, that were five months old
and 500 cm long wrapped in blankets.
They had been bottle fed before being allowed to be held by people for
photos. The shuttle route went about two
km to the shopping center for people to shop before returning to the ship. There was a line of people waiting for the shuttles
that at noon were running about every five minutes with full loads.
We arrived back at the ship and the clouds
had diminished and the sun was beating down at a temperature of 34 C and it
felt humid at 69%. There was a presentation by one of the Port Hedland marine pilots,
Mark Ayre, about the port. The port is
quite busy with most of the ships going to China, Japan, Korea and the Middle
East. The pilot spoke about ship’s
clearance to negotiate the channel and the unpredictable currents that
necessitate the use of up to four tugs to guide the ship through the 24 km long
184 meter wide channel out to the Indian Ocean. The channel is dredged annually.
One cargo that is shipped to the Middle
East is camels. Fog can move in quickly,
sometimes at 20 knots per hour (over 30 km per hour). The accuracy of the GPS on the tugs is within
30 cm, much better than on most vehicles.
The largest ship using the Port Hedland harbour is the WozMaz which is
345 meters long and 60 meters wide and can carry a load of 260,000 tons.
After the presentation we had coffee with
Bob and Maureen then read until it was time for dinner. We noticed that a water feature in the
Centrum (main lobby) had started to work, giving the gentle sounds of water as
it trickled from Deck 5 down to Deck 5. Dinner
dress was Australian casual which was not much different than most casual dress
evenings. The starters chosen were mixed
green salad, antipasti and Minestrone soup.
The main course was Tiger prawns (shrimp) or chicken marsala with mashed
potatoes and steamed asparagus and carrots.
We both chose Tiramisu for dessert. We danced in the Colony Club to the
ship’s orchestra which played a variety of dance music including our request
for a Samba.
The entertainer this evening was Phil Cass,
a comic magician. The show was not your average magic show and very
entertaining.
Steps 13,383
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