Stephen M.'s photos

The 'EGS Ventus' arriving into Sunderland at sunset. Built in 1977, the ship was upgraded to its current layout in 2008 and now functions as a multi-purpose survey vessel.

The 'Aeolus' passing Sunderland on the way to the Port of Newcastle. A fairly unique vessel, it is used to install wind turbines, with the ship being able to raise itself out of the water by lowering the four 'legs' to the seafloor. This provides a much more stable platform for construction than dealing with swell and tides.

Best attempt at capturing the stunning Aurora visible over much of Europe in mid October 2024.

Night time view of Cholmley House, a banqueting house dating back to 1632.

Looking west across Saltwick Bay towards Whitby.

After having seen the THV Patricia passing distantly off Sunderland in the last year, it was good to get a better view of the ship off Whitby. In this case, it was restoring a buoy to mark the entrance to Whitby harbour.

Distant view of a pod of Common Dolphins moving past Roker Pier.

The 'UKD Resolution' surveying the riverbed of the river Wear following extensive dredging works in the days prior.

Two crew on the vessel 'Auk' working on the 'Potato Garth' aid to navigation (AtoN).

A squall line forming an impressive shelf cloud as it is about the move over Sunderland. As expected, it brought very intense but short lived rain and gusty winds. PIP #1: The rain radar screenshot shows the precipitation band stretching across northern England.

The offshore supply and research vessel 'Deep Helder' returning to Sunderland after carrying out work on one of the offshore windfarms.

Early morning surveying of the dredging work carried out in the last week in the Port of Sunderland by the small survey vessel 'UKD resolution'.

Arriving just a day after the sister ship Fast Herman, the Fast Jef is the third of four ships of Fast Lines to visit Sunderland. Thankfully, there was no drama with manoeuvring into Hudson Dock this time around!

The small cargo ship Fast Herman arriving into Sunderland from Bremerhaven. So far so normal! The Fast Herman made the usual turn past the Wave Basin to line up for passing through the sea lock into the Hudson Basin. Unfortunately it seems that the captain had not lined up the ship correctly for passing through the lock and there was a loud grinding noise as the ship scraped along the side of the wall. There are no good viewing angles onto the area where the incident occurred but I suspect the only damage will have been some scratches on the ship and the Captain's pride. PIP#1 shows the ship shortly after scraping the wall.

An Airbus A-319 waiting for departure clearance at Dubrovnik Airport. The plane was in service with the airline from 1999 to 2023 and has now reached the end of its service life. PIP #1: Moving to the runway. PIP #2: Lined up for take-off.

End of the line! This impressive landscape occurred in December 2015 during a very high flood of the River Tyne. As a side effect, a popular hiking trail was destroyed and has remained unreplaced since then. Unfortunately there were no signs warning of this at the start of the trail, making for an unfortunately abbreviated walk along the very scenic Tyne valley.

On the rails near the village of Ledenitzen.