The USS George Washington aircraft carrier - Brisbane

[Dennis]

Hello,

The USS George Washington, one of the US Navy’s Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, arrived in the Port of Brisbane on 29th July and will depart this weekend. Apparently the carrier is 1,092 ft (333 m) long, 257 ft (78 m) wide and 244 feet (74 m) high and can accommodate approximately 80 aircraft.

I managed to traverse the deeply rutted terrain at Luggage Point on the north shores of the Brisbane River mouth to grab a few shots.

The wide shot was taken at 32mm fl (Canon 24-105) with the more detailed crops taken with either the 400mm F5.6 with Canon EF II x1.4 or the 300mm F4L.

I noticed that the images were much less affected when photographing across the Brisbane River when compared to driving to the South side and looking from the Port of Brisbane Observation café, where the IQ was affected by thermals from all the concrete buildings, car parks, etc.

Cheers

Dennis

[RickS]

Nice shots, Dennis! A bit of a departure from your excellent macro images :)

[RobF]

Thanks for sharing Dennis. Haven't had a chance to get down there. Did you have many other sight-seers to contend with at Luggage pt side?

[Dennis]

Thanks Rick & Rob – although the carrier is huge, when viewed from across the river mouth at Luggage Point it looks not quite as impressive as I had imagined, mainly due to the surrounding dockside infrastructure. Close up would be awesome! Also, berthed adjacent the vessel was one of those huge maritime car transporters which provided a bit of size competition for the USS George Washington.

@Rob – when I arrived at around 7:30am there were 7 or 8 4WDs stopped just past where the gravel road ends; the owners were looking at the deeply rutted tracks and didn’t fancy their chances of getting through so most of them walked the 500 to 700m to the “beach” opposite the carrier, near the concrete walls of the sewerage farm.

I am quite familiar with the terrain (bird photography) and so managed to navigate through in our more diminutive Impreza, despite it being more of a “toy” compared to the big boys. Only a few were game enough to follow me but pulled up short when the grasses got too long, whereas I managed to crawl right to the end confident in my knowledge of the area.

I left probably around 9:30am and as I was driving along the entrance road past the sewerage farm (what a pong!) a convoy of 4WDs were approaching. I suspect that this weekend will see the area crawling with onlookers. However, due to the rugged terrain, I don’t think that many will make the full drive to the “beach” near the concrete wall of the sewerage farm so I think this may keep the numbers down if they have to walk in?

Walking in is mostly firm, although I wouldn’t do it in town or dress shoes as there may be a few slightly muddy spots – certainly not wellington terrain though!

Early morning doesn’t give the best views as you are looking into the rising Sun. I suspect that late afternoon would provide some very nice sunlight on the carrier?

If you are going to take a tripod and plant it on the beach, take 3 pads to prevent the tripod from sinking in too much.

Cheers

Dennis

[RobF]

Thanks Dennis. Probably can't get down there, but familiar with the challenges. Heck, there's as much detail in your briefing as one of those Tak sharp planetary renditions! :thumbsup: :D
I'm sure someone here will appreciate though - weekend crowds get very tough down there for sure.

[StephenM]

Great photos Dennis, and thanks for posting and reminding those of us in Brisbane that she was here!

I managed to get down to Luggage Point after picking up the kids from school on Friday afternoon - it was nice calm conditions and the late afternoon sun was indeed providing some nice light on the carrier. It's an impressive sight isn't it!

Here are a couple of my images. More on Flickr if you're interested.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Dennis]

Nice work Stephen, the lighting looks awesome!:thumbsup:

Was it busy down there?

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman]

Very cool!

[leon]

Nice stuff, something different.

Leon