Friday, 9 August

“…so ferry…cross the Mersey…to this land, the place I love…” -Gerry and the Pacemakers, 1965

Liverpool. The Beatles.  The Mersey Sound.

Although neither Ellen nor I had been keen on going ashore yesterday, I really wanted to get downtown for at least an hour or so and catch of whiff of Liverpool’s famous musical past.

Hans and Ann had departed on the next leg of their journey right after breakfast, and Ellen and I took an Uber with Chris and Sebastian to The Beatles statue in Liverpool.  

If anyone is reading this and considering a cargo voyage that stops in Liverpool, be advised that getting out of -- and into -- the port is slightly more complex than Halifax was.  

We definitely needed a port security person to drive us to the gate (which did not cost $55, thank you Baltimore).  When he dropped us off, he said to make sure we remembered exactly which dock the Atlantic Sky was at, because the port was huge and not all the drivers knew all the ships by name.  Also -- this is important -- we discovered that there were several layers of security gates.  There was one beyond which the driver was not authorized to take us.  But we could not get a taxi or Uber there, either.  We had to walk about a quarter mile to another security gate from where we could get a ride downtown. 

And then it was about a 20-minute ride into Liverpool.  All in all, from the time we all met on the ship until we got to The Beatles statue, it took about 70 minutes. 

The Beatles statue is down on the waterfront by the Mersey Ferry terminal.  There’s a Fab Four café there, and of course a zillion tourists taking photos of themselves in front of the statue.

 Beatles Statue

What was actually a bit more interesting to me was a nearby statue of Captain Walker’s Old Boy Association.  If you’ve ever heard The Who’s rock opera, “Tommy,” you may recall the overture has the lines:

            Captain Walker didn’t come home

            His unborn child would never know him

            Believe him missing with a number of men

            Don’t expect to see him again

I thought there must be a connection. (Spoiler alert: I could not find a connection when we got back to Paris and I looked it up.  The Captain Walker of the statue was a famed British anti-submarine hunter during WWII who died of a cerebral thrombosis in 1944.) 

Anyway, given how much The Beatles had spawned, I was surprised to find only a statue and a café.  But there it was.  So after a brief look around, we headed up the hill to the downtown area.

My surprise was premature.  It turned out there’s an entire part of town – The Cavern Quarter – devoted to The Beatles and the various bands that made up the Mersey Sound.  If The Beatles sang it, you can bet there’s a café or something else by the same name somewhere in that neighborhood.  The only thing I didn’t see reference to was Blue Meanies.

So we wandered through that for a bit, then had some fish and chips, which I had never had before.  Quite honestly, I can’t say that I had been missing anything.  The fish was good enough, but it’s not a meal I would make a habit of.

At about 12:30 we called an Uber and headed back.  The Uber driver informed us that we had missed Liverpool’s most well-known dish: Scouse.  This is apparently some sort of stew with chopped or minced beef or lamb, and a bunch of root vegetables.  Maybe next time…

Anyway, we made it back to the ship at 13:30 pm, which was 30 minutes before liberty expired.

Ellen and me boarding after our Liverpool jaunt

(Photo by Sebastien)

We pulled away from the dock at about 17:00 pm, but based on what I saw coming in yesterday, I didn’t expect us to clear the channel and be underway until about 19:00 pm.  And that was pretty close to being spot on.  I took our position as we were leaving and canal and getting into the Mersey River channel, and it was 53-26-42 N, 3-1-3 W.

Departing Liverpool on the Mersey River

David, Ruth, Ann, Hans, and Wilke had departed at Liverpool.  And then we were five...

Roland, Chris, Ellen, me, Sebastien