Three years ago, Three New Passenger Transfer Vessels Arrived

It is now three years since the cruise ship passenger transfer vessels arrived on 27 July 2019. The three large vessels were delivered at Cascade Pier on a barge from Australia. The three vessels were named by the school students with Norfolk Island names, Nuffka (Kingfisher), Hihi (periwinkle) and Wana (sea urchin). It is interesting that many locals spell Wana as Wunna.

Now the passenger transfer vessels seem obsolete with no cruise ships visiting Norfolk Island. The future of the cruise ships industry and journeys to Norfolk Island is still unknown, there are suggestions for later in the year, but I don’t know if that is confirmed yet. I remember reading when the passenger boats arrived that the vessels could also be used as an around the island tours, maybe this could be a use for the vessels.

During the first year on Norfolk Island, the passenger vessels were used three times to transfer passengers from cruise ships to the shore on the Norfolk Island stopover on their Pacific cruises and adventures. The following year in March 2020 the Covid Pandemic started and the Norfolk Island borders closed and there were no more Cruise ships since that time.

• The first cruise ship passengers to use the tenders was on 20 October 2019, the P&O Pacific Explore cruise ship, disembarked at Cascade Pier. The P&O Pacific Explore can carry up to 2000 passengers.

• The second cruise ship to use the three passenger vessels was the Seabourn Encore, which arrived on 9^th January 2020. This was the first cruise ship for 2020, and the ship anchored at Cascade Bay with fine and overcasts weather conditions. I read that the Seabourn Encore has the capacity to travel with 600 guests.

• The third cruise ship was the M/S Maasdam on the 23 January 2020. The ship anchored at Kingston and the 626 passengers including a few of the crew came ashore at the Kingston Pier onboard the new passenger tender vessels. From my records, this was the last cruise ship to successfully disembark at Norfolk Island.

• The smaller cruise ship Caledonian Sky visited on 14 February 2020. I was off island at the beginning of February, so did not get any photographs of the cruise ship. This ship carries about 114 passengers, and about 100 passengers disembarked on zodiacs and did not use the services of the new passenger transfer tenders. This was the last cruise ship to visit Norfolk Island, a month before the corona-virus border closures.

• 15 March 2020 Tropical Cyclone Gretel.

• 16 March 2020 Norfolk Island Borders Closed Covid-19 Pandemic.

Since these vessels arrived on Norfolk Island three years ago, the passenger transfer vessels have been parked in the Cascade Pier car-park area by the old whaling boiler. These are massively oversized boats, the vessels are larger than the size of two buses joined together. It is surprising that the roadways were not taken into consideration when these passenger vessels were designed. There were plans to organise storage facilities for them elsewhere on the island, but the roadways are narrow and would need to be widened. In 2019, there were community concerns that this could damage historic roadways and could cause damage to the environment as trees which would have to be cut down and removed. Norfolk Island has small country roads, and the infrastructure planning challenges has meant that the Norfolk Island Regional Council has stored the vessels at Cascade Pier parking area.

During the past couple of years, the boats have been given runs in the bay, making sure the motors are kept in running order, I often thought this would be an opportunity for locals have a trip out along the coastal area, giving the crew a chance to practice safety systems at the same time letting locals experiencing what it is like to travel in the boats.

The cruise ships may return to Norfolk Island later in 2022 or next year in 2023, but in the meantime, there are still tourist arriving on our remote Pacific Island as they still continue to fly on the commercial flights. I am sure they are all enjoying exploring Norfolk Island and enjoy the many layers of history and beauty.

Here are a few photos I have taken of the passenger transfer vessels in 2019

Betty Matthews
July 2022