The Happier the Hotelier, The Happier the Guest
The photo “Surfing in Scheveningen” gets a lot of views on Flickr. Therefor I’ve used it as my new banner.
It was not easy to take the photo as the wind tried to pull the camera from my hands and was blowing so hard it was almost impossible to take a steady shot. Therefor I’ve had to crank up the iso value a lot to be able to have a decent short shutter time to compensate for my moving camera.
Touring in Belgium and visiting the cities of Mons (Bergen) and Namur (Namen) we made a small detour to visit the Strépy-Thieu Boat Lift.
In 2002 the boat lift of Strépy-Thieu was completed, almost 20 years after its construction started. Together with a deviation in the Central Canal it replaces 4 historical boat lifts. The Central Canal connects the Meuse and Scheldt rivers. Two rivers important for water transportation in Belgium. Until a boat lift in China ( 3 gorges dam lift) will be completed, the Strépy-Thieu Boat Lift is the largest boat lift of the World. On the photo both caissons are hanging in the air just under the building and in connection with the upper branch of the canal.
The caissons have useful dimensions of 112 m by 12 m and a water depth of between 3.35 and 4.15 m. Each caisson is supported by 112 suspension cables (for counterbalance) and 32 control cables (for lifting/lowering), each of 85 mm diameter. The mass of the counterbalance was calculated to keep the tension in each of the control cables below 100 kN at all times. The suspension cables pass over idler pulleys with a diameter of 4.8 m. Four electric motors power eight winches per caisson via speed-reduction gearboxes and the 73.15-metre lift is completed in seven minutes. The structure is massively reinforced to provide rigidity against torsional forces during operation and has a mass of approximately 200,000 tonnes. The vertically moving watertight gates are designed to withstand a 5 km/h impact from a 2000 tonne vessel.
Source: Wikipedia.
Unfortunately we had no time to visit the 4 old boat lifts that are on the Unesco World Heritage list. Neither could we visit the Ronquières inclined plane which is in the vicinity.
Do I Like Dolphin?
No, I don’t like dolphin
I’m going Backward and forward through thousands of photo’s I have made in the past and am still making. As a retiree I have much more time for this hobby than before and I discover little gems each day.
These two were made during a stroll in December 2007 along the northern beach of Terschelling. It was after a hefty storm and still windy. That all was probably too much for this baby dolphin that had landed on the beach. Seagulls had feasted already on its dead body and the dog asked himself apparently: “Do I Like Dolphin?” and concluded: “No, I don’t like dolphin”
As an amateur photographer I’m proud I’ve licensed via Picfair – my first ever – this very photo of the Royal Danish Playhouse, one of the stages of the Royal Danish Theater. According to the Royal Danish Theater’s website this Playhous was inaugurated in 2008 and designed by Danish Architects Lundgaard & Tranberg, who won the 2008 RIBA (Royal Insitute of British Architects) award for this building.
Just an idea to post more frequent here on the blog is trying to post more of my photo’s more or less simultaneously as I post them to Picfair.
This Eon Power station is gas turbine powered and is located near the The Hague city center and actually around the corner where I live.