Archives for posts with tag: San Francisco

Cork Harbour – the Second Largest in the World?

December 15, 2014 //

Cork Harbour is often described locally as “the second largest harbour in the world”. For a long time, I’ve been somewhat sceptical of this claim, so I decided to compare its size to other harbours using the MAPfrappe website. With this website, you can quickly compare locations with other sites around the world. I used it a while ago to compare well known islands to Ireland.

First of all, here is Cork Harbour. It’s a natural harbour, dominating a region of 22 km x 16 km east of Cork City. A very rough estimate of its water-surface area is about 70 sq km, although I am open to correction on this. The land area in the centre is Great island, home to the town of Cobh and connected to the mainland by two bridges, one road, one rail. Less than two kilometres separate the headlands as it meets the sea, making it by any reckoning, a fine, strategically important natural harbour. Its considerable depth in many places allows large ocean going vessels – tankers, container ships and liners – to enter and depart with ease.

It’s a beautiful, impressive and fascinating area, full of history and natural beauty. But is it one of the biggest in the world?

According to Wikipedia, its rivals are Sydney Harbour, Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia and Poole Harbour in Dorset. Let’s see how they compare.

Poole Harbour, Dorset UK

Aw look. How cute. Cork Harbour (silhouetted like a horned monster petitioning mariners just outside) wins this one. Poole, incidentally, also thinks of itself as one of the largest natural harbours in the world. I hate to break it to you, guys.

Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia

Cork harbour wins this one too, even if you were to be generous and start at McNabs island.

Port Jackson / Sydney Harbour, Australia.

Y’know, I was surprised at this one, because most Corkonians will gladly concede that Port Jackson is larger. It doesn’t look like it here. The main open water areas are at least comparable.

After, these three, the assessment is.. maybe. But then, are there not other spaces that could rival Cork in size? New York, San Francisco or Rio perhaps?

New York City

It’s close. Very close. I’d nearly give New York Harbour the edge. Interestingly, the mouth – Verrazano Narrows – is so similar in size to Roches Point / Crosshaven we should really have our own suspension bridge, just for the crack.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rio’s Guanabara Bay looks to me like a proper harbour and it’s clearly bigger than our own – in fact you could possibly fit the whole of Cork Harbour into it.

It gets worse.

San Francisco

Oh this is not good. Cork Harbour looks tiny. And they have a suspension bridge at the mouth of their harbour too.

Oh, and we forgot:

Tokyo

or:

Auckland Manukau, NZ

or, staying in New Zealand:

Kaipara Harbour, NZ

Whoa. Still though, we’re big for Europe, right? Right?

I give you:

Lisbon.

and:

Brest

and finally,

Oslo

Folks, we need to take a long, good look at ourselves. Even if we are only the second largest harbour “by navigable area” (a claim I suspect given the sizes of Rio, San Fran and Tokyo, or we want to be pernickety about what harbour really means, we have to content ourselves that the claim “2nd Largest Harbour in the World” is dodgy. Seriously dodgy.

Still beats Dublin, though.

Tags Cork, Cork Harbour, Halifax, harbours, Harbours of the world, Ireland, Lisbon, MAPfrappe, New York City, New Zealand, NYC, Oslo, Poole, Port Jackson, Rio, San Francisco, Sydney Harbour, Tokyo

Categories interests

Photojournal: Flight to San Francisco

May 20, 2013 //

I took a flight to San Francisco yesterday, and I had the good fortune to be beside a window during the flight. The views outside were wonderful.

Flying over Scotland, I chanced on a jet flying close to us.

Scottish Hebrides. The last land visible before heading out over the Atlantic.

The most important city in Ireland. Clearly.

Arctic wastes over northern Canada. We flew straight over Iceland, but unfortunately it was covered in cloud, so I saw nothing. A pity, as it flew over Katla and Reykjavik.

This was taken over the Columbia River in Washington. I love watching the vast circular fields. From this distance, they look like small wafers of silicon.

This is Mount Shasta, a 3,000 metre high volcano dominating the landscape in Northern California. It last erupted in 1786, so it’s still active.

This is Clear Lake, in the hills close to the Californian coast. I thought it was Tahoe!

I took a sneak peek of the San Mateo Bridge when we were landing. It’s 11 km long, connecting one side of the bay to the other.

Final arrival in San Francisco Airport. As expected, immigration was a pain. It took an hour to get through customs, and then I realised I had left my coat on the plane, which resulted in further delays.

Tags air travel, America, California, Canada, Columbia River, Mount Shasta, Northern California, photos, San Francisco, san francisco airport, san mateo bridge, Scotland, scottish hebrides, SFO, Washington

Categories photographs

San Francisco in a day

November 8, 2008 //

I spent yesterday out of the office, exploring one of the most beautiful and delightful cities on the planet. San Francisco is twinned with Cork, and there are some similarities: the proximity to the ocean, the steep hills, the relaxed lifestyle and ambience. Both are cities for living in as opposed to just working in. Of course, San Francisco is so much more: the weather is superb, the complexity, size and diversity of the place is orders of magnitude greater and then in the distance is this enormous feat of engineering- the Golden Gate Bridge. (Actually there are other suspension bridges linking San Fran to the other side of the Bay, but they don’t get a look in).

Just click on any of these photos for a bigger picture.

First on our itinerary was Chinatown. As you walk down through this sizeable district, you quickly begin to forget that you are in the same country as strip malls and banal chain restaurants. It’s a whole world in miniature.

Then on to Broadway, the Italian district and in the distance the Transamerica Pyramid. We visited a museum of the Beatnik culture, where I picked up “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac.

From here we headed up past the twists of Lambert St and looked out east over the city. The Coit tower is one of San Fran’s famous landmarks.

Then on down to Fisherman’s Wharf to look at the Golden Gate for the first time. There’s Alcatraz in the distance.

After a nice relaxing meal we visited Pier 39 to do some sea lion watching and to make a visit to Rodney Lough’s photo gallery. After seeing some of the photos I am seriously considering hanging up my camera in shame. This guy is good.

Then out bicycle trip to the Golden Gate. Cripes. Where do you begin? So many photo opportunities, so little time! If you ever get a chance to visit San Fran, take a bike ride to the Bridge. You won’t regret it and it’s really good value for money.