Welcome visit of tall ships and cruise liners

WEDNESDAY, MAR. 21: It’s a tale of tall ships and cruise liners this week in Bermuda.

Hamilton welcomes its first cruise ship of 2012 today.

The Seven Seas Mariner is scheduled to arrive this morning at 6:50am from Port Everglades in Florida.

She’s only in town until this afternoon when she heads off across the Atlantic bound for Funchal in Madeira.

Tomorrow Dockyard hosts the Princess Cruise Lines ship, Marina.

The liner and her 1,000 passengers will be in Bermuda for more than a day before she also heads to Funchal at 4pm on Friday.

It is Marina’s only visit to Bermuda this year.

The island has welcomed three tall ships in the last week, as they sail back towards the Azores and Europe. Over the weekend the Eye of the Wind and the Regina Maris were docked off Penno’s Wharf in St George’s.

Both sailing training vessels are scheduled to leave this week.

While the Norwegian tall ship, Sørlandet, arrived in Hamilton on Sunday evening from the Bahamas.

The ship’s crew is made up of 40 students, 10 teachers and 10 permanent crewmembers.

The white ship is run by the Class Afloat sailing programme, which is based in Canada.

Sørlandet will leave us tomorrow bound for the Azores and then Malta.

Finally, the Bermuda Islander gets into Hamilton tomorrow morning, while the Oleander is on her Monday morning winter arrival slot for one more week until she returns to her Sunday evening summer schedule.