Welder

I hit the docks rather late, as it was getting dark, and drove across to the north side and into the Alexandra basin. A few yards from where I parked, a welder was working on the grabber of a large mobile crane. I recognised this as the one that had once startled me a couple of years ago. I had fiddling with my camera on the quay, gazing down into a bulk cargo vessel, then had stepped back maybe ten yards or so when I heard a huge clang as that steel mouth landed almost exactly where I'd been standing. The crane operator probably would have seen me, but who knows? A hard hat wouldn't have helped. Ever since, I've been careful to wear my hi-vis vest and keep doing a 360 degree scan, both around and above me, as in a video war game. The docks can be deceptive, vast areas where nothing seems to be happening, till a huge crane comes down or a container-loading vehicle zooms round a corner like a ravenous T-Rex. One of the reasons I love the place.