When Gef Met Isle of Man Harbours

Since 2014, a movement has grown on Facebook, celebrating the island’s sea going community and this week, we went to meet the person behind it.

Speaking to Gef under the condition of anonymity, we met at a top secret spot, Spill the Beans, Market Hill, Douglas.

‘It started as a way of getting nostalgic, as there is a lack of it on the internet’, he said.

He added: ‘The harbour is a working community. It’s not just the Steam Packet, there’s fishermen, there’s people with yachts, there’s people picking up people from boats, and just people with an interest in the harbour like myself.

‘With the internet and the technology out there, I just thought it’s a great way to capture pictures, videos and footage of crews, fishermen and people around there and it means that everyone can see it for themselves at home.’

This, he explained, has included relatives taking laptops into old people’s homes to show them some of the characters of years gone by.

In essence, this allows Isle of Man Harbours to act not only as a way of people keeping up with the goings on around the island’s ports, but also as an archive.

Even during the pandemic, Isle of Man Harbours was there promoting and celebrating the work of the Steam Packet and the crews who ensured we still had food in our shops and medicines in our hospital.

He said: ‘Particularly when they were getting the finger pointed at them for supposedly spreading the virus in the community, I defended them because they had a difficult task. Somebody had to bring the boat in and they put themselves at risk working against the unknown at the early days of the pandemic.’

As well as locals, Isle of Man Harbours is followed by people from round the world, offering a glimpse at life on our island and the community that exists around the harbours.

He said: ‘There’s no better way to advertise the island than the internet and we’ve got the fishing fleet, the yachts, the cruise liners, they’re all part of the community.

‘We share other sites too, businesses that are involved with the harbours, because they too are part of the community.’

While the focus is predominantly on Douglas, Isle of Man Harbour also keeps an eye on the goings on at the other harbours, whether it’s the Ramsey swing bridge and Mezeron or the fishing fleet of Peel.

Manxman

No discussion about the island’s harbour can be complete atm without discussing the Manxman and her arrival in Manx waters.

He said: ‘The following is colossal, I know a lot of crew that were on the boat too and it’s been very in the public eye and caught the public’s interest.

‘This July hasn’t been about Tynwald Day, it’s been about the Manxman and of course that has come 25 years since the Ben-my-Chree was delivered to our shores and I was there for that too, but this year, I put the Harbours Page live and we had people across the world, from New Zealand, America, all over, watching it.

‘We’ve had people asking when’s it coming, then when it’s going into service, they were interested in this new boat and now they’re interested in the island as a whole.

‘It is a bit mental, but people have got an interest, it’s a marvellous vessel and it’s money well spent.’

He added: ‘I created this in 2014, when I was at a bit of a low point, as I wanted something to do and I wanted to get all the pictures together in one hub. In the first week we got to 1,000 views and it grew and the rest is history.’

From that 1,000 views, Isle of Man Harbours has grown to colossal figures with 2.8million (yes MILLION) views for the four weeks of June.

Future

With the success of the page, it has led to the creation in recent weeks of a sister page – Isle of Man Harbours UK, which focuses on Liverpool and Heysham. Plus, there are plans to develop an Irish one.

As for the future, he said: ‘Some people ask when will you decide to move on from the harbours, but I don’t think I ever will to be quite honest. It’s in the blood, so to speak, it never used to be 30 odd years ago, but it is now.’