By Roy Weavers from information provided by Gazza Tolley

When Cunard's newest cruise liner, the Queen Elizabeth, arrives in Port Douglas today there'll be one man with strong ties to Port Douglas who will be more interested than most to catch a glimpse.

Jason Tolley, the assistant manager of 2Fish restaurant in Port Douglas, has a younger brother Ryan who has something of a history with the Queen Elizabeth.

Ryan works as a theatre/sound technician for the Cunard Line and began his career at the shipyard in Italy where the Queen Elizabeth was built.  He remained with the Queen Elizabeth during her proving trials throughout September and then on her maiden voyage from Southampton to the Mediterranean and The Canary Islands during October and November 2010 and then on to the Caribbean for Christmas 2010. 

During this voyage, Ryan was the youngest person of the ships company and so as is the tradition of cruise-liners, the oldest and youngest members of the ships company were awarded the honour of ringing out the old year (2010) and ringing in the New Year ( 2011) on the ships bell.  And it's no ordinary bell, it is actually the bell from the famous 1960s Cunard QE2 which visited Australia many times through her 35 years of service. 

Ryan rang-in 2011 mid-way across the Atlantic Ocean and became therefore the first person ever to do so aboard the new Queen Elizabeth.

Unfortunately for Jason, Ryan won't be on board today because he was transferred just before he found out the cruise liner was coming up to Port Douglas.  'That's called Murphy's Law' said Jason. 

Ryan is currently serving aboard Cunard's Queen Victoria and currently returning to Los Angeles from a voyage to Hawaii that is only due to end at the end of March.

Nevertheless Jason has never seen the Queen Elizabeth close up and told us that he would be fascinated to see where his 'little' brother had served. "Ryan has always raved about how wonderful the liner is.  It would be great to get a chance to have a grand tour while she was in Port".

In May 2012, Ryan is joining the Queen Mary, the flag-ship of the Cunard fleet as a full time sound technician, the very job he first saw advertised, when sitting in 2-Fish Restaurant in Wharf Street, and surfing the net for jobs in Australia just after Christmas in 2009. 

Quite an amazing turn of events for Ryan that all began in Port Douglas.

The Queen Elizabeth will be mooring off the coast of Port Douglas today from about 8am. If you get any photographs of this man-made 'Wonder of the World', then please send them in to The Newsport and we'll publish them within our 'Best Photo' competition.  Send images to editor@thenewsport.com.au  



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