A luxury cruise ship stranded in Belfast for the past four months has finally set sail, but hours later is now anchored off the Co Down coast.
There was applause and cheers as around 125 passengers onboard the Villa Vie Odyssey waved goodbye to the city late on Monday night.
However, the ship is understood to have travelled only a few miles and is now close to Bangor with reports that it is to return to Belfast port later today.
The Belfast Harbour website states it will arrive back in the port at 1.30pm and is scheduled to leave Belfast again at 11pm.
The passengers had boarded the ship at around 8pm after the liner’s chief confirmed on Monday that they were ready for departure.
The luxury liner left the port at around 11.30pm, before it anchored in Belfast Lough overnight ahead of beginning its voyage later today.
One man, who carried a self-assembled model of the Titanic on board on Monday, said he enjoyed Belfast but was ready for the rest of the cruise.
Another woman from Georgia said she had always wanted to see the world, but thanked Belfast for hosting them, calling it “a wonderful place”.
The plan is for Villa Vie Residencies’ Odyssey to constantly sail around the world, with its inaugural cruise visiting all seven continents with stops in more than 425 ports in 147 countries.
It had been scheduled to leave the city on May 30, but has been docked due to a series of mechanical and technical issues.
Departure dates were revised several times due to issues with the rudders and gearbox.
Residents of the cruise ship have spent the last four months becoming familiar with the sights that the city and Northern Ireland has to offer.
One pair of would-be voyagers even became engaged while waiting for the cruise to begin.
Gian Perroni, from Vancouver in Canada, and Angie Harsanyi, from Colorado in the US, got to know each other as they walked to and back from the ship in the past few months.
After a proposal under a supermoon, they said they have found their soulmates.
On Sunday, cruise ship passengers took a party bike tour of Belfast to bid farewell to the city.
Around 50 of the passengers, who bought their cabins for high six figure sums, gathered first at City Hall before departing on a number of beer bikes for a tour of the centre of the city.
During the time the Villa Vie was stranded in Belfast, some residents returned to their other homes, some travelled, while a number remained in the north.
Andy Garrison (75), who said he will be on board for at least three and a half years, said he arrived in Belfast for what he thought was three days in August and ended up there for six weeks.
He said he wanted something to do so he ordered a model of the Titanic which he built over three or four days.
Asked if he was worried it could be seen as a bad omen, he said: “No, I’m not. As a matter of fact I’m going to put this on the wall of my room”.
He said the passengers had been “resilient” in waiting for the repairs to be completed and described them as a “really nice group”.
“I like Belfast a lot actually, I would stay here and enjoy myself except I’m leaving on a ship,” he said.
“I am so happy to be sailing away, I’m ready to go. We stop briefly in Brest, France, and then we go to Spain, we go to Portugal, and we head across the ocean to go to the Bahamas, where we stay for a while in the Bahamas.”
Cyndi Grzybowski (69) from Appling, Georgia, said she had always wanted to see the world and was excited for the voyage to begin.
“My better half passed away three years ago so this is giving me an opportunity to get off the farm, literally, and see the world, which is something that I have wanted to do,” she told reporters on Monday.
“My son has been so supportive of this because when this opportunity came up, I was really humming and hawing because I’ve been on the farm for 27 years, and he said, ‘Mom, the only thing I’ve heard you talk about is going to see the world’.
“We started out as strangers in Southampton and Belfast and now we truly are family. We had two amazing parties yesterday with the pedal bikes... and last night at Revolution de Cuba, we had a get-together with fantastic food.
“Thank you all so very much - truly, Belfast has been such a wonderful place. I have so enjoyed every minute here.”
