02 May 2008, Vancouver.

After sailing north from Victoria during the night, we arrived at 06.15 under the Lions Gate bridge which connects Vancouver with Vancouver north. Behind it is Vancouver harbor, which official name is Burrard Inlet. The Lions Gate Bridge derives its name from a double mountain top in Vancouver North. Some say that it resembles two watching lions, guarding the entrance to Vancouver. For me they look more like a pronounced part of the female anatomy.

However you look at it, sailing into Vancouver harbor is always nice. This morning was no exception. The sun was coloring the skies bright red and there sea was as smooth as a mirror. By 0645 we were off the dock and I took over from the pilot and swung the ship around to dock starboard side alongside, on the West side of Canada Place. Normally ships dock here with their noses into the city but that means that the guests have to walk further to get into the centre of the terminal. Thus there was the request from shore operations to park the ship the other way around, to improve the flow of traffic.

Vancouver will be our home port for the summer season and after two 7 day cruises, we will call at Vancouver every other Friday. Being a home port means that it is the port were we load supplies and provisions, bunker fuel oil and offload recyclables. The latter becomes more and more important as the company has adopted an aggressive policy of increasing the amount of recycled waste by 15% this year. I am all for it, as a thrifty Dutchman it goes against the grain anyway to throw anything away and secondly the money that we save, apart from the environmental gain, goes into the crew welfare fund on board. So all the more reason to separate, contain and sort out everything that in the past would have been shoved off to a landfill.

As we are a Friday ship, we were the only cruise ship in port during this call and later in the season we will be joined by one more ship, the Celebrity Infinity. On Saturdays and Sundays there are normally four of five cruise ships in port and that makes things a little bit more hectic, especially during arrival and departure. Being a Friday ship has another advantage, namely that all the shops are open, which is great for the crew, and that it is a normal working day. That means that repairmen and suppliers are all available and servicing the ship, while on a Saturday and Sunday, they do not always show up. Especially on a sunny day, if there is the choice is to go to the beach with the children or to tinker on a ship with a piece of malfunctioning equipment.

In a change over port I am always intensely interested in the timely arrival of the guests. That is the case in Tampa but even more in Vancouver. Although we sail on a regular schedule to Alaska, there is an issue that can gravely affect the whole operation and that is the tide at Seymour Narrows. This is a narrow passage about 100 miles North of Vancouver, where Vancouver Island almost touches the mainland. As a result the water is squeezed through a relatively small opening and thus a strong current is present. Depending on the monthly cycle of the tide the currents can go up to 16 knots during a spring tide. Needless to say, that we do not go through the Narrows when such a tide is running. It is either slack tide, when the current is zero and goes from Ebb to Flood or the other way around, or there is a window when the current is not yet too strong. However the slack tide time changes each day and that can play havoc with the schedule. If the tide is too early in relation to our departure time, then we have to go slow until the next tide, and after the passage go flat out to try and make up the lost time.

That brings then for me the question, if guests are late, do I wait, or do I go and have them fly up to the next port. If I sail late, I might endanger a timely arrival in the next port and thus inconvenience 1200 guests because I waited for a few.

This time everybody was on board, we pulled out just before 5 pm. and went pedal to the metal for making the Seymour Narrows tide window by 11 pm. That means that after the Narrows, I should have some time in hand for a timely arrival in Juneau, the day after tomorrow. How much I will only know by tomorrow 6 am., when we are out of the first part of the inside passage and out of the current that will have been most of the time against us.