After an hour forward, as we are back in Spain, the ship arrived in the morning at Huelva. Although we really did not arrive there as the town is about 10 miles from the port. The port is a natural river which is still in the same place as a long time ago, as a narrow strip of land, which separates it from the sea, is heavily sealed in by rocks and now forms a sort of natural breakwater which stretches for miles upriver. That meant when the ship entered the river, which looks quite wide on the surface but is quite shallow under the surface, we only saw sand, sand and more sand. The port is quite busy as it serves the industrial hinterland and thus the docks stretch all the way along the river further inland. What I call the river, is a merger of the river Odiel and the river Tinto which together supply sufficient water to create a large estuary with sufficient depth in the fairway for larger ships.
The Radar/Chart gives the best idea how peculiar this port is located behind a bank and sandbar.
Huelva (pronounced as gHwelav) is located just east of the border with Portugal, same as La Coruna in the North. Therefore it has always been a mystery to me why Portugal has to be on a different time zone than Spain. But they are, hence the hour forward last night.
It is still a long way to go upriver to the town itself but luckily the port laid on a good shuttle service.
Due to its natural river estuary this has been a port for a very, very long time. The romans have been milling around here for a long time and before that the Phoenicians. But the town came only to prominence in the 19th. Century when the mining started and still continues to this day. As a result Huelva is mainly an industrial town but it has some interesting old stuff as well, including “The English quarter” called the Queen Victoria district, where there is a section of houses that could have looked good in any English Garden City. Then there is the connection with Columbus who came here to get political support to start his project of finding a new way to India. (He never got there but instead discovered America).
The Cruise Terminal. The crew is busy hooking in the ships long gangway which is normally stored on the Forward Deck.
So for the whole day to day we docked in the middle of the desert where we could smell some burning wood fires which made it slowly into the ship A.C. system and for a while I thought we were all back out there with the boy scouts. Our guests were shuttled to and from the town but a large number went on excursions to more interesting areas away from the industrial part.
Huelva is not a really logical port to go to. Mainly because of the distance from the port to the city. Although there were the Shuttle Buses but still it was 10 miles or 30 minutes just to get somewhere. So we do we go to places like this? First of all there are forever more and more cruise ships coming and they cannot all go to the same ports; secondly and that is a Holland America reason, our guests keep coming back to us time and time again and they want to see new things. So the fact that a city or place of interest is not directly on the door step is something that is part of the equation. For a quick “walk-in-to-the city” the guests have to wait until tomorrow when we are in Gibraltar. In principle you can walk the whole territory if you do not mind climbing the rock but to get to town is only a short walk. Most of the crew are looking forward to this as there is a large supermarket nearby so they can just run ashore during their break and also do not have to spend money on taxi’s to go somewhere.
The crew has another highlight today or better said this evening: A Crew Party. About every two months, we throw a party for the whole crew. Lots of food (all Indonesians are looking forward to eating steak) and then a disco. We normally hold those parties in the Oasis which is the open area above Club HAL, the children’s’ area. We currently have only a few children on board who will be in bed by the time the party starts. There are no guest cabins nearby so the crew can make as much noise as they want. My whole group of Trainee’s will be on the first row no doubt, and I have given them a late start tomorrow as this cruise is more or less their final hurrah before the real & serious life of a deck officer begins.
Tonight at 9 pm. we will swing the ship around on the river and sail back to open sea again. Then it is only a short hop to Gibraltar. Basically we just have to pass by Cadiz and then line up to pass through the Pillars of Hercules, turn to the north keeping the Rock to the East and dock around 10 am.
Weather for tomorrow: same as today. Partly Cloudy 26oC / 78oF and no rain in sight, which is a bit disappointing for us, as you expect better when visiting Great Britain.
Leave a Reply