04 October 2007, Sydney.

Sydney turned out to be a great day, very little wind, so it was safe to dock and the sun shone all day. We were the only ship in port apart from a Canadian Frigate who called in un-expectantly. According to the pilot the ship had a rope in the propeller and needed divers to clear it.

This morning the deck dept. was involved with lifeboat drills. The Veendam crew exercises on a regular basis but not every port lends itself for lowering the boats into the water and to sail around. Today with very little wind it was an ideal opportunity. At the same time there was a little current running so the boat commanders had to take that into consideration when coming back to the falls. (Falls are the wires that lower and hoist the boats) During training the emphasis is firstly on getting away from the ship safely as that is needed in an emergency. However as we like to take the boats with us from port to port it is also important that they know how to return to the ship and park the boat correctly under the falls, so the boat can be retrieved again.

A little bit of excitement developed towards the end of the afternoon. Around 4 pm. I was called with the message that one of our tour busses had broken down, completely broken down, somewhere far away in the interior while on the full day tour. The tour operator was already thinking in contingency plans of keeping the guests, all 45 of them, overnight in Sydney and then to bus them the next day to Charlotte town. I did not like that idea very much. Forty-five, mainly quite mature people without overnight bags in a basic Sydney hotel (Marriott and Hyatt have not opened up here yet), does not add very much to the cruise experience.

When I heard that they could be back on board by 18.30, 1.5 hours late, I knew that there was going to be another option. If, I could arrive an hour or so later in Charlotte town, our next port, without having to cancel the shore excursions there because of it then the ship could wait. In the age of the cell-phone these things are quite easily organized. By arriving an hour later and leaving an hour later, all tours could go and thus we waited for the stranded bus to return. Another bus had been dispatched in the mean time to collect the guests.

I felt sorry for the singing lady on the dock side. She had started at 4 pm. singing along with the miners (union?) brass band and the plan was that she would do so until just after sailing time, which was 5 pm. However as the ship did not sail, she tried to keep going for awhile, but by 5.30 pm. she had gave up. Beautiful voice and there was a lot of interest from the starboard balcony people. We have music there every week as the town is plugging hard to get more and more cruise ships interested in calling in.

They have also created a nice, but small museum on the top floor of the cruise terminal which gives a good overview of life in the area. Samuel Cunard who founded later the Cunard line, was an agent for the coal mining industry here, and the abundance of coal in the area gave them the idea to run an Trans Atlantic liner service by steamships instead of by sailing ships. The delayed guests returned by 18.40 and by 18.50 I had the Veendam charging down the fjord to open sea.