07 March 2014; Noordam Underway.

And so I arrived on the good ship ms Noordam. The final of the four Vista Class ships of the company. There was also a 5^th. Vista class which was transferred to P&O cruises while being built and is now called the Arcadia. Then there are two modified Vista’s out there, which sail for Cunard as the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Victoria. But those two differ considerably from the original Vista design as envisioned and executed by Holland America.

In command of the Noordam is Captain Robert Jan Kan, who will be the Master for the remainder of this cruise and the next one and then Captain Jeroen van Donselaar will take over. Captain Kan goes through life the same way as I do, being Dutch and living in England. Captain van Donselaar lives in the States. Although we might be captains in command and consider ourselves in charge of everything, there is always a higher entity to consider: “she who will be obeyed”; and as a result we all live where “she” wants us to live.

The Noordam is making 10 day cruises to the south Caribbean, with slightly different ports during each cruise. I am on board for 2.5 cruises. I hopped on in the middle of this one and then will have the school class on board for the next 20 days.  They will board on March 9 in Fort Lauderdale, which is the winter home port for the Noordam. She has spent the last years sailing in Europe in the summer but now she will go to Alaska and from there for the winter season 2015/2016 to Australia.

I joined in Willemstad after transferring from the Ryndam in Tampa and waiting for 2 days for the Noordam to come in. She docked at the Mega Pier (see my Ryndam blog from 10 days ago) and then hopped on to Bonaire and Aruba. From there it was homeward bound and today is the first day of the two sea days needed to get back to Fort Lauderdale.  We will be sailing north through the Caribbean Sea. Then through the Windward passage between Cuba and Hispaniola and then westwards above Cuba, ending up in Fort Lauderdale on the 9^th.

There 12 trainee’s will board the ship, all coming from the company’s simulator training in Holland. They have all passed their exam and before you can join the fleet you are by law required to have completed a Bridge Management Resource Training and Digital Chart/Radar training. So that is where they are at the moment. To make their arrival on the ships a little bit more comfortable, they will receive 20 days of induction from two Facilitators. As there are six deck officer and six Engineers, there are two Facilitators.  The engineers will be looked after by Mr. Willem Dullaert who retired a number of years ago as active Chief Engineer but is since then passing on his vast knowledge and experience to new and sometimes also not so new Engineers. This year he has been at sea for 50 years so the word “vast knowledge and experience” are correct in his situation.  Compared to him, I am just starting out as I can only offer 35 years at sea, so the Deckies will just have to make do with that.

It will be a very mixed group. The days that the officers on Holland America Line were exclusively Dutch have long since gone and now we source officers who indicate their interest in cruising and Holland America and that means various nationalities. Thus 3 from the Netherlands, 3 from New Zealand, 3 from Romania, 2 from Croatia and the UK has sent one representative.   When I give training then I like them all to be from the same nationality or I like a good mix, I even prefer the latter, as the cultural exchange really helps to bring the best out of everybody.

So tomorrow will be the last sea day of this cruise and then our Holland America school will start while sailing the beautiful waters of the Caribbean. I wish they had had something like that when I started out back in 1981 as a 4^th. Officer on the Statendam IV.