13 October, Halifax. 2007.

During the course of the night the wind died further down and by the time we arrived at the pilot station it was blowing just under 20 knots from the SW. Thus no problems with docking and we were alongside on time. As the wind had been blowing in the Halifax area for quite some time, there was a long swell running into the harbor which made the Veendam pitch gently while docked alongside. It is always a strange sight to see the bow going up and down a few inches while the ship is not underway and it kept doing this until early in the afternoon when the swell slowly became less and less.

The black Watch, also coming from Sydney, made it into the port 2.5 hours later and the Grand Princess scheduled for an 8 am. arrival did not dock until noon time. Why I do not know and the pilots did not know either. Yesterday it had been a horrible day in Halifax when the Maasdam was there. Our sister ship the Maasdam is running a day ahead of us with doing almost the same ports. She made it into Halifax before the winds came through but when it was time to leave she could not. There was 50 knots of wind full on the beam. Even with the help of two tugboats and the ships thrusters, so in total 20000 HP pushing and pulling, the ship did not want to budge. In the end they had to wait for an hour and a half for the wind to shift away from the beam and then she could get out of port.

I paid a quick and final visit, for awhile, to the maritime 2nd hand book shop in Halifax for a few small purchases. This time I was not alone, there were several other ship buffs going with me including Stephen Card the painter, so the shop had a good day. Another development on the hobby front is that about 250 photos out of my HAL photo collection will grace the corridors walls of the new EuroDam. When Holland America had it’s ships going through the SOE dry-docks last year, it was decided to put pictures in the corridors of all the decks. One deck with flowers, one deck with Dutch scenes, one deck with HAL historical photos, etc. etc. The idea was to liven things up a bit and that guests would recognize the deck they had to go to easier if there was a theme to each deck.

Well, the feedback from our guests indicated that they did not care very much about the flowers and the landscapes but they loved the historical photos. So for the EuroDam the idea was to find more photos and try to do all the decks. I made a selection of approximate 10% of my HAL photos, out of a collection of over 3000 and 250 are now going on the walls. Some had to be rejected as the copyright issue was not completely clear. Although most photos are copyright free after 50 years, there are exemptions but the rules are a bit vague. Thus the architect and I decided to err on the safe side. The interior designer of the EuroDam, VFD architects, who have also designed the other HAL ships, did also put an advertisement in HALLO. This is a magazine for retired HAL employee’s in Holland (There is also an North American version) and they got flooded with all sorts of photo’s. So now all the decks of the ship will show ships photos, deck photos, crew photos, destination photos and other Holland America highlights from the ancient days to the recent past.

Some of the photos are also going to be hung in the parent-rooms of the Ronald McDonald childerens home of the Sophia hospital in Rotterdam. They are building a section with 7 rooms so that parents can stay near to their –mostly very sick- child without having to commute all the time. As most of these people will know the Holland America Line, there was the idea of using HAL photos. This is something I enjoy about collecting. I collected all sorts of things when I was young, stuff that other people threw away and 30 years later it can be used for something very nice. I hope the photos will divert the visitors minds a little bit, while they are waiting for their child to be operated on. Dreaming about far way destinations always helps to lift the mind a little bit.

We left Halifax on time, after a last minute medical disembark, and sailed slowly away from the berth. Very slowly this time, as the Grand Princess had a bunker barge alongside for loading fuel. If you pass too fast, then there is the danger of pulling the barge away from the ship and even the mooring lines might snap. So slowly, slowy was the word. I honked the horn for a final goodbye and the Grand Princess had the good grace to answer. She is a bigger ship and thus she has a deeper sounding horn than the Veendam. By the time we had finished the greeting sequence everybody was well aware of who was pulling out of port.

The swells were dying off and we sailed into a glorious sunset, so tomorrow should be a good day.