18 Feb. 2016; Charlotte Amalie, St.Thomas; U.S.Virgin Islands.

Today we docked at our regular Holland America Line spot in Crown Bay on the North side of the pier.  No neighbors today as Crown Bay normally only has a full dock with the Saturday ships from Fort Lauderdale or Miami.  As we are a Sunday ship we only see another cruise ship here when our schedule coincides (or collides) with a 10 or 11 day cruise ship. Or when a ship gets diverted from the Havensight Pier, at the West Indian Dock Company.

As explained before, Carnival Corporation was instrumental in constructing this pier at Crown Bay, which was the former US Navy submarine base. Then it allocated those piers to Holland America and Princess but also to other ships if there is no HAL or Princess ship calling.  Before those days we had to share the West Indian dock with everybody and/ or go to anchor.  And for Holland America that meant very often at anchor, because as soon as the cruise ship – size – expansion began, the big boys were given preference. So we anchored in the inner bay, which was not so bad, as we dropped the guests off right in downtown. And once we had explained to the guests that waiting for the tender saved them the taxi fare around the bay, most guests were quite happy with that.

Anchoring outside was not very nice as it resulted in a Tender ride of at least 20 minutes. In those days we often had the Norway at anchor outside as well. She did not fit in due to her draft. But she had two beautiful tenders/landing craft which could take about 400 guests. So 2 runs for each land craft and the Norway was empty. When they came charging by, the guests in our little tenders tended to get a bit agitated. So we always kept our fingers crossed for hopefully a cancellation of another ship or at least an anchor spot in the inner bay.

Holland America has been coming to St. Thomas for a long long time. My oldest record indicates a cruise from New York with the Statendam III in 1930. The captain at that time George Barendse fell so in love with the island, that together with two passengers he purchased a piece of land there overlooking the harbor. He built a house and when his ship would arrive; his house boy would raise the Dutch Flag while the ship sailed into the harbor. One day I will try to find out where that exactly was, as I also have the name of one of the passengers. This Lady wrote her memoirs and mentioned this strange fact of sharing a piece of land with this Captain. I have no idea how land is recorded in St. Thomas but I assume there must be somewhere records being kept.

This is how the Nieuw Amsterdam looks like from the lifeboat. Balconies everywhere.

As it was a beautiful day today in port I got permission to go down with a lifeboat and have the team do lifeboat exercises. Important in my opinion as you can only instruct crew properly, if you can do it better yourself. As we were happily sailing to and from the ship we naturally got the attention from the USCG surveillance who was playing around with their Rigid Inflatable. But as we both applied the Collision Rules the correct way, no mayhem ensued and the USCG changed focus to a small speedboat which was not exactly operating safely. Nobody was wearing lifevests either.

While in the water I took the below photo of the sailors painting the stern. You would think due to advancement of technology the whole ship  could be reached by some modern contraption, but no, new ship design still creates plenty of locations where only the old fashioned Bo ‘sun chair can do the job. And it is the only way on a Vista or Signature class ship to paint the stern as it has this strange angle. (The angle is there on purpose as this hull lay out gives a better water flow around the ship and helps to optimize the propulsion by the Azipods).

Bo’sun chairs on the stern of the ship. One is in use with a sailor painting, the 2nd one is in the process of being rigged up. Both sailors are wearing safety harnasses incase the Bo’sun chair would slip. And there is permanent supervision from above.

Tomorrow we are at sea and we are now retracing our steps. Same way back as the way we came but the day after tomorrow we will stop at Half Moon Cay.  If nothing changes we should be in port together with the Oosterdam.