18 November 2011; Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica.

With the pilot scheduled for 0500 hrs so I arrived on the bridge at 04.00 hrs and the noise on the VHF was just starting. As had been expected a cargo ship had to leave the berth to make room for us and it seemed that the shore side was using the VHF for wake up calls. My Spanish is not what it used to be, and I am certainly not an expert in the local variation of Costa Rican Spanish, but whatever was communicated was working. 15 minutes before we were due to dock the container ship went off the dock and to the anchorage, with I assume a very unhappy captain on the bridge. I got him out of bed and I was delaying his cargo operations until the Statendam was departing again. Still we had confirmed docking space arranged long time ago and contracts have to be honored. With the pilot on board making important noises in his walkie talkie to somebody very far away, the Statendam went alongside the vacated berth. We are here mainly for the tours, as there is not much to see in Puerto Caldera or nearby Punta Arenas. For everything you have to go inland and “inland” is the reason we are here. Nature here in Costa Rica is so impressive that we have this call especially in the schedule to offer tours here. A gesture that is appreciated by the guests on board as we had nearly 75% of all guests on these tours.

We stayed here to 2 pm which is the length that the tours take. They leave at 06.15 in the morning and last until 13.00 or 13.30 in the afternoon, that means for everybody an early morning. For guests because they go on tour and for the hotel crew because the restaurants are opening 1.5 hours earlier than normal.  Luckily because all are going ashore, we can then keep the dining room closed for lunch so that the crew gets a longer off time at mid day.  For deck and engine there is not much of an impact as most dockings and undockings fall in the regular working hours. Sailors start at 0500 for washing down the decks and thus they are hopping around anyway. Lately I have been keeping them in bed longer, as with the frequent rain showers coming over, there is hardly any need for washing away the salt.   One rain shower can accomplish more in 5 seconds than 20 sailors in two days. That means for them an hour longer in bed as they then only have to get up to wipe down the railings etc before the first guests appear on the deck.

Although the latter is a challenge as we have guests making the rounds around the Lower Promenade Deck already at 04.30 in the morning. This is always something that amazes me. You are on a vacation and then you get up in the middle of the night to walk around the deck. My idea is having a late evening in the bar and then an even later morning in bed, but luckily we are not all the same and getting up early is a way of enjoying a cruise as well; although the Beverage Manager might disagree here. So for these guests it is sometimes dodging water hoses and deck scrubbers, if the bo’sun and his gang are out in full force at 0500 hrs.

Because of our early arrival today there was no deck cleaning possible but a passing rain shower at 0300, had already taken care of all the worries that the bo’sun might have had in this regards. We were very lucky with the weather today. The rain stopped at 0400 and dark clouds started only to gather after we departed. In between it was glorious sunshine and the bo’sun took advantage of that by having the blue hull touched up. By lining all the sailors up in a row, a large part of the ship can be done in a very short time and as the Chief Officer had rented a cherry picker, the ships structure higher up could be attacked as well.

Ahead of us was a docked bulk carrier which was discharging an ingredient used in fertilizer. The wind was blowing from our stern and any dust that might come from that unloading was in that way blown away from us. Otherwise the whole ship would have been covered with a thin layer of foul smelling dust. A good rain shower after departure would then have been a necessity.

We pulled out on time at 1400 hrs and zigzagged to open waters through the fishing boats and the ships at anchor. For the remainder of the day we will be sailing along the coasts of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Until by midnight of the 20^th. we pass the Mexican border. Then we have to go through the Gulfo de Tehuantepec again with its strong winds. We might be lucky though, as according to the weather forecast the wind there is about to die down by the time we have to pass through, so things are looking good.

We had a lot of companions again today, so I leave you with this master shot of HM Bert van Mackelenbergh who managed to catch a dolphin in full flight.