When I read the agents email with the arrival information, there was a mention about a sailing race taking place during the day. That always gives me a bad feeling as it means most of the time, pleasure boats all around the ship, boats anchoring where they should not be, boats not behaving according to the rules of the road, speedboats creating wake along the tender platform Etc Etc.

Thus I decided to build in an hour leeway in arriving, just for the case that there was something unplanned going to happen. Glad I did. The sailing race taking place was called the Giraglia Rolex Cup 2007. Several races were taking place over a period of 3 days and they had scheduled one of their meetings at 11 am. in a location between the open sea and my anchorage. Our official arrival time was 11.30 but we sailed into the bay at 10 am. Just at the moment when the first big single mast sailing boat came out of the marina to take position. 20 minutes later the bay was completely closed off by all sorts of boats filled with spectators.

Next issue was to find an anchorage, I have been to St Tropez before and I have my favourite location, safe for the ship and a short distance to the port for our tenders. Ofcourse that spot was taken by a large yacht. The next best spot was clear of yachts but full with buoys that marked a long rectangular. According to our local agent, it were just fishing buoys, but the moment I stopped the ship to lower the tenders, the racing committee came on the VHF asking very anxiously if the “Viedamme” was going to anchor there. It must have been their buoys in use for an un-explained purpose. Then the agent enlightened us with the news that the harbour master had closed the marina for our tenders and that we now had to tender to a dock outside the breakwater. That meant for our tenders a route through all the yachts at anchor.

In the end I had to anchor far away from my intended spot, resulting in a twice as long a tender distance. However as the weather was beautiful, the longer tender ride was of no concern to the guests. The ride past all the yachts was very interesting and St Tropez is very scenic close up and from a distance. One of the yachts was called the Pink Gin and that generated a lot of photographic activity. Boogles my mind, these sort of names. This yacht was worth at least $ 25 mln. if not more, and then you call it Pink Gin.

At least the Veendam was the most expensive yacht in the harbour for the day. We stayed until 2300 hrs. and for those guests who went ashore in the evening, it was a very romantic ride. The wind had died down, it was a clear starry night and all the yachts were lit up as were the old walls of St. Tropez. Although we know St. Tropez as a mondain sea resort, frequented by the jet-set, the town was founded as an ancient fortified trading port with roots going back to the days of the ancient Greeks. The harbour is sheltered for winds from every direction except the N.E and that made it a strategic place for refuge and shelter.

Bright and early we arrived at the pilot station and slotted into the parade of all the approaching ships. The sequence worked out as follows:
Galaxy first. Then delay for all due to an out coming car carrier. Ferry next, followed by us. Followed by Disney Magic, Oceana, Thomson Celebration, Seabourn Legend and then another number of ferries. This all in the time span of 90 minutes. Disney has a ship in Europe for the first time this year and they have installed one of those big TV screens over the top of the swimming pool. As the Magic was docked ahead of us, my quartermasters spend the morning watching cartoons, while on standby on the bridge. Mickey Mouse and Goofy are also appreciated by the people from Indonesia. By having a bridge window open, they could also hear the sound. If we could hear it over 2000 feet away, it must have been very loud over there on the deck.

An exciting piece of news was an email from our President and CEO Stein Kruse that arrived on board this morning. The building option for a second Signature Class ship has been exercised so we are getting a sister to the Eurodam. Completion date will be in fall 2010. No name has been given yet, but as the Euro-dam is named after Europe, it would be my guess that this ship is going to be named after another continent. Let’s wait and see. The ordering of a second Signature Class ship does indicate that there is a strong interest by our guests in the Holland America product. Again this ship will feature a number of inovations including an 2nd specialty restaurant, this one located in front of the funnel. With a capacity of 144 seats it will serve Asian Fusion Cuisine. The company is sticking with the concept of building medium size class ships, 86000 tons, and is not planning to go to mega carriers and high density ships. The Holland America guest likes space and lack of crowds. Thus the ship will carry a maximum of 2000 guests while a comparable size ship from another company would carry 2700 or more.

It was a beautiful windless day and a great but hazy evening while we waited for our guests to return from Rome. Departure was delayed due on bus coming back very late. The bus had to wait for two guests who had somehow decided to return to the bus much later than everybody else. We try very hard not to leave guests behind who are on HAL organized tours, however it is very irritating as it has a great impact on the shipboard operation. The Lido restaurant has to stay open longer and the crew involved in the departure has to hang around for an extra 30 minutes, while they could do something else or be in bed. Then the ship has to make up the lost time by going faster through the night, what costs extra fuel. This delay in sailing cost me approximate $ 3000 in extra fuel costs. I was still lucky that we pulled out at the time we did, another 20 minutes later and I would have had to wait another hour, as this was the ferry departure period and they go first. If that would have happened then we would have arrived too late in St. Tropez and that is where we are going next.

It was a beautiful sunday today. We had a flat calm sea and a brightly shining sun while we sailed around the southern part of Italy. Our guests first had the chance to see the East side of Italy during the early morning. Then the South side at noon time followed by the West side in the afternoon. As we sailed with the sun, the sun always shone onto the coast giving a very clear view of the scenery. We passed through Strait Messina around 1 pm. and had Stromboli at 15.30 hrs., so all on board had ample opportunity to enjoy the sights.

My day started in an unusual way as I had been asked to do the bible reading for the Sunday service. Normally I stay away from that as I do not want to show preference to any variation of the Christian faith but this was different. The Reverend we have on board this cruise is the Chaplain General of the International Seafarers Ministry and is from Dutch decent. I met him for the first time about 25 years ago and he shows up from time to time with his wife for a cruise. His name is about as complicated as mine, Uittenbosch, which translates into English as “from the Forest” but as he lives in Canada he uses the name Dubois. This makes the life of his wife, who is a French teacher, a lot easier. About 75 guests attended the service, which was more than for the bingo, so I assume there is still hope for mankind.

Going through the strait of Messina was an easy affair this time. The pilot came on board while the ship was going at full speed, had his cup of coffee, had his bill signed, and hopped of 20 minutes later, with the ship still going at full speed. He had one look out of the window to see if I was going the right way and spend the rest of the time talking on the VHF. The main aim of that conversation was that he tried to make a tanker, which was approaching Messina strait after us, to go faster to fit in his schedule. The tanker captain was saying that 11.5 knots was the top speed of his ship and he could not go any faster, but the pilot was having none of it. But top speed is top speed so the argument did not get resolved. The tanker kept moving at 11.5 knots and the pilot had to wait.

Stromboli was producing white smoke today and as the crater top was not covered in clouds, the smoke plumes could be clearly seen rising from the crater hole. We passed by at a distance of just over a mile while the port lecturer gave a little narration about what was there to be seen. In the meantime we kept the pedal to the metal, was it was a tight run to Civitavecchia. I wanted to arrive early because 6 other cruise ships were expected. All of them around the same time. If you do not arrive on the agreed time, you can loose your spot and then be delayed by an hour or more. For the call here, you want to have the buses to Rome on the road by 7 am. which means that arriving on time is of the essence. It will be a Monday, thus traffic is going to be a challenge to get to Rome and to get back to the ship again. My crew has already given up on bus transport and they all go to Rome by train, if they have the day off.

Another busy day in this port. There was the Brilliance and the Legend of the Seas at anchor, the Veendam and the MSC Armonia alongside, and the Costa Marina and Costa Serena at the downtown anchorage. No reason for the shopkeepers to complain. We had our normal fun and games with the sailing yachts upon arrival, including one who decided that the best spot to lower his sails was right in front of my bow but we were docked exactly at noon time, the official arrival time.

This cruise we have a very mixed group of guests on board. Naturally the big majority is Canadians and Americans but we are starting to get more and more Australians on the ship. This cruise we have 50. We do not see them on the short European cruises, the 26 hour flying time it too much for that, but on the longer cruises more and more are coming. Holland America started a marketing campaign about 10 years ago in Australia and New Zealand and it looks like it that it is paying off. Because of their accent and their penchant for a “no worries” attitude, Aussie’s always stand out in a crowd and for a lot of guests on board it is the first time that they meet people from down under. We have a ship sailing in Australian waters during the winter, the Statendam, so they could take a cruise close to home but more and more are coming this way to see Europe by ship. I would not be amazed at all if some of them are adding the first Baltic cruise to their travel plans as well. It is a long long way from the other side of the world, so if you make the journey, then you might as well make the most of it.

As usual I listened this morning to the local weather forecast on the VHF ship’s radio and completely puzzled I was. While all my other weather forecasts and the view outside gave beautiful weather I was advised about a gale warning in the Mid Adriatic. When I was just about to leave the bridge to have another check of the weather on the internet, a rather hesitant voice came back on, apologizing in three languages, (English, Italian, and Croatian) and re reading the weather. Turned out that somehow the script from two days ago had been given to the news reader.

In some parts of the world, the person who reads the weather forecast is also the person who composes it and I never thought about it before, but it makes sense, as it does prevent mistakes like these. The Weather girl at home on my local television, is responsible for her own script and contents and that works very well for now obvious reasons.

Our tours were all back in time and thus I could leave the dock exactly on schedule. It was a nice convoy leaving the port with the Legend and the Brilliance pulling out just ahead of me. The Costa Serenade had left the anchorage in downtown and we all met at the same time at the same point. ………And they keep telling me that only Florida has busy cruise ports. Tomorrow is a sea day, with as highlight the transverse of the Strait of Messina.

Change over day, is normally one of the busiest days of the whole cruise, for everybody, except the captain. There are no meetings, it is difficult to do inspections and there are no parties. The ship is in change over from the old cruise to the new one. Thus I normally spend change over day with clearing away the paperwork of the past cruise and deleting the hundreds of emails that have come in during that cruise.

This morning I had something else on my hands, loading carpet. Not exactly a job for a captain but caused by circumstances. A thing that happens during change over day is the crew change. That makes every department short handed. In total we had 31 crew leaving including a number of key players. Apart from the fact that they are leaving, they also have to do a handover to their relieve and that means they are not available until 1 pm. At 1 pm. There is the compulsory safety indoctrination meeting and nobody is allowed to start working on board until they have gone through this indoctrination. At the same time the deck department was testing Firescreendoors and ventilation stops. That is something we have to do, but only want to do when there are no guests on board. It is rather unsettling for a not-initiated to see all the doors in the ship closing and the familiar hallway suddenly disappearing. Also it does not give a good feeling if the Air-conditioning and ventilation suddenly stops. AC creates white noise in the ship and you get used to it. If it suddenly stops if feels as if a deadly silence descends over the ship and that really startles people. Thus we prefer to do it when there is only crew on board. It takes only one announcement to explain to them what is going on and the deck officers can push buttons to their hearts content.

All these things left nobody available for supervising the loading of the carpet. We were expecting 12 big rolls of carpet and they are too cumbersome to be stored inside the ship. So I wanted them on the bow. There is plenty space there, it does not bother the guests, and in port the upholsterers have a big open deck available to cut the rolls. We have permanently two upholsterers on board. They repair curtains, chairs and guests suitcases and they also spend time on renewing carpet where needed. I had arranged a crane for the loading and it was a fun few hours spend get the rolls on board. On a cruise ship we do not do much cargo handling (our cargo walks on and off by itself) so messing around with cranes and slings is a nice deviation from the normal things going on.

Once the rolls where on deck, the bo’sun with his sailors secured them against the bulkhead and covered them over with a tarpaulin against the sea spray. In the coming ports, when the guests are ashore, the Facilities Maintenance Manager, will start selecting area’s in the ship where the new carpet will go.

We left nicely on time, under a bright setting sun, which showed Venice at it’s best for our final departure. We are on our way to Copenhagen.

Well, the charter cruise for Olivia is coming to an end with a final day at sea and an early arrival in Venice. Although not as early as planned, as due to port congestion, I had to put back my pilot station time by an hour. The season is now in full swing and the port full with cruise ships. The Monet and The World were docked in downtown. They were in port because the Venice Art Fair was going on and at the regular berths were the Legend of the Seas and the Brilliance of the Seas. Plus my berth was taken by the Crystal Serenity who had a departure time of 3 pm. As the Venice authorities do not allow two big ships in the Laguna at the same time, I had to arrive an hour later so we could pass each other in open waters near the sea buoy.

The whole day was very hazy, with visibility dropping down to two miles at times, which was not pleasant as there were a lot of grey and white hulled fishing boats around which were hardly visible in the haze. We had to make some drastic course changes to sail around them as for some reason the biggest groups were sitting right in the regular traffic route. Maybe the fish knows where the big ships are normally sailing so they try to hide in the shipping lanes. At the moment I am training up three fourth officers, who each run an independent two hour watch, abeit under the watchful eye of the master and a good experience this was for them. Evaluating the traffic information on the radar screen, making a decision and then having faith in their own decision made takes some time to get used to. When having to make a decision about a course change, or a speed change, there are basically only two criteria that are important. 1. Is it safe decision. 2. Will the other ship understand what I am going to do. Each action taken has to have the desired effect and taken timely so that the other ship can see what is happening. The latter takes the most time to learn as you have to try to see the situation also from the perspective of the other ship.

We passed the Crystal Serenity right at the pilot station, and the pilots directly transferred from one ship to the other. They were all excited about this Venice Art Fair. There were a lot of expensive, very expensive, private yachts in port and a whole gaggle of celebrities had been sighted. As they had seen a flotilla of speedboats full with paparazzi clustering around one particular yacht, they were hoping on the way in to see Naomi Campbell. She was supposedly on board. When I told them that I was not impressed as I had 1023 ladies on board this cruise instead of one, they looked a bit flabbergasted. When approaching St Marks square there was indeed a whole fleet of speedboats sitting next to three big yachts but no celebrity in sight. Somebody must have forgotten to tell them that the Veendam was coming by.

We squeezed our way in, between the Legend and the Brilliance, and docked at our regular berth. The Ladies were having a night on the town and then disembarking early tomorrow morning. Final act of the cruise was to send the quartermaster to the radar mast to lower the rainbow flag that we had been flying all cruise and to return it to the owners. The Ladies had a great cruise and were very happy with the service provided by Team Veendam.

From Piraeus to Venice the ship has to sail around the Peloponessos. The big land mass located south of Athens. Not only the Veendam has to do that but every ship that is too wide or has too much draft for going through the Corinth Canal. Not only Venice – Piraeus traffic but basically all the traffic between the East Med., Turkey, the Black Sea and the West Mediterranean. As a result the shipping lane at the south point of the Peloponessos can be very busy. All traffic tries to go through a 5 mile wide strait called the Steno Elafonisou located between the Peloponessos and the island Nissos
Kithiron. Going around this island is also possible but it is a 5 mile longer journey. The issue with going through this strait is that you have to make an almost 90 degree course change around the top of Kihiron and because the island blocks the view, you can not see what comes around the corner. Thus a situation where the captain has to be on the bridge.

The officer of the watch keeps doing his job, but I am there for extra oversight and a second opinion if needed. The traffic in the strait is not regulated, so basically it is a free for all. Most ships do the sensible thing. West bound traffic hugs the North side of the strait and East bound traffic hugs the South side. However there is always one there, who does something different. Thus we have to be very vigilant.

A great help nowadays it the AIS system. Automated Indentification System. Each commercial ship over 300 gross tons has a little transmitter on board that transmits information about the course and speed of the ship, what sort of ship it is and where it is going to. This shows up as an icon on the bridge radar and by clicking on the icon we can read all the information on the screen. It helps greatly in a situation as in the Steno Elafonisou, where the island blocks the radar waves from detecting ships on the other side. Course and speed are automatically entered into the AIS but some other info is not.

Information such as the destination, the sort of ship, plus the sort of activity where it is engaged in (sailing, underway, dredging, at anchor etc.etc) has to be entered by hand and that gives sometimes the most peculiar read outs. Ships traveling at 20 knots, as still being listed “at anchor”, or as “afloat”, or having arrived in a port 14 days ago but is still going there. One ship had entered as a port of destination, “going home”. No doubt great for the people on board but useless for the rest of the world. Or a local ferry, who had entered going from Island X to Island Y, “twice a day”.

With a cruise ship doing a regular cruise and running on a fixed schedule, there are some strange coincidences as well. Thus we met for the 3rd time, going through the strait, the MSC Armonia. Everytime around midnight and everytime on an opposite course. We are doing 10 day cruises, so she must be doing something similar but on an opposite cycle.

This time the traffic behaved itself and we could sail through at full speed and where out at the other side within an hour. I just made it to bed by midnight.

On request of the local authorities I arrived somewhat earlier than intended as I was advised that this would help beating the ferries going in and out. Upon arriving we found out that during the night port control must have changed their mind as we had to wait for 45 minutes. Not only me, but also the Westerdam, the Splendour of the Seas, the Costa Romantica and a few cargo ships. We never figured out exactly what was going on and what logic lay all of this but eventually we were allowed in and were docked on time for the tours to leave.

Tuesday must have been an off-day for the ferries, as all the docks were full and there was very little traffic going in and out during the day. We docked this time at the old passenger terminal; it also looks old from the outside and it is in dire need of maintenance. We fitted in with 30 feet to spare, fore and aft. Already docked next to us was the Sky Wonder who had an overnight stay and was disembarking passengers. The luggage offloading there necessitated the ship to be very far aft, almost sticking out, leaving a rather small hole for the Veendam to creep into. Just outside the pier, there were a number of ferries docked, who had used their anchor chains to keep their bow in position. As I had the pass by quite closely to them, to slide into the dock basin, I was a bit worried about my propellers coming close to those chains. So we entered the dock by using one propeller (the starboard one) and keep the port one on stop.

The Veendam is a diesel electric ship, which means that 5 engines generate electricity that is transferred to two electric motors that turn the propellers. Those are pitch propellers, which means that the propellers turn all the time and that we change the vane setting of the propeller blades to go faster or slower. More or less scoop, more or less speed. In the same way that you dig a spoon in a tub of ice cream, a deeper scoop, gives more ice cream on the spoon. Stopping the propeller, means two options. Put the blades in neutral, this reduces the draft of the ship (a phenomena called squat) or completely stopping the electric motor, so that the propeller itself comes to a complete standstill.

I spend the day going over the charts for our next cruise. Venice to Copenhagen. This charter cruise will be finished in two days and that will also be the end of the Mediterranean period for the Veendam.

Mykonos is one of the major tourist attractions among the Greek islands. The little white village was sought after by celebrities in the mid of the last century and later the regular crowds followed. That meant that more and more restaurants opened and also that the night life started to buzz. Since the 70’s it has been an important day destination for cruise ships as well. Now with the cruise industry booming there is a regular traffic jam of cruise ships, especially on mid week days. Mykonos has 5200 inhabitants and today eight cruise ships (not counting the 30 ferry calls) brought another 10000 guests to the little town. Luckily not all ships came in at the same time. The Veendam was first assigned to the anchorage but was able to shift to the dock after the Emerald Princess (3200 guests who only had a morning stop) pulled out at 14.00 hrs. The Veendam stayed until midnight as the ladies wanted to sample the Mykonos night life.

You might wonder what or who decides where a ship goes. This depends on a number of factors. First of all the cruise company makes a booking, normally two years in advance. The earlier you are, the better chance you have to get in. Then it comes to docking or anchoring (when both options are available) If a ship uses the port as a turn over port (e.g. disembarking and embarking guests) that ship will dock at the passenger terminal. For a normal day call it might be assigned to another dock. If the ship is on a normal day call, then the assigned location depends on the following factors:
1. Length of available dock
2. Number of guests on board
3. Arrival and departure time
4. Frequency of calling. (a 7 day ship takes precedence over a 10 day ship)
5. Draft of the ship and the ships length.
6. Harbor fees (some ports go on tonnage, some on ships length, some on number of guests on board)
7. What does not fit in will have to anchor.

Based on the above criteria the harbor master, especially in a busy port, will decide 24 hours before the arrival where the ship will go. If there is only one cruise ship calling during the day, then it will get the prime spot in the harbor. Take as an example Rhodos. During our last two calls, we were the only ones, so we had the best spot in port. Last call there were 5 early arriving cruise ships who occupied every inch of available dock. One dock was 300 meters and took two smaller ships. One dock was 240 meters and that took the Veendam of 220 meters. One dock was 200 meters and that took the Grand Voyager of 180 meters. Etc. etc.

In a town as Dubrovnik where there is only one dock, the ship with the most guests will dock. For all our calls the Veendam was docking as we were the biggest, except last call when we were bumped by the Carnival Freedom. 3500 guests against the Veendam’s 1000. Not pleasant for us, but it make sense to have only 1000 an guests using tenders instead of 3500.

For Mykonos, it worked as follows. The Emerald Princess, being the biggest ship, got the dock. When it left, the space was given to the Veendam as this was the ship spending the longest time in port. After we had docked, there was a little bit of pier left and thus they had the Perla coming alongside was well, as their gangway fitted just on the pier, while the bow stuck out by 60 meters into open waters. Tomorrow in Piraeus, we will see something similar happening as there are 5 cruise ships expected. One will have the terminal as it is the change over port and the Veendam will get a dock, where it just fits in. The other side of the pasenger terminal will go to a ship with the most guests on board, that still fits alongside. the other (longer ships) will docked further out.

Upon arrival the whole port of kusidasi was confused. In one of my previous blogs I explained how well organized the port was, and they are. So everything is planned to go smoothly and then suddenly another cruise ship arrived that was not planned in the sequence arranged the day before. I do not know whether the cruise ship company forgot the book the arrival or something else happened but suddenly the Perla of Louis Cruise Lines showed up. For them it must have been a regular call as there were people with suitcases waiting on the dockside to board, but it was not known to the pilot and port control.

Thus my pilot time of 0600 had to be pushed back with 20 minutes, not a big deal for me, but it got the pilot in a real tizzy. On top of that the captain of the Perla decided to swing on arrival, docking with the stern in and that took another 10 minutes. In the mean time I was told to come closer and closer, and by the time the pilot was on the bridge, the Veendam was almost poking its nose between the piers. The pilot is not needed for the docking sequence but he is very handy to have on the bridge to talk to the locals on the dock side. My grasp of the Turkish language is limited to one word, namely Korfezi. That means Gulf in Turkish and I only know that one as it is printed in the chart when we approach. Kusidasi Korfezi, the Gulf of Kusidasi.

Today was a quiet day for the port, only four ships, the Sky Wonder, the Veendam, the Perla (in the morning) and the Ruby (in the afternoon). The last two are owned by Lois Cruise Lines of Cyprus. This company operates mainly older tonnage and names their cruiseships after precious stones. Thus there is the Emerald (1957 ex Santa Rosa), the Ruby (1974 ex Ocean Countess), the Perla (Southward 1971), the Sea Diamond (sunk), the Topaz (1960, ex Empress of Britain), the Sapphire (ex Italia 1967) and the Coral (ex Cunard Adventurer 1971). The latter is not exactly a precious stone, although black coral is extremely expensive as well. Apart from that they have other ships that are chartered out or they act as a manning agency for other companies.

Most of these ships are operating in the Mediteranean, except for the Topaz, who is currently sailing as the “Peace boat” in charter for a Japanese company and going around the world. As far as I understand the peace boat idea is that by going around the world, the company tries to improve worldwide relations. This by stimulating the interaction between the guests on board (mainly Japanese) and the local population in the various ports of call. This “peace boat company” does that every year and for the last few years they have used the old Topaz for this purpose. The topaz was originally built as an North Atlantic Liner for Canadian Pacific and sailed between England and Eastern Canada. It is one of the few steamships left in the cruising trade. (The Emerald is another one)

For a ship lover as me, the ports in the Med are great as there is a continious coming and going of ships. Also most of the docks are lined up in such a way that the ships are docked with at least one side of the ship exposed to the sun, so that you can take a photo from another dock opposite.