28 July 2015; North Pacific Ocean.

Just after midnight we dipped into the North Pacific Ocean and there was even less wind than expected. It was nearly flat calm. However the swell was there, rolling in from the Gulf of Alaska and being slightly higher than expected. I observed 7 to 8 feet and that made d the Statendam gently move on the Ocean. Later on the swell increased to 10 feet and with the bow clipping into it made us move a bit more. Not bad at all but for a few people it might have been a bit too wobbly. I saw a few privacy signs on cabins doors at a time that I was not expecting it. Still the great majority was running around without having any worry what so ever.

Being sea sick is a strange state of affairs. As it is just part of your genetic make up. You cannot control nor train the balancing sensor in your ear, and it gets triggered for everyone in a different way.   Some people are never sea sick, some people always but the majority just need time to let their body adjust to a totally different movement than what you have on land. There you can have motion sickness as well. The school teacher I had in elementary school, final year, always got sick in the back of the bus. If he was sitting on the front seat, so he could see the road, he was fine. I have never been sea sick, except when I had to inhale fish being fried while in wind force 8 on the North Sea. Fried fish does not bother me, storm does not bother me and a moving ship does not bother me but my body did not like the combination.

For those who were not cooped up inside were participating in all the daily activities and there was a lot of wildlife to see. The whales were very active and several breached very close to the ship. Unfortunately we have not found a way yet to let the Whales announce what they are going to do, so we cannot advise the guests what is out there. We had some very excited guests today and some disappointed ones who had more or less expected that they would see whales at 10.45 when they had a coffee moment between the “behind the scenes kitchen tour” and the 11.00 On Location lecture. Well, we can do a lot at Holland America but we do not have (or want to have) an in house whale who will breach right at coffee time at the location of lifeboat 3.

My day was one full of variation. First we had the deck department in fire hose training on the aft mooring deck. We have four fire squads on board; two consist of deck personnel and two out of engine personnel.  I had the two deck teams today and the idea was to practice all the moves of attacking and retreating with a charged and spouting water hose. We can put 10 to 13 bars on a hose and that changes the whole dimension compared to handling an uncharged hose. I always end the training with a game of water ball where they have to try to use their hose to get a big Skippy ball in each other’s goal. Everybody gets soaking wet of course but they would do so as well during a real fire and then their wet fire suits would give extra protection. I also got soaking wet as aiming at the teacher has always been a primary reaction regardless of age.

Next was quartermaster refreshment training. Our Quartermasters are expected to do a lot more than only steering and keeping a look out and on a regular basis we go through a refresher training just to highlight the items which do not regularly occur on the bridge.

That continued with Touch drills with the junior officers in the afternoon. Touch drills are “dry” exercises where we go completely through the motions as if an emergency was occurring. If a fire report comes in, the first 30 seconds can be critical in getting the right teams on the road and ensuring that a minor item remains a minor item. So we rehearse and as even the best trained officer can forget something these drills are really useful.  Once the initial actions are out of the way, the officer can grab a check list to review if anything was forgotten.

Tomorrow we are in Ketchikan. By 05.30 we should have the pilot on board and by 0700 we should be alongside the dock. It looks that it is going to be a real Ketchikan day. High fifties, rain or drizzle but with little wind.