29 April 2008, at Sea.

Today we spent the whole day sailing along the West Coast of the USA. The wind was blowing up to 40 knots full on the bow and the swell increased during the day, resulting in a lively ride. It is supposed to get better in the early hours of tomorrow morning when we move out of this frontal system. This evening around 9 pm. we passed San Francisco. Too far away from the shore to see anything but we sailed by two ships who were killing time before entering the port. I assume that their berths were not available yet otherwise it did not make sense to be out here in the ocean floating with the current weather conditions.

Apart from rocking and rolling along it was a quiet day and as the ship only has 800 guests on board it is also quiet in the lounges and during the shows. The Veendam has a space ration of 43.5 and that means that with a full house it still does not feel crowded. Thus now with 400 guests less on board it feels almost empty. The only advantage is I presume, that there is no line at the ice cream parlor.

I have very little else to report apart from the fact that I am still digging through the Alaska manuals to become fully aware of the latest developments in the Great Land. Today I took also all the crew, in two sessions, through an Alaska indoctrination program. We showed a video with guidelines of how to respect nature and I explained a few things in regards of way of operating during the coming season. The guests can see the same video on their cabin TV’s during the cruise.

Time to answer some questions submitted during the past period:
1. Stabilizers when deployed. My normal policy is to leave it to the discretion of the Officer of the watch. This normally means that when the ship starts to move, they are put out, by operating them from the bridge. As they slow the ship down by about 0.75 knots in the hour, I might sometimes leave orders that I have to be consulted first, if we are on a very tight schedule or when I expect that the rolling might only last a short time because we are about to change course and the ship will go from rolling to pitching. It takes about 3 minutes to pump them in or out.
2. Spouse policy. The higher the rank, the better the arrangement. All Staff, officers and petty officers, who have single cabins, have the option to have a spouse, fiancée or close friend on board for a certain amount of time. It goes from unlimited down to two months a year.
3. Late arrival penalties. Not in the ports. Pilots will board a ship when it arrives and linesmen/longshoremen are paid for a fixed period of time. Docks are paid for by the day. However it can cost the ship a considerable amount of revenue if tours have to be cancelled because of the time frame. In the home port there can be a severe impact on guests missing flights and the necessary rebookings, which might be a lot dearer than the original price.
4. Ships log. It is half half. We have a black box system that automatically stores radar picture, gps position, course speed, and bridge audio (captain singing) on a hard disk. The paper ships log is still filled out for positions and occurrences during the watch such as course changes, drills, drafts, meetings and other legal requirements. We still plot on paper charts but it is expected that we will go fully digital in the near future when legal approval in the USA is finalized.
5. Bsc. Nowadays all Dutch officers that graduate from an Academy level have a Bsc. It is not necessary for Short Sea licenses and neither for promotion from there to deep Sea. Neither does a Bsc make you a better sailor but it gives you a wider horizon to work from. A Bsc does give you faster access to higher certification as your basic school level is more extensive.
6. Veendam sailing from Ft. Lauderdale. No we are not; we stay for the winter in Tampa. There is an oopsy in one of the cruise brochures.
7. The tent will not go up in Alaska, it would help against the rain but it would block out watching wild life flying overhead.
8. The training facility MSR at the Wilhelmina kade does not do regular tours, but they have open days for the general public and schools at certain times in the year.

Tomorrow we have another day at sea, and hopefully the wobbling will get less. However there is a collusion of 3 frontal systems in the North Pacific going on and that might send some waves our way.