30 June 2010; Warnemunde, Germany.

For some reason I like this port very much. Maybe because the local population feels so closely connected to the shipping business and there is always a good turn out when the ships are sailing out. Some of my colleagues are not so happy here as a normal arrival time always interferes with the early morning ferry arrivals. They have preference due to their time table and then you have to wait. That is indeed quite irritating and I prefer to solve that issue by arriving an hour earlier. That only leaves the ships agent unhappy as he has to get out of bed even earlier than normal. So I arrived at 0400 at the pilot station after another night of dodging ships. After exiting Drogden channel, the courses are basically North to South and that means crossing those Vessel Traffic Separation routes. That crossing has to be done at 90o angles, or as near as 90o as possible, as the Collision Regulation rules say. As Warnemunde is to the South West in relation to Copenhagen, it means that you first join the system going west, work your way over to the south side of the lane and then make a 90o turn due south. Hopefully without having a delay due to opposing traffic. It all went well but it was very busy during the night and thus we had to remain very alert.

By the time that we approached Rostock sea buoy, all the traffic was gone and the ferries were still more than an hour away. The sea buoy is called “Rostock Tonne” in German and that is because Rostock and Warnemunde share the same port. In the old days Warnemunde was a separate fishing village but with the rise to prominence of Rostock, the ports got connected. Warnemunde itself is named after the river Warne which flows through the town and apart from a lot of tourist boats still has a number of fishing boats that call the place home. That means that the locals are still very closely connected to the sea, which is visible in the yearly week of sea celebrations that will start again the coming weekend. Last year we were there during this week and in the archives of July last year you can find the exploits of the Prinsendam crew and how we were involved.

The ms Prinsendam docked at Warnemunde cruise terminal today.

In the old days the people of Warnemunde would come onto the pier in greater numbers to wave the ship good bye; but since 9/11 that is no longer possible. They are not very happy with it and the big fence that has been erected around the cruise terminal has been baptized by them the “George Bush Zaune”. The security rules are still being tweaked where legally possible and so the gates are opened as soon as the ship is about 30 feet away from the dock. At the weekends there are literally 100’s of people waiting to get onto the pier again then.

The Georg Buchner laid up in Rostock as museum and Hotelship.

Another love for the sea is shown in the preservation of ships. Rostock has the Georg Buchner, a former Belgian passenger ship for service to the Congo; there is a Dresden, a standard cargo ship from the 1950’s and Warnemunde has two preserved icebreakers, while there is a 3rd one at Rostock. The Stettin, built in the 1920’s or so, is still completely original with Steam Triple Expansion engines and is burning coal. On the departure she gave a salute and the coal smoke bellowed brownish grey out of the funnel. Luckily old-timers are exempt from the current environmental rules otherwise the captain would have had to explain a few things. This ship and most of the others are maintained by volunteers and the Stettin is still fully operational and does sail.
The old steam ice breaker Stetting. Just docked in front of the Prinsendam.

Warnemunde is always a late departure as we have to wait for the train to come back from Berlin with the day tour onboard. This time over 400 of the guests had booked the tour and that is more than half of the ship. The Hotel staff where waiting for them on the dockside with a glass of champagne as a welcome back.

As soon as they where all onboard, I pulled out. Just slipping away from yet another ferry that was coming in and then we headed to the North East for Tallinn in Estonia. I have to be there at 0600 which is early but there are four cruise ships in total coming in all at the same time and again the ferries are coming and going at the normal arrival time of the cruise ships. So I am bringing my ETA forward to dock before the ferry-mayhem starts.

Note: All photos taken by the ships Hotelmanager Mr. Firmin van de Walle.