It was a beautiful morning by the time we approached the pilot station. Still dark, but clear skies and no wind. The temperature was a very cool 61o F/16oC; a good sign, indicating that it would not be a too warm a day. So it was to be as by lunch time the air temperature peaked at 75oF instead of the 90oF it can reach. Perfect weather for sightseeing and lingering around the pool on board. The pilot boat came out early and my fears about the party hangovers from the day before did not become reality. There was some effect though, because when we were docking it was clearly visible that the linesmen pulling the ropes ashore, were not as eager and spritely as usual. We were the only cruise ship in port and thus assigned to dock number one. If there are more ships, then there is a pecking order with the biggest ship being assigned to dock one and the others to dock 2 or 3. It is assumed by the authorities that dock 1 is the most preferable one. No doubt the shopkeepers in the flea market, just outside the gate agree with that but I prefer dock 2 as it is opposite Wall Mart and I know the crew love to go there. Continue reading

Today we noticed the change in temperature, both air and sea water when we passed Cabo San Lucas which is called the Cold Cape for that reason. Until noon time we had been sailing in the California Current, which comes from the North and thus transports colder water towards the Equator area. That gave us a nice push in the back and saving fuel is something that always makes us happy. The colder water (around 55oF/13oC) also keeps the outside temperature down but that all starts to change when you come to the end of the Californian Peninsula. Here the California current turns away from the coast and start flowing to the West towards the mid of the Pacific. Its place is being taken by the North Equatorial current, which comes up from the Equator area and thus transports warmer water towards the North. That means we will be sailing against it for the coming days. That will cost more fuel and makes my chief engineer very unhappy. Continue reading

From San Diego to our first port of call Puerto Vallarta it takes two days as we have to cover a distance of 1036 nautical miles.  If we would run full speed, then we would arrive around midnight, so we run at 75% capacity and that will get us there by sunrise which is a perfect time to enter the port.  No glare from the sun, no land wind generated by the sun and no “Sunday sailors” to sit in the way of the ships approach.  These two days at sea we simply follow the coast line of Mexico at distances of anywhere from 3 to 20 miles, depending on where the coast moves away from the ships course line.  We try to sail straight course lines where possible and as the coastline is not exactly straight, the distance to the shore varies.  Our highlight tomorrow will be when we pass by Cabo San Lucas.  If there is not too much traffic in the way then I will do some sightseeing. Continue reading

 And so real life started again, after vacations visiting Holland & Malta, honey do lists and lots of Holland America hobby work, I returned to the Statendam today. As we are on a regular run where there are not that many changes in the routine of the ship, so after 3 hours of hand over my colleague could give me his pager and he went off for a well earned vacation. I will see him again on 17 June in Vancouver. The schedule of the ship is that we will continue Panama Canal Cruises until the middle of May and then move up to Vancouver for the Alaska season. That will last until the end of September after that we return to the Panama Canal run and a 30 day south Pacific cruise in December. As is normal, the ship captains split up the Alaska season and thus I am doing the beginning and the end and my colleague the period in the middle. I will be back again on the 16th of September and that will mean that I will do that 30 day cruise and then will be off for Christmas again. I have updated my sailing schedule (under the tab Notes for the Reader) accordingly. Which can of course be subject to extremely much change. Continue reading

Good morning,

Currently at home and enjoying my leave. I am spending a lot of time digging through the companies history.  I have now found sufficient information to upload the biography of Captain Bonjer, the first company’s commodore. I managed to trace a nephew who is now alerting the other relatives so hopefully the bio can be expanded in the future.  I am currently working on other bio’s as well, so hopefully I will able to add some more in the coming month.

 Capt. Bonjers bio can be found under the Captains from the Past listing on the right hand, drop down box, side of this posting.

Best regards

Capt. Albert

It rained off and on during the night and then in the early morning it really started to pour. We are already in the rainy season but with the weather system in the Carib pushing everything back to Middle America, we now get it all. Everything that might have drifted away is stuck above the Middle American countries and it rains. It pours; it reduces visibility to half a mile at times. Normally when you enter Golfo Dulce, the hot air coming from the rain forest pushes the clouds away a little bit and you still have a clear view of the shore side but when the rain clouds get bounced back it does not work that way. Thus this time we did not see much shore line at all. Our travel guide tried to describe as best as he could what we should have seen but how do you describe a lush and tropical rain forest when the only thing you see is a grey dull curtain of rain?  With no alternative out there as it rained everywhere, I still had to make the call. Also because we get here the clearance for our call tomorrow in Puerto Caldera as it is the same country. A very small boat comes out, carrying a local customs officer and his whole family (he clears the ship, they eat ice cream) and they remained on board while we went around the Gulf. 3 hours later they disembarked again and we sailed slowly towards Puerto Caldera. Continue reading

 As expected and scheduled we arrived at the Breakwater of Cristobal at 05.15. In the last half hour we were called by Cristobal Signal station not to be too late and of course when we arrived we had to slow down as the Island Princess, ahead of us, was held up by a late out coming ship. Some locals call that pattern the slogan of the Panama Canal “Hurry up to go slow”. About 20 minutes late we arrived at the pilot station but that did not matter much as the locks were only going to be ready in about 2 hrs from that moment, giving ample time to go through the ritual of ships agent, clearing agent, fumigator, canal technician, first pilot, photographers going off, steaming up slowly towards the locks, panama canal crew on board, 2 more pilots on board, man with stamps on board……….., and then we were ready to move through the canal. The dark clouds remained in the distance and we moved in tandem with the Island Princess through the locks under sunny skies. The last sun we would see for the remainder of the day. The I.P. is doing one of those cruises, where you go through the Gatun locks, enter the Gatun lake, drop anchor there, tender all your guests ashore for the excursions and then at 1800 hrs go out through the locks again. During our transit we saw several sightseeing boats full of Princess guests going through the canal taking photos of the Statendam, always nice. Our Zuiderdam does something similar as well on a 10 day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale. Continue reading

It was a miserable sunrise with strong winds and heavy rain squalls. The good part was that the wind was a following wind and thus it remained nearly wind still on the decks but the rain poured down until after 10 am. Then it cleared and remained dry and even sunny for the remainder of the day. As the wind here is consistently from the North East, unless a cold front upsets the patterns, it means that the swell is from the same direction and keeps getting stronger the longer the wind blows. What is unpleasant for us was that swell was hitting us just on the sb. quarter and then you get that corkscrew motion which a stabilizer cannot really control. So while the ship was steady most of the time, occasionally it listed a bit. Still on a very slow roll and everybody saw and felt it coming. This lasted for the afternoon and then the ship finally came in the lee of Colombia sailing over the Colombian basin, 6000 feet below. By evening I am expecting some more showers and what we will get in the Panama Canal is anybody’s guess. We did receive our tentative transit times for tomorrow. I guessed right; they wanted us early and I was right on the dot with the time, 0500 at the sea buoy, 0515 in the breakwaters to meet the pilot and the boarding authorities. From there we will follow the convoy as usual. Continue reading

We made land fall around 0730 but there was very little land to see as the whole island was covered in rain showers. Rains showers before arrival are always good. They wash the salt off the decks and what falls before arrival cannot fall while you are going ashore. That worked out quite nicely as during the day we only had one bit of drizzle and for the rest sunshine only. The two other cruise ships were already docked and that left the port wide open to an unhindered approach for us. Normally the pilot comes out in a sort of workboat, called the bath tub by us, but it seems that some investments have taken place by the port authority so there is now a real pilot boat, nice and shiny that came alongside a lot easier than the contraption they used in the past.  The pilots here can work in at least three languages for piloting, Dutch, English and local and as our official shipboard language is English, all conversation took place in English although all on the bridge were completely Dutch. While the pilot was sailing the ship in on the correct courses, I concentrated on the slowing down of the ship, as we had to come to an almost complete standstill in order to make a 90o turn into the side berth. At the same time you want to keep “flow” on the rudders so the quartermaster can keep steering the pilots courses. That means that you have to slow down very gradually so the flow around the rudders also gradually gets less. That went well and with 1 knot headway we started to make the turn. Continue reading

Around midnight we rounded Cabo Maisi, the east point of Cuba and entered the Windward Passage. It takes about six hours to sail through the passage and then you emerge south of cape Tiburon in the Caribbean Sea. Cape Tiburon is the south western point of Haiti. This area is called the Jamaican Passage as it is connected to that body of water between Jamaica and Cuba. We do not get even close to Jamaica but the area is called so nonetheless. The island of  Hispaniola, made up of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, acts as a sort of windbreaker, spoiler, for the trade winds that are blowing here. Thus the moment we disappeared under the coast of Haiti, the wind died down and that remained so until an un-interrupted flow could reach us again when we cleared Hispaniola mid morning. Then we were back to our regular trade wind influence of about 20 to 25 knots. That wind will remain with us all the way to Aruba and there on the lee side it should be slightly less as Oranjestad is on the Southside of the island. It is even in the shelter of the one mountain that they have there, (the Hooiberg, or haystack) which rises a majestic 300 feet above its surroundings. I want a weak wind on arrival as I have to angle the ship into the side pier, berth F, as the main cruise terminals are taken up by the Island Princess and the Horizon of Pullmantur. Berth F, is in principle the best berth as it has the shortest walking distance into the town. Easier for the guests, just a bit more work for me. Continue reading