The Scottish ports are known to be very hospitable and Invergordon was no exception. I knew that everything would be arranged properly, even on this short notice and it was. The pilot hopped onboard at the scheduled time of 06.00 hrs. and we sailed into the fjord or estuary that gives access to the port of Invergordon. The port is quite often used as a shelter for bad weather and at one time it was the Royal British Navy favourite hi-da-way to do so when things were getting a bit too wild in Northern part of the North Sea. Now the same is done by cruise ships that are blown out of other ports. The town is also frequented by ships on normal cruise calls. Thus yesterday, the Ocean Countess was in port. When she left, she needed two heavy tugboats just to get off the dock and she is only a small ship. According to the pilot, “the wee………… bit of wind had breezed up to quite a bit of wind” and Invergordon had thus not been exempt from the strong winds completely. They had had 40 knots blowing at the pilot station for a considerable time yesterday. By the time we got to the dock, things were a lot better, but the nearly wind still weather of 8 knots that had been forecast was not in residence yet. It still blew about 20 knots from the South East. That SE wind that had been my enemy for the last few days, was now my friend as it blew the ship into the direction of the dock. By using bow and stern thruster I could easily regulate that drift and by 0800 we were safely docked. Five minutes later the gangway was out and the guests started to stream ashore. Continue reading

It is not that far to Portree; you just have to sail all the way around the West and North side of the Isle of Skye and then descend down again keeping the island on the portside. I had scheduled the ship to arrive very early in the morning, to have sufficient time available to make up my mind whether it was at all possible to call without delaying the start of the tender service if the decision was positive. The problem with Portree is, it offers a sheltered anchorage from any direction except the south east and east. At least, if you have to anchor in the outer part of the bay. If you can anchor all the way inside it is a safe haven for all wind directions at nearly all times. In the outer part it is not. So I had to know how much wind there was exactly blowing, as the mountain ranges to the East should in principle block most of it. Still there was going to be a free wind surface area of about 3 miles. Quite enough of a distance for Wind force 9 to be able to make things interesting. The holding ground in the bay is not that great and if the anchor would drag, the ship would be aground in no time, as the wind would not push it to open waters but towards the rocks inland. Thus we observed the situation and although the mountains shielded the bay from some of the worst of the wind, it was still blowing 25 knots with wind gusts expected of up to 30 knots or even more. Then Portree is not a safe place to be. By 07.30 I had made up my mind and we had to abort the call. Continue reading

I was not a very happy captain when I reviewed the weather for Oban. The wind, which was blowing force 5 to 7 in Peel, was only predicted to intensify and that might have grave consequences for the call at this port as it was an anchorage call. Also by coming to the Scottish Isles it left me we very little “plan B’s” as an alternative as there is not much there that works here with the prevailing winds. My only hope was that I could anchor close enough under the lee of the land to ensure a safe tender service. At Oban we were assigned the outer anchorage, about a 10-minute tender distance away from the dock. There is an inner anchorage but the Prinsendam is really too big for the area as the ship would not be able to swing freely around the anchor on the turning tide. Going in and drifting on the engines would be an option but then the ship would effectively block the harbour from the ferries coming and leaving. Oban is the main hub for the local ferries to the outlying islands and the ferries come and go about every two hours. Sitting with the ship right in the way, would certainly have raised the Harbourmaster’s blood pressure and that is something one has to avoid at all times. So off we went and hoped for the best. Continue reading

Dear All,

just a quick note to all readers, as you can see I have not been posting for the 6th of september the Oban which call we made on the 7th. However I write the blog the morning after and on the 7th. I had to cancel Portree due to inclement weather. We continued to have bad weather while sailing around the North of Scotland.

I will come back to you as soon as the cruise returns to normal (weather) to finish the last days of this cruise ,blogs and my time on board.

My apologies

Captain Albert

We made or next “zag” across the Irish Sea and arrived at 0700 at the anchorage of Peel. It was very windy but as the wind was from the South West, it could not whip up any waves and thus we could make our call. As the wind was very blustery and sometimes gusted up to wind force 8, I spent most of my day on the bridge. When the yawning of the anchor became too much we had to reposition again and lower the other anchor to reduce the ships movement. This works most of the time very well as the 2nd anchor puts “the brake” on the movement of the ship before momentum can be gathered. Normally the ship lies behind its anchor and when there is a lot of wind, the ship starts moving behind the anchor as a sort of pendulum. We call that yawning. The 2nd anchor acts like your finger would when you would stop a clock’s pendulum from swinging. The danger is if there is a very strong wind gust and the main anchor starts dragging, that it gets fouled up with the 2nd anchor. Then you are in deep trouble as you cannot easily un-twist two heavy anchor chains entwined with two 6 tons anchors hanging on it. Thus it is something that has to be done carefully and then be closely watched. That meant: captain on the bridge from the time that we approached the anchorage until the safe return to open waters. Continue reading

Last night we did our next “zig” back across the Irish Sea towards Belfast in Northern Island. Located at the North Eastern tip of the island it is the part of Ireland that stayed with the United Kingdom. For years there were the “troubles” which had as one of the side effects that no cruise ships were calling there. Since peace has returned to the area, the cruise ships have returned as well and Belfast is now a regular port on the cruise agenda of the Prinsendam. Together with Dublin we visit the port every year once. Although the high pressure system over the UK is slowly moving away, it still had enough power to ensure that we had a very quiet, if rainy day. Wind still on arrival and wind still on departure. Sunshine on arrival followed by overcast and then rain in the afternoon. Also we docked at another pier than usual. Although Belfast does not have a dedicated cruise terminal, yet, we normally dock at a re developed cargo pier called Stormont pier. However as this pier had already been occupied by containerships on a regular schedule, we were relocated to the other side of the harbour. Continue reading

I had a few reservations about Holyhead, located in the county of Anglesey North Wales. It is basically known in England as a ferry port and industrial area. Thus not the most obvious port of call for a cruise ship. Plus the fact that we had to dock at an Aluminum Ore loading pier, did not improve my feelings one bit. However the dock looked safe to me and thus we arrived at the pilot station just before 7 am. The sun was shining brightly with a gentle breeze playing around the ship. It was going to be a gorgeous day. Just after 8 am we had the shore gangway in and our guests started to stream ashore. The tours were very well booked which is not surprising as the North Welsh country side is very beautiful. For those not on tour the town had laid on shuttle buses which was a very much needed item as it took a bus nearly 20 minutes just to get out of the port area and into the town. Continue reading

This was the first crossing of the Irish Sea, as there are some more to follow. During the coming days we basically zig-zag from one side to the other several times. I have never seen the Irish Sea so gentle as today. Just a slight ripple indicated that it was not an enclosed pond but an open water area connected to the North Atlantic Ocean. These circumstances normally call for fog but as the temperatures are fairy low, visibility was excellent. Thus we could see the green undulating landscape of South Ireland moving by on the port side while sailing up the East coast to our next port of call Dublin. The capital of Ireland is located about halfway up the Island and that means we cannot make it during an overnight sailing (as we could do with Cobh or Cork) but we need just a little bit more time and thus we were scheduled for a noon time arrival. To compensate for this we stayed until midnight. Continue reading

As approved by the local authorities I aimed for the pilot station at 06.45, which was going to be the earliest time that there was enough water in the port to enter. The pilot came out early, stepped onboard before 06.30 and then started a serious of complicated calculations which resulted in the announcement that we could not approach the dock until 07.30. Not good news for a captain who likes to be on time; but not much that I could do about it as the port depths do vary from the chart. Thus I could not say whether my calculations which coincided with 06.45 were correct. So I made a 360o turn to kill some time and then slowly steamed into the port area. The main issue was that there would not be enough water near the dock where I was supposed to swing around in order to dock starboard side alongside. So I said: why not dock portside alongside and swing on departure. That really stirred things up as it turned out that they had prepared a shore gangway for the ship which could not be moved. Last call we had to use our own gangway, as the shore side contraption was not fit for the ship but now they had converted a very good dry dock gangway. They just had forgotten to tell me about it in advance. Continue reading

As this is the Celtic kingdom cruise, we also visit France as in the grey mists of time, there seems to have been Celts milling around there as well. Hence the area around Brest being called Brittany and we still have Great Britain of course; all related to each other in some way or the other. Brest is located inside a large and deep natural fjord and thus a perfect area for a big port. It is also one of the major navy ports of France. There is a regular navy port area and a separate submarine base. In the far end of the fjord there is the commercial port and a very large commercial ship repair yard. In the 1970’s when everybody experimented with enormous oil tankers a number of the worlds largest were built in France. Names as Batillus and Pierre Guimot (not so sure of the correct spelling) have found their place in tanker history. For those ships a special dry – dock was dug in this repair yard and this was the place where we were scheduled to dock. Brest does not have a dedicated cruise terminal yet. The wise men on the City council of Brest only want to consider funding if there are more than 50 cruise calls a year and thus far they manage about 13. Continue reading