For most guests the two day call at St. Petersburg is the highlight of the cruise. I think mainly because Russia and all that goes with it, still gives a sort of mysterious feeling of entering an unknown and alien world. Which is not far beside reality as the Russian mind does think very different from a western one. That in combination with a mind boggling bureaucracy makes it for all of us a very interesting place to visit. The approach is through a 25 mile long channel which is so narrow and shallow that we have to maintain a slow speed to avoid the ship from digging in and suffering from squat. Then, when passing Kronstadt the old navy base, we have to reduce even more speed to avoid wake damage. At Kronstadt the sea barrier is almost finished so we are sailing through its opening just before we pass the island itself. From there it is another hour of narrow channels before we approach the dock. For docking there are two options, either you are directed to the new cruise terminal or you dock in the old cargo port. The exception is when you are small cruise ship, then you can continue upriver on the Neva and dock in downtown at the Lieutenant Smith embankment. Continue reading

Avoiding congestion we arrived nice and early at the pilot station. To make things easier for the pilot we came in through the Northerly approach, although ships coming from the West normally use the southerly entrance. An entrance which answers to the Grand name of Suurupi 3 Pilot station. The one we used is just called North Tallinn. I think that was an unexpected variation on the regular proceedings as the Jewel of the Seas coming from St. Petersburg was clearly startled by it. The fact that the Prinsendam was sitting at the pilot station at the same time as them did not go down very well. However it is the pilot organisation that decides in which sequence the ships are being serviced and thus they had to wait until the pilot boat had delivered a pilot to the Prinsendam first. Not that it mattered very much; as the Jewel of the Seas was going to the cruise pier, which is outside the old port and thus could dock much quicker than us. For the cruise pier it is basically putting the brakes on in time and the gangway out, while for the old port you normally swing around and back into the port. Continue reading

It seems that the nice weather is here with us to stay. Again the sun brightly shone all day long and with a flowing wind, a wind matching the ships speed, it was a very pleasant day at sea and certainly very pleasant to be on the outside decks. The first part of our route is following the busiest part of the shipping lanes here in the Mid Baltic and thus there were many ships to be seen. The route went from Warnemunde directly North North East and by 5 am we passed the island of Bornholm on our starboard side. That was followed by the Island of Gotland on our portside in the early afternoon. By that time the traffic started to get less; as here you have lost by now all the traffic going to Sweden and West Finland. As soon as you are past Gotland more and more ships were moving away from the main lane and by late evening we only had the traffic left for the East Baltic countries such as Estonia and Russia itself. Continue reading

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. Continue reading

Another day in (Danish) paradise. Today it was nearly windstill and the temperatures crept up to the very high 70’s. No other cruise ship came in and thus the guests had the whole city to themselves. It made me wonder therefore, why the harbormaster had parked us all the way forward at the Lange Linje instead of all the way down where we normally are. That part has a few little shops as well; carved out in the stone walls of the upper pier level. However such are the vagaries of life. At least the Chief Officer was a happy camper with a rented cherry picker for two days. He could paint the whole portside during this stay. So we are finally catching up with the aftermath of the dry – dock in last January and all the ports in South America and the Mediterranean where outside maintenance is simply prohibited. Continue reading

From our last point of “mayhem” last night it was a quiet run through the Kattegat. That body of water where Sweden and Denmark are starting to come closer and closer. Here the traffic routes ensure that nearly all the traffic is following the same pattern and that makes navigating easy. I had planned to be passing “Hamlets” castle around 9 am, and then to be at the pilot station at 10.30, followed by a docking at 11.30 with the official arrival scheduled for noon time. Thus we were nicely on time and shortly after 9am we rounded the land tongue on which the castle stands. The best time to come by here is in the morning as the sun shines on it from the East. In the afternoon it is often caught in a glare when the sun is setting behind it. It is of course not Hamlet’s castle, but a later version on the same location, but it is very pretty to look at and the Shakespeare link makes for a good story. Continue reading

The weather forecast was partly right. It was a nice day but the predicted poor visibility due to low hanging haze, never materialized. A good thing as well, as the whole day we had to dodge traffic. Especially the fishing boats were a curse. I think there is a Fish quota opening going on at the moment as they were all over the place and most fish seemed to be exactly there were all the ships were sailing. That meant that we had to dodge them on a regular basis and that brought us then on a collision course again with other traffic. That danger corrected and, yes, there was the next fishing boat. After a while our course track in the chart looked like a drunken sailor on a late Friday night. Still we kept going in the general direction of Copenhagen and that was the aim anyway. At least it kept us all on our toes. Continue reading

There was a spot of bad weather somewhere over the United States and that got our Air/Sea ticketing department all excited. Even to such an extent that they were asking me if I could delay the departure time, if necessary. That decision involves looking at a large number of things. The most important ones: One; How long can I stay and still make the next port on time, while running a safe speed all the time? I have to cross the North Sea and there are areas where the traffic is so dense that racing through them at full sea speed it is not always good seamanship. Two: How will this affect my fuel consumption, in relation to the number of people affected? It does not make much sense to spend $20,000 extra on fuel if one or two guests have to be flown to the next port and it would cost only $ 500. Three: Are these people flying on HAL tickets or are they on own arrangements? E.G lays the responsibility of a timely arrival at the ship with themselves or with the company. Four: even if they land on time, will they make it quickly to the ship? Traffic Jams could delay their arrival by yet another hour. Five: If I delay the ship and I would not make the next port on time, would this be fair to the guests already onboard? This is a consideration that comes into play when we are talking higher numbers. Normally if the next port call can be extended then is not such a big issue but if it can’t then it takes a good bit of consideration. Continue reading

After a good nights sleep, and an undisturbed nights sleep on top of that; I woke up to a beautiful wind still morning. For once I was the one who could stay in bed while others, who normally have a regular working day, had to get up in the middle of the night. As today was change over day, housekeeping started collecting luggage at 10.30 pm last night. This lasted until well into the early morning when the last guests had finally put out their suitcases. Everything was directly off loaded and stored in a secure area in the terminal, ready for when the guests would start to disembark. For some guests that was really early, due to the fact that you now have to be at the airport at least two hours before the flight and from the ship it is also a 45 minute ride to the airport as well. Continue reading

The approach to the estuary of the river Thames is something that would give a computer a headache. Ships are coming and going to and from every direction and they all descend on a little area called NE Spit pilot station, to either embark or disembark the pilot. Then there are numerous ships, such as regular ferries and ro-ro boats who have pilot dispensation and come racing by without having to stop at all. That makes the approach an interesting puzzle and one that needs concentration and focus on collision avoidance. Hence I am normally on the bridge before we enter this area to give a helping hand to the navigator or to take over when it becomes particularly hair raising. (The latter I tried to avoid at all cost, as I do not have that much hair left to start with) Continue reading