With high hopes in my heart I woke up this morning to see what the weather looked like outside. It was very good. Exactly conforming to the weather forecast. The sun was shining, hardly any wind and only the long running swell was still very evident. There is normally an ocean swell running here but with the constant series of depressions moving by just to the south, the swell can be very pronounced here and it was. So we moved up and down on the swell and occasionally slammed on the waves when two waves merged and created one big wave. Still the sun was shining and the whales were playing around the ship and the pitching of the ship was a minor hindrance in relation to all the good weather. I hope the weather will hold for tomorrow as well when we are in Isla Robinson Crusoe. Continue reading

We had a very heavy swell running throughout the night, causing the Prinsendam to pitch heavily. Still the weather remained good for this region and when we docked in Valparaiso it was chilly but wind still and as soon as the sun rose, it became a beautiful day. All around us the port was full of Chilean navy ships, according to the pilot almost the whole fleet was home. With the fuel prices being so high there was not so much money for playing around with these expensive toys and most ships were laid up double and triple thick on the inside of the break water. Although the port is sheltered there is a still a low swell running into the harbour as the long waves are bouncing back from the shore line further to the East. The dock has very strong fenders and thus we are gently moved along the dock all day. The ships rubbing stroke earned its money again. Continue reading

It was an approach to the port that I could dream by now as it was basically the same as in San Martin, Arica and Iquique. The only difference was that the pier was not an L shape into the sea but a rocky Peninsula with the pier on its lee side. We arrived nicely on time but were then told to wait by the pilot as he advised us that he was maneuvering. For a moment we thought that he was talking about his car but then it became clear that he meant the ship alongside the dock where we were supposed to go. It turned out that the captain of the cargo vessel was not very much in the mood to get out of bed for us, so it took a while before the ship was gone. I was docked at exactly 8 am. The official arrival time but in order to get the tours going on time, you really have to be earlier than that. The tours left 30 minutes late and that it will mean that we depart 30 minutes later this evening. A normal occurrence during a full day tour, the schedules are always tight. Continue reading

Chile is the longest and narrowest country in the world and that “longest” part we are now noticing ourselves. For the last 24 hours we have been sailing down the coast on an almost direct southerly course just outside the 12 mile zone so we can keep the casino open. Even if we did not have a casino, this would be the average distance as well, as occasionally the Chilean coast has a cape or peninsula jutting out of the coast surrounded by reefs and pinnacle rocks, so it makes sense to keep a good distance. The weather took a turn for the worse this morning by completely clouding over which dropped the average temperatures considerably. The frontal system lying over Robinson Crusoe Island is pushing these clouds further up North. Also the swells are more pronounced than yesterday and the ship has been pitching gently all day long. Continue reading

The lay out of the dock of the port of Iquique was almost identical to that of our last port Arica. Again an L shaped breakwater with a smaller pier inside but just a little bit bigger. The bad news was that there was a fishmeal processing plant on the pier where we docked. The good news was it was not in operation as they were carrying out maintenance. So although there was a distinctive smell hanging over the port it was not unbearable. Yesterday on arrival we had Sea Lions honking (that might be the wrong expression for a sea lion call but that is what it sounded like) at us on arrival and this morning we had seals frolicking around the ship when we came in. We had them again on departure and then they found the cooling water exhaust of the main engines. The out flowing water must have been enjoyable as they kept playing in it. I am all for wild life around the ship but it did make the maneuvers more difficult as you do not want to get one of these graceful animals caught in the bow thrusters. So we floated in and out of the port a little slower then I am normally used to. Continue reading

Today we were in Arica Chile. Well just inside Chile, barely inside Chile as a matter of fact, as the Peruvian border is only 11 miles to the North. That meant we still sailed along the Peruvian coast for the whole of the night until we passed the border about an hour before we picked up the Arica pilot. The port of Arica is basically nothing more than an L shaped breakwater sticking out into the sea and where the ships dock at the inside of that breakwater. Recently they have added another pier to it on the inside but only for small drafted vessels. Thus we docked at the inside of the breakwater and once again we were lucky with the weather and the swell. It was a gorgeous sunny day with temperatures in the mid seventies and with a very long ocean swell that was running under such an angle that there was no swell in the port at all. The little town of Arica is located just outside the gate and thus for those who were not going on tour there was something to do as well. Continue reading

Today we were following the coast of Peru on a South Easterly course. The continent is starting to taper off now and will eventually end at the point of Cape Horn. With going more to the East you get the time changes. We gave one hour forward last night and there will be one more the coming night. That will bring the ships time to GMT – 3 hrs. or onto local Chilean time. GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time and on that standard time the nautical world is based. In Greenwich is also the Zero meridian which divides West from East and from there we count minus hours to the West and plus hours to the East. The zero meridian was an artificial decision to sort out the world’s times issues. They could as well have chosen Amsterdam or Stockholm and for awhile the French had their own Zero meridian which of course ran over Paris. However the nautical world has settled on Greenwich and the shipping fraternity works with GMT. Continue reading

Today we were visiting one of the most peculiar ports of our cruise. Our official call was for the Pisco area to give our guests the option to visit the Nazca lines. However neither Pisco nor its little neighboring town Paracas has a harbour and thus we docked at General San Martin or Puerto San Martin at the other side of Paracas bay. Due to long ocean swells rolling in, it is not possible to tender either into Pisco or Paracas. San Martin is the only option as it offers some shelter against this swell. We were calling on a good day. The expected wind did not come through but still the ship surged against the dock; occasionally sending a shudder through the ship when the ships rubbing stroke bumped into the dock. In dry – dock we had given the hull a new blue coating but at the end of the day nothing was left and the bare steel on the rubbing stroke fully exposed. And this was a good day…………….. Continue reading

During the past night and this morning all our embarking guests made it safely to the ship then still having the chance to go ashore during this 2nd day in Callao. The weather remained the same as yesterday and that made more or less perfect sightseeing weather. The chemical tanker in front of us departed during the night and was replaced in the morning by two Chinese fishermen, who started discharging their catch. These are not small boats but floating fish processing plants with up to a 100 crew and the catch that was being off loaded was already chopped up in parts and deep frozen in the holds. While alongside the deep frozen catch was loaded into freezer containers and transported inland. I do not know where it was sent to but there are large processing plants in the Callao area so the fish might have been taken there. Continue reading

Callao is the port for Lima, Peru. The capital of Peru is just up the road but the fisherman’s place that Callao once was kept its name when the whole area rose to prominence and Callao and Lima got linked up together. As explained yesterday the whole port is under reconstruction now containerization has also taken over South America as the preferred mode of transport. The cargo sheds (Bodega’s in the Spanish language) from the old general cargo days are disappearing to be replaced by flat concrete surfaces for container stacking. As a result the old passenger dock, pier 5, is now not in use as such any more and the Prinsendam will dock at 11, which is a general cargo and bulk dock but which is made passenger friendly by adding some souvenir shops and a taxi parking. Part of it has not been completed in the area where were docking; the pillars of an old breakwater have not been removed yet and that means that I did not have the whole basin to play with. Continue reading