Just by looking at the chart we knew that this was going to be a peculiar place. No doubt a nice place but a peculiar place. The harbour entrance forms the border between France and Spain. Where the harbour entrance becomes a small estuary flanked by two breakwaters, the borders veer away from each other. Thus we have Spain to the West and France to the East. In the middle is an area of about a mile by a mile which they call the neutral zone. This zone does not belong to anybody but both countries exercise control over it and it seems to work, except when cruise ships come to visit. Continue reading
Author: Captain Albert (page 192 of 238)
Good morning,
Seattle Office managed the transfer from all my historical stuff from Avid Cruiser to under the Captain Albert blog. So there is now a link button on the Hal blog side that leads to what used to be the same setup under Avid Cruiser.
Thank you all for your patience, and I will start uploading the past days shortly.
Captain Albert
As I announced in December; the plan was for me to leave the Avid Cruiser website and go completely in house with Holland America Line.
There were some technical difficulties with getting all the historical pages over, which you can view on the right hand side of my main blog page.
However during this weekend the Holland America blog people will move everything over to the HAL Blog site. So by Monday USA – Pacific morning time I should be fully operational from within the HAL site.
While the transfer takes place I will not be able to upload any blogs. This means that I will upload the 13, 14 and 15 of June blog on the 16th. I do not know yet if the www.Captainalbert.com link will still work after monday but I hope so.
In the mean time I would like to ask all my readers to look for my blog on the HAL website from Monday onwards, where it should look and function in the same way as you are currently used to.
Thank you for your continued interest.
Captain Albert.
Today a relaxing sea day. We are sailing along the Portuguese and Spanish coast towards our next port of call Hendaye, in France. This morning at 08.30 we passed Cape Finisterre and changed course to the East as we came North of Spain. The weather changed noticeably the moment we came around this Cape. Here currents come together and also the weather gets more under the influence of the North Atlantic. Thus, although the sun was shining, it was quite cool outside. However as there was no wind, it was a very pleasant day. While the guests had a nice relaxing day, this was of my busiest days as far as non navigational activities were concerned. Continue reading
I was raving about the weather yesterday but Lisbon decided to go one better and the sailing up the river was fantastic. We had a heavy swell running over the bar at the entrance of the river which made the ship pitch considerably for a short while but that was the only thing to mar a prefect arrival. There was a long ocean swell running from the N.E generated by some nasty and windy weather on the North Atlantic but in Lisbon it was wind still and sunny. Thus we happily trundled up the river while the sun rose over the city. While the sun rose we were treated to an un-expected spectacle, a green flash during sun rise. We see the green flash quite often during sunset in open waters, but this was the first time that we had one while entering port and over land and in the morning. Continue reading
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
While Northern Europe had strong winds with tornado watches and torrential rains with flood alerts, we had “to cope” with flat calm sea’s and sunny skies. So with that happy thought on our mind we approached the pilot station early in the morning as we had to be docked by 7 am. From the pilot to the dock normally takes about 35 minutes but docking took longer this time as we had been assigned another berth. Behind us was the Adventure of the Seas who with 340 meters of length was given our normal dock as it was much longer.
We had to dock at the cross dock, which is about 250 meters long. The Prinsendam being 204 meters means that I have plenty of space; it just takes some time to “angle” the ship in towards this cross dock. Thus we were at the pilot station earlier than otherwise would have been the case. As I had been up from 1 am until 3 am for passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, I had had a short night but a beautiful arrival into Cadiz made up for it. Cadiz is facing to the East at the end of a curved estuary and when the sun rises, the reddish/golden glow tends to paint the white buildings of the city in a sort of soft pink. Very pretty, when you happen to be awake to see it. The port was virtually empty apart from a ferry boat running on the Cadiz to Tenerife service. This ferry boat had been bumped from the cross berth to make space for us, in the same way as we had been bumped by the Adventure of the Seas.
While Northern Europe had strong winds with tornado watches and torrential rains with flood alerts, we had “to cope” with flat calm sea’s and sunny skies. So with that happy thought on our mind we approached the pilot station early in the morning as we had to be docked by 7 am. From the pilot to the dock normally takes about 35 minutes but docking took longer this time as we had been assigned another berth. Behind us was the Adventure of the Seas who with 340 meters of length was given our normal dock as it was much longer. Continue reading
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
As expected it was a beautiful day at sea while we sailed around the south side of Spain from Barcelona to Cadiz. This stretch of water is called the Alboran Sea after a small island that is located slap bang in the middle of it. As soon as we were out of Barcelona we “moved with the flow”; all the traffic going in the direction of Gibraltar is basically on the same track line and creates a sort of highway at sea. In the same way as you have a motorway on land, with the difference that there is no restriction in leaving, crossing or sitting still on a sea highway. Traffic going to the harbors in the Northern part of Spain, the Southern part of France and the Northern part of Italy are in the other lane a bit more to the south. On the radar you see 20 to 30 ships nicely separated by an invisible line going one way or the other.
As expected it was a beautiful day at sea while we sailed around the south side of Spain from Barcelona to Cadiz. This stretch of water is called the Alboran Sea after a small island that is located slap bang in the middle of it. As soon as we were out of Barcelona we “moved with the flow”; all the traffic going in the direction of Gibraltar is basically on the same track line and creates a sort of highway at sea. In the same way as you have a motorway on land, with the difference that there is no restriction in leaving, crossing or sitting still on a sea highway. Traffic going to the harbors in the Northern part of Spain, the Southern part of France and the Northern part of Italy are in the other lane a bit more to the south. On the radar you see 20 to 30 ships nicely separated by an invisible line going one way or the other. Continue reading
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
In the past we had to travel through a bridge to get to our dock at the World Trade Centre. I assume because everybody got fed up with having to wait for this bridge being open all the time, they decided to give the older port area its own entrance. When the new port area was under developed it did not matter that much as hardly anybody had to go over the bridge but when the cruises ships started to dock there, the waiting times became very inconvenient. Now the ferries and the smaller cruise ships, plus the fishery traffic and the traffic for the dry docks have their own entrance, relieving the pressure on the bridge considerably.
Captain Albert
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