Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

The sea was as flat as a mirror when we approached the harbour entrance and it became a clear and dry day. Although the harbour basin is quite big, the authorities had decided that we should be parked at the East dock and that gave not that much room to swing the ship into the berth. But as the East dock is also the Eastern breakwater it was at least close to the entrance of the harbour and that saved timed. On advice of the pilot we docked stern in, as there was the expectation of wind in the afternoon and if you are then docked nose out it is all a bit easier. The East dock was just a short walk away from the boulevard and large enough to have buses and taxi’s come to the gangway. There was even a little sightseeing train that offered an hour tour of the city for 5 euro’s, so not bad at all.

Today one of my daily chores was a little bit more unusual. Welcoming new crew onboard the ship. Each new cruise, a number of the crew go on vacation and are replaced by new crew. However there is a difference between new crew and new, new crew.

With new, new crew we are talking about all of those who are either brand new to sailing or brand new to Holland America. As the ships culture is considerably different to shore side life, the company makes an extra effort to have these new members of the Club Prinsendam feel themselves at home as quickly as possible. They get a little welcome present and when they board there is a “buddy” waiting who takes the new one around and makes sure he/she knows how to get a good start in their new life. To make this welcome to a new world a bit more festive, we throw a welcome on board luncheon for all of them. Here they meet their, also new, fellow crew members and also the ships staff. This is normally done once a month when we have a sufficient number to make it a nice occasion.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

During the night the wind got less and less and by the time we approached the pilot station it was calm. The swells were still running but as the port is inside a shallow bay, the swell is stopped by a long breakwater and inside it was as flat as a mirror. The weather forecast for the day was uncertain but in the end it was bright with sunshine all day. The approach to the harbour is very peculiar as the green buoys on the right hand side are located well inside the reefs and the reef buoys on the port side when going in, are over in the fairway. So if you would hug the green buoys when going in, what you normally do, then you would be aground almost at once. So when going in and when going out you have to favor the red side of the channel. That means that Port Control keeps an eagle eye on all the ships going through the channel as you do not want to create collisions with this peculiar setup.

Staying on the red side makes sense as the turn into the harbour basin is almost 90 degrees, so the wider the turn you can make, the easier it is. The piers are named after Spanish Royalty and so we had the Princessa Sophia pier and the Alfonso XIII to name but two. We were docking at the latter one and it is almost the closest berth to the town. Almost; as we had to leave some dock space for a local ferry that was arriving later in the day. The beginning of the pier is a container terminal but when there are more cruise ships scheduled for the day, they delay the cargo traffic to accommodate the cruise ships. We were however the only one and thus there was not much of an issue about where were going to dock and about taking a berth away from a cargo ship.

Apart from being a cruise and container port, Cadiz is also very important as a ferry port with daily departures to the Canary Islands. During the winter time it is mainly cargo traffic that is being ferried over but during the summer time the ferries are full every day with tourists. Especially Tenerife gets a lot of car traffic in the form of SUV’s and Campers from the Northern parts of Europe. At the moment the season has not started yet and so we only saw lorries with containers driving on (Roll-on) and driving off (Roll –off)

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

Well the wind did not die off and the frontal system did not diffuse or move away. Instead the flow around Cabot San Vincent only got stronger and whipped up a nice South Westerly swell. What made things worse was that the wind shifted about 2 points more to the South and was thus running in line with the approach course to Portimao. Approaching with the swell in the stern is never pleasant because when you start slowing down the swells tend to overtake the ship and then it feels as if you get a kick in the……. every few minutes when a wave hits the underside of the stern. However it turned out that that was the least of my troubles.

With a wind force 6 blowing we approached the pilot station with an excited pilot on the VHF telling us not to come closer than 2 miles. He was coming out with the pilot boat and he did not have a very comfortable ride as the pilot boat was small and the waves, still building up, were large. I had to put the Prinsendam almost perpendicular on the wind and waves to make a good lee for his boat to come alongside and for him to step on board. By looking at the waves crashing into the breakwater I was already becoming convinced that sailing into port was not going to be a wise thing to do and the pilot quickly confirmed that. The strong wind was blowing straight into the port making it nearly impossible with a high ship as the Prinsendam to stay in the narrow channel. To make matters worse, the swell running into the harbour entrance reduced the depth at entrance by two meters every time a trough was coming through. The minimum depth there was 8 meters, minus 2 meters swell is six and our draft is 7, so we were at least a meter short with every wave trough rolling in. To top things off, there is a river flowing through the port and due to the hard rains yesterday this produced a strong flow through the entrance channel. Our pilot was not a happy chappy when he had to announce that according to him it was not a good idea to go in. (Also the shop keepers normally do not like it when pilots advise cancellations.)

I did not think it was a good idea either and thus we aborted the approach. As the weather was not going to improve until well into the afternoon, it did not have any use to hang around with the ship, so I disembarked the pilot and turned away from the port. After a port cancellation my first thoughts always are; is there something else I can offer the guests. Sometimes there is another port nearby, or you can arrive earlier in the next port if the schedule allows it but in this case it was not easy. Cadiz berth had been booked for tomorrow and a container ship was currently docked there. There is no other port near Portimao that could have taken the Prinsendam. Portimao is the biggest port in the area and even that is a tight squeeze for the Prinsendam.

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