After our delay we breezed through the Narrows just after 3 am. and soon I had the Veendam flying through Johnstone Strait. As there was no other traffic of concern we could keep up the speed and quite quickly started to gain the lost time back. However dark clouds were gathering at the horizon. It is early in the season and the North Pacific is still producing low pressure systems and during the previous night a very low one moved towards the Alaskan Coast.

The weather radio started to squack and squeek about gale and storm warnings and I knew I was going to be in for a good bit of fun. The afternoon and evening part of this stretch of the voyage takes us through the North Pacific Ocean for about 10 hours. That route ensures that we can make Juneau on time in case the Seymour Narrows tide is earlier than average and we cannot make the tide, as happened last night. The weather reports were soon talking about storm force winds up to 50 knots and swells building up to 18 feet off shore. Not a pleasant place to be with a ship full of guests who do not have their sea legs yet. Plus that such a high swell slows the ship down considerably, as the bow starts to slam on the waves. At full speed you loose up to 6 knots and if you slow down for a more comfortable ride, you loose that speed as well.

I was just doing well in making up the lost time from last night and here was the next challenge: a very bouncy ride towards Juneau. There was one alternative available that I could take and did. Going the other way; more inside and sheltered from the ocean but it is a longer route. However if the situation is that you are going to be late due to the swell anyway and with a ship full of sick people or that you are maybe going to be late but with a ship full of “happy campers” then the decision it not that difficult. The ships agent managed to contact the pilots on time before they flew to Kake and they will now board at midnight near Ketchikan. From there we will sail through Clarence Strait and Snow Passage, the normal route between Glacier Bay/Juneau to Ketchikan the Southbound way.

In the course of the day the wind started to abate and the passage through Queen Charlotte Sound was quite pleasant with the ship just moving a little bit. The navigators were on high alert with extra lookouts posted as there were a lot of whales around. Around 7 pm. we saw a shoal of around 50 at the same time. As whales do their own thing, uninterested in any surface traffic, we change course away from them as much as we can but everybody has to keep a sharp look out to catch their location on time.

The second night on board is formal night, during which we hold the Captain’s welcome Champagne toast, which is the replacement of the old Captain’s ships staff introduction. Tonight I had something special with honoring an employee who had spent 35 years with the company. So instead of the Employee of the Month we put him in the spot light. Mr. Prijotomo joined Holland America in 1973 with the second group of Indonesians who came to the company. He started out as a GPA cooks mate and through the years worked himself up to Assistant Dining room Manager. He has been sailing now on the Veendam for the last seven years. I think it is important to give as much exposure as possible to such a milestone and therefore I like to do the presentation of the company gift during the welcome on board party as it has the biggest audience of any gathering on board.

Mr. “Tommy” Prijotomo asst. dining room manager receives the company clock and congratulatory letter from the President of the company for his 35 years of dedicated service to the company.
On the photo
HM. Kees Streuding, CE, Gerard Mensink, Captain Albert J. Schoonderbeek, CO Marcel van Zwol, Mr. Tommy Prijotomo, EO Joe Parks, Future Cruise Consultant Leslie Hockett, Cruise director Chris Butcher and Bell Boy Mr. Ronni Rohmawan carrying the 35 year clock

In the late evening the wind started to pick up again but is was a following wind. It smoothed out the waves a bit and it also meant an additional push to the ships speed. I am keeping my fingers crossed but at the moment it looks like there is not going to be too much of a delay in arriving. Most important of course is that the guests can enjoy a pleasant evening and a good rest on a stable ship.

We had a bit of consternation on arrival. The sudden appearance of the Golden Princess in the schedule did not much good for our preplanning. During the first call the plans had been made up for the season, with where to dock and how to have the optimum guest flow through the terminal and now suddenly we had to shift docks. For the whole season the Veendam was supposed to dock at Canada Place West and the Norwegian Sun at Canada Place East, leaving the north berth empty. Now the golden Princess, which is one of the shopping trolley class, was assigned the East berth for one call and the Norwegian Sun moved to the West berth. Thus the Veendam ended up at the North berth.

It does not look much of a change but while you dock starboard alongside at the West berth for an optimum traffic flow, it is portside alongside at the North berth. That means that on board the luggage preparation, the off loading of recyclables and the planned loading of provisions has to be turned around 180o. Not a big problem but it needs some reorganizing. It took our Bo ‘sun most of the day to get it all lined up as he is with the sailors in charge of aligning the luggage bins in the Marshalling area, so that the off loading takes place in the proper sequence.

Today was a beautiful day which hopefully lifted everybody’s spirit a bit as the terminal was a place of stress for a lot of people. In total 6,300 guests had to go off the ships and back on again. That meant long lines for cabs for going home and even longer lines for guests waiting to go through American passport control before boarding. As the Alaskan ports do not have the facilities to process larger number of persons entering the country, the American entry requirements by Customs and Border Protection are done in Canada in the cruise terminal. Not a perfect way to start a cruise, standing in line but at least it does not take any time away from going ashore in the first Alaskan port.

I was in a hurry again as the Seymour Narrows tide was early. In the coming weeks it will be later but this time I would be able to just make it if I was able to pull out early. We did pull away from the dock early but not as early as I had hoped for as at the last moment two vans with luggage arrived. So instead of gaining an hour I only gained 30 minutes and I could only hope that it was sufficient. Also the fact that I was now docked portside alongside, did not help, as it meant loosing another 15 minutes by having to back away from the dock and having to turn in the harbor. However by 1700 we sailed under the Lions Gate Bridge, going full out with hopes in our hearts.

Schedule wise we did make it because traffic started to interfere. We are of course not the only ship that goes for slack tide. There are also tugboats with barges heading North and similar traffic coming South. The big problem this time was a log tow that went through at exact slack tide and was taking a long long time. So we had to slow down and that meant by the time we would be in Seymour Narrows the current would have picked up to over 5 knots and that is a no no. The chance to be caught by such a current, that was also rapidly building up to 8 knots, is too great a risk going through. The Passage is not that wide and we go through with a maneuvering speed of about 12 knots. 5 knots of current gives then a side ways set of nearly 40% when making the turn and that is too close for comfort. So we had to abort and wait for 3 hours before the current had reduced its self again sufficiently to go through. That means that tomorrow morning I will have to go full out with the Veendam to catch up. A little comfort was that next to our ship, two tug-and-tows were in the same predicament and their skippers vented their flustration loudly over the VHF. With their slow speed they had hoped to sail North on a following tide and now it was going be the other way around.

This is the last day of the cruise and once again, as with going Northbound, everything was focused on the slack tide, the passage time, of Seymour Narrows. For today the early tide was around 21.00 and that was what I aimed for. It also meant that I could do a little bit of sightseeing was well as I did not have to sail too fast.

At the far north end of Vancouver Island there is the option to divert to Comorant Island via Pulteney point. It is the more scenic route with several villages on either side of the water. After passing Pulteney Point lighthouse you can see on the North side the village of Sointula. This is a predominantly Finnish settlement from the late 19th century. I found out about this in the 1980’s when we had to do a Medivac and it was arranged to land there and have the patient transported by ambulance via the local ferry to Vancouver Island. A cruise ship tender coming into Sointula was of course not a daily occurrence and thus most of the town was present to observe the proceedings. Great was my amazement when I docked the tender that there were a lot of blond haired, blue eyed girls standing at the tender dock. So while the medical department fussed over the patient and the ambulance I had the chance to find out how these girls ended up here. My Finnish was never that good, but then, they did not speak Dutch either. But as the only Dutchman ashore I was a major focus point of all those blue eyes and I was not in a hurry at all to return to the ship. Unfortunately the captain was in a hurry so it was a very short visit.

Next scenic point is Hadington Island on the starboard side. This is a small round island that acts as a sort of round-about for shipping traffic, separating North and South bound traffic. The island was for sale a number of years ago and the latest I heard is that a mining company wants to re-open the quarry on the island. It supplied the stones for the BC parliament building in Victoria but was later closed.

Next is Alert bay and the reason that I diverted the Veendam. Alert Bay features the highest totem pole in the world and it is clearly visible from the ship. Secondly it has a Common with a whole collection of smaller totem poles. Some of these poles were collected from other area’s to protect them against souvenir hunters but some are new, and at least two have been erected in the last 5 years. We sail by here on slow speed so the guests can have a good look and to stop the ships wake from hitting the shore line at the town. While we sail this passage our Cruise Tour Specialist (formerly the Naturalist) gives a running commentary about what is out there.

The sun was shining and that meant that it was beautiful scenic cruising all the way through Johnstone Strait to Seymour Narrows. By 9 pm. we where in the middle of it while the sun was setting, so all the guests could see the narrowest passage of our whole trip. A nice treat as normally we sail through here in the dark in order to keep the schedule by taking the earliest slack tide after leaving Vancouver. Just past Seymour Narrows is the village of Campbell River with a big pulp mill on the edge of the town.

By 21.30 we were in the Strait of Georgia going slow speed to aim for a timely arrival in Vancouver. The pilot and officers on the bridge will be looking all night long at the Celebrity Infinity just ahead. Because of the arrival sequence in Vancouver she will go in first, so we stayed behind her for the whole night. Always nice to have somebody show us where to go. The weather for Vancouver looks good and thus it will be a good ending of a very nice cruise.

After the spectacle of Glacier Bay yesterday, Ketchikan could only offer less excitement. However we still had every reason to be happy. It did not rain. It rains in Ketchikan about 332 days of the year and thus the chance that it does not rain is very small. Even if a dry day is predicted there is most of the time a little drizzle somewhere during the day. But today it was dry. Chilly, but dry. It is turning out to be a very good first cruise of the season.

The route between Glacier Bay and Ketchikan goes through Chatham Strait and then dips briefly into the Pacific Ocean near Cape Decision. Here we could feel the Ocean swell for a little while before we were back inside again, sailing through Sumner Strait. At the end of Sumner Strait is Snow Passage, a narrow passage between Bushy Island and the much larger Zarembo Island. You can avoid Snow Passage by sailing around Zarembo Island but it is an hour longer, so we go through the passage.

Snow Passage is not named after snow, although there was still plenty around after last winter, but after Commander Snow of the English Navy, who wanted to be remembered for posterity, so this passage was named after him. Due to the current I have to be on the bridge as the current might push the ship off the track and if the pilot then makes a mistake we end up on the rocks. Thus I watch carefully what the pilot is doing with his course changes, ready to take over in case I do not like it. That has not happened yet in my career as a captain but in accordance with Murphy’s Law it will happen the one time that I do not expect it to happen.

After Snow Passage it is a straight shot for Ketchikan which is located in the middle of Tongass Narrows. Tongass Narrows is also a fairly narrow stretch of water and here again it is standby time for me. Not because of the current but because of the no-wake zones. Slow downs with the ships speed are required to avoid damage to properties and tied up boats along the shore line. The approach to the dock is fairly straight forward although a bit tricky due to the wind and the current. The trick is here to find a balance between the influence of the wind and the current and then let the ship float towards the dock and only correct the ships angle in relation to the dock In the past winter Ketchikan has spruced up its docks and is on the verge of completing a new one. That means room for another mega liner to park.

The Veendam docked in downtown at berth 2, which is as close to downtown as it gets. We will have this berth for the whole season, although on our southbound trips we will have to wait until the Amsterdam departs at 13.00 hrs. We are scheduled for at 14.00 hrs arrival so that should work. We had the same situation in 2006 and then we got it down to such a fine art that the Veendam slowed down with the same speed as the Amsterdam sped up. It looked two cars given each other a parking space, only in this case with lengths of over 700 feet. Sometimes it is really fun to play with ships.

We had large tide today, so the gangway had to be shifted a few times and platforms put under and removed. It basically means that all afternoon a forklift was on standby to be called as soon as the gangway was getting to steep, due to the tide coming in, and when the break door threshold was almost going under pier level due to the tide going out.

I spent most of the afternoon inspecting the new dock to see if there were any peculiarities incase I would have to dock there in the future. But the newest dock, which has been privately built by our ships agent, has been designed by people who understand cruise ships and their constant tussle with gangways and therefore it will do its job very well.

We pulled out from Ketchikan right on time and sailed East through the second part of Tongass Narrows, heading South for Canada. The weather looks good for tomorrow and if we make good speed we will go sightseeing.

The morning was bright and clear and it looked like a great day for glacier viewing. We sailed into the bay around 06.30 to be off Bartlett Cove at 07.00 hrs. This is the ranger station and the Rangers come out with their boat and board the ship via the pilot ladder. Apart from two Rangers we also had two members of the local Indian tribe and a bird watcher coming on board. For the rest they loaded a whole pile of luggage on board, consisting of books, DVD’s and other items for sale to the guests. The same boat comes back at 16.00 hrs, to collect the Rangers when we return to the mouth of the Bay.

Even before heading up the bay, I saw that this was going to be a very special day. The snow reached all the way down to the water line. They have had a very severe winter in Alaska with a lot more snow than normal and that snow was still there. I have now been coming to Alaska to 26 years and have seen a lot of beautiful days but never that the snow was still covering everything all the way down to the tide water line. It looked magnificent. With the Rangers safely on board we headed up the bay to cover a distance of about 50 miles to get to the glaciers. The first part went rather slow as we had about five miles of current going against us in the narrow passage abeam of Strawberry Island, but when the bay widened we made good speed. The Veendam was the first ship of the season to go up to Glacier Bay and thus also for the Rangers who were very eager to see what had changed during the winter months.

Overview of Glacier Bay. Courtesy -from somewhere on the Web-

The Rangers provide a full program in Glacier Bay and all regular ships activities are suspended during that period. It starts upon boarding with a meet and greet with the captain when the program for the day is discussed as the Ranger bridge narration is run in sync with my schedule of going up and down the bay. For the guests it starts with a “Meet the Ranger” chat in the crows nest which is also their home base for selling merchandise and answering guest’s questions. During the day we have one ranger on the bridge for the narration and one in the ship for Q&A.

While we are sailing up the bay, there is a presentation by the members of Huna tribe about how their ancestors lived in and near Glacier Bay and there is a get together with the children on board as part of the Club Hal program. The narration on the outside decks starts around 09.30 when the ship reaches the upper bay, near Russell Island. Quite often we see mountain goats here and there are always the chance of bears. Here we start to slow the ship down as the first bits of floating ice tend to show up. These pieces of ice, really too small to be called icebergs, come down from the Glaciers and melt while floating down the bay. Near Russell Island most of it is melted away.

Also this is where the bay splits into two parts, Tarr Inlet and John Hopkins Inlet. We go to the right first to visit Tarr inlet with the Marjorie and Grand Pacific Glacier. We floated in front of Majorie Glacier for an hour and saw indeed some calving. From there we moved to the entrance of John Hopkins inlet. We can not go inside the bay as the pupping season for the seals going on but then John Hopkins glacier is best view from a distance anyway as it climbs all the way up to the Fairweather mountain range. The glacial ice was completely covered with snow and it looked spectacular. From there we did a sail by, by Lamplough glacier which is a blue ice glacier and then it was time for the Ranger lecture in the main lounge. Before the guests knew, it was 4 pm. and time to say good bye to Glacier Bay. To top things off we had porpoises and Whales playing around the ship near the entrance. As said, it was a magnificent day.

John Hopkins Glacier, covered by snow. Courtesy 3rd officer Symen van der Veen

Tomorrow we are in our last port of call, Ketchikan. Final stop to please the shoppers. We are again the only cruise ship in port, so I will park the Veendam straight across from the visitor centre. It is supposed to be dry and that is very special for Ketchikan where it rains normally 332 days out of the year.

The first Bridge team to enter Glacierbay in 2008. Courtesy Ships Photographer.

The boys (and girl) from the bridge who navigated the ship safely towards it’s destination: left to right
4/O Rens de Kouter, 3/0 Steven Macbeth, A/O Simon Mitchinson, A/O Nathan Ferris, 2/O Jan Westerbeek, 4/0 Rebecca Hillier, Capt. Albert J. Schoonderbeek, Chief Officer Marcel van Zwol, 3/O symen van der Veen, 2/O Sr Steve Nevey, S/O JohnCabalde, E/O Joe Parks.

The run from Juneau to Skagway is one of going “around the houses” as the town is just to the North of Juneau, but we have to go around a mountain ridge to get there by sailing through the Lynn Canal. In the 1980’s Holland America did not go to Skagway at all but ran their own sightseeing boat, the Fairweather, from Juneau to Skagway. With the growth of the tourist industry in Skagway we started calling there after 1994.

Skagway derives its fame from the Klondike Gold rush of 1898 which transformed a sleepy valley with a single homestead into a bustling entry port for gold prospectors. Main attraction nowadays is the train that runs from Skagway up the interior all the way into Canada. However many other tours have since been developed including helicopter tours. In the summer Skagway is a town of commerce with the whole of Front Street devoted to shops. The normal town occupancy of 400 doubles to 800, with the influx of summertime shop attendants. Most of them are accommodated at a camping site at the end of the valley. As quite a few of them are students who have to return to university at the end of the summer, a lot of shops tend to close when the students have to leave. By mid September the main street is almost a ghost town with all the shop windows boarded up for the winter.

Apart from cruise ships occupying the dock, there is also an ore dock, and on a regular basis ore ships still come in to load ore, coming from the Canadian interior. It is brought down by train and then transported by conveyor belt over the dock to the ship. In high season that dock is also used for cruise ships as I have seen four cruise ships in port at the same time plus and Alaska state Ferry.

We were alone today, which is also the last time as the season fully kicks in next week. Then there will be 3 or 4 cruise ships each call. But today we enjoyed our solitude and docked at 6 am. in the morning. It was wind still and only a little drizzle present. That dried away later as well, so we had much less rain than yesterday in Juneau. We docked at the Rail road dock under the shelter of the mountain ride that forms the Eastern side of the Valley in which Skagway is located. I prefer this dock, as it is more sheltered from the North of Southerly winds that can blow through the valley or through Lynn Canal with considerable force.

On the rock face there a lot of ships graffiti can be seen, although in this case I would prefer to call it Ships Art. Ships names, company logo’s and Captain’s names are painted on each bit of flat surface there is. The highest one is from the Royal Viking Line, almost at the top of the Cliff and not accessible by foot or ladder. I wondered for a while how they managed to do it and then found out that they had hired a helicopter for the day.
My name is on the wall as well, dating back to 6 September 1994, when the Nieuw Amsterdam under the command of Captain P. Kievit made the first call to Skagway since the demise of the ill fated Prinsendam(1). The funny thing was, the Bo ‘sun had spent all day, painting the ships name, the captain’s name, my name and the ships logo on the rock and then went back on board as sailing time was nearing close. Suddenly out ran the ships plumber, called Ben Bamba and he quickly pasted his name under the sign as well.
Ship, Captain, CO and Plumber are all still immortalized on the rocks of Skagway.

Since then several Hal ships have been added to the list starting with the Prinsendam in 1975. The oldest sign I could find was from the Princess Alicia from 1928, a Canadian Pacific Railroad steamer that used to call on a regular service at Skagway in the summer. The latest one is from a celebrity ship which name it could not read, as the sign was too far forward of the bridge, but the paint looked very fresh.

After the last tour was back on board, we pulled out from the dock, sailing down scenic Lynn Canal on the way to our highlight of our cruise, Majestic Glacier Bay.

After a bit of a rocky night with a long ocean swell rolling in from the deep Pacific we re-entered the Inside Passage but now the Alaskan one. The guests had had a nice and sunny day and the pitching of the ship just stopped by the time everybody went to bed. The Veendam charged as a race horse up the coast, backed by the current and the following wind. As a result we picked up the pilot at Cornwallis point by 06.20 instead of 07.00 as had been planned. This pilot station is located near the town of Kake and is only in operation in the summer. Mainly for the cruise ships that come directly from Vancouver or Seattle and are heading to Juneau. Most ships, as we will in 14 days, call at Ketchikan first.

With the steady stream of cruise ships coming to Alaska, the pilots there have been expanding their numbers steadily each year. At the same time a number of old timers has retired and means that they now have an extensive training program going. So we had two pilots on board that were qualified for all tonnage and a deputy pilot who still had training to do for his next step up. Pilot qualifications in Alaska go by the tonnage mark, as on average the larger the tonnage, the bigger the boat. The deputy pilot knew his job already but he still had to do a number of approaches to a port and dockings with a larger ship, under the eye of a senior pilot, before he will qualifie for his next license. I am saying he, but the Alaskan pilots have two female pilots as well, who are qualified for all ships since a number of years.

With the pilots on board the Veendam galloped further up the coast towards Alaska, still pushed by wind and current. We saw quite a few whales, although it is still early in the season and sailed by Tracy Arm but no ice to be seen. The whole inlet is still clogged up, and it will be a while before it starts releasing its ice. The weather was typically Alaska today, rainy and chilly, but not too much wind. In Alaska they do not talk about rain, as they have it all the time, it is called liquid sunshine…………always think positive.

With all this current and following wind we ended up 45 minutes ahead of schedule at Marmion Island. This is the beginning of Gastineau Channel, the gateway to Juneau, our stop for the day. The last part of the voyage goes very slowly as we have to operate under reduced speed. Since a number of years the USCG has a “Voluntary Waterway Guide” which HAL subscribes to, so for me it is compulsory to comply. It means that when coming closer to the port the ship is reduced in steps to avoid danger or damage to other boats and floats in the area. It comes down in steps from 16 to 14 to 10 to 7 to 5 knots at the edge of Juneau harbor and from there we gently float to the dock. All cruise ships companies participate and so do most other commercial operators.

Today we were the only ship in the port; next cruise there will be three more. Biggies as well. With no other ships calling, I could pick my favorite dock, the cruise terminal. This one has the advantage that the gangway goes up and down with the tide as it rests on a floating pontoon, so we do not have to switch the gangway location when the gangway become to steep to climb or the break door disappears under the dock. Next week we will be at Alaska Steam dock again, where we have the switch gangways but here the advantage is that is about 500 yards closer to down town. The Red Dog Saloon is just across the road from the gangway. For some people an important advantage.

It remained rainy for the whole of the day but it did not seem to deter our guests. The tours were well booked and all the shops were open. In the evening the wind died down and the rain was no more than a bit of drizzle. As it is still fairly dark at this time of the year, sail away was quite romantic with the lights of Juneau in the background and with still a lot of snow on the mountain tops. Tomorrow we are in Skagway, also all by ourselves.
Sail away looked a bit like this from the bridge wing. Photo courtesy of the State of Alaska.

We made the early tide of the Seymour Narrows with some time to spare and as there were no other cruise ships yet, nor tug or barge traffic, we could just swing through without having to adjust speed for others or to wait.

While sailing in the Inside passage there is a traffic reporting system that advises, all those who participate, of where to expect traffic so you can avoid meeting each other at corners or in a narrow passage. All larger commercial traffic participates, it is compulsory for 300 tons over, and sometimes private yachts and fishermen as well. Although the later depends a mostly on the professionalism of the skipper in regards to his/her pre voyage planning and the familiarization with the local rules and customs.

There are several traffic control stations along the BC coast. There is Victoria, Vancouver, Comox and Prince Rupert Traffic and the coastal waterways are divided accordingly. Victoria together with Seattle Traffic controls Strait Juan de Fuca and the Puget Sound. Vancouver Traffic controls the stretch between Victoria and Vancouver, plus the waters approaching Vancouver such as the Strait of Georgia. From roughly, Seymour Narrows to the tip of Vancouver island it is Comox traffic and when past Vancouver island, Prince Rupert looks after the area up to the Alaskan border.

In Alaska there is no traffic control system and the pilots there have to rely solely on their security messages when approaching a tight corner or narrow passage. There is not much traffic going up and down to Alaska and the water ways are on average wider than in British Columbia so there is less of a need for it. But the traffic system is very useful in the BC waters as there is a lot of barge traffic all year around and during the summer time there is the extensive Cruise ship traffic.

So when the Veendam approached the Seymour Narrows, we already knew what there is waiting at the other side and if necessary we could have sped up or slowed down, depending on the arrangements needed. Ships that travel with the tide have the right of way, simply because it is much more difficult to regulate speed if the water is pushing you forward, than it is to buck into it and stay in position. An un-pleasant situation is always the presence of a log tow that has to go through. Their floats do not make much more than 6 knots at the best and thus they have to wait until complete slack tide, or maybe go with the end of a following tide. With that speed come very slowly through the hole, while we are basically sitting there and wasting time.

Thus the pilots try to go through when there is still a bit of tide running and the log tows are waiting for the turn of the tide. For those sort of things the Traffic System is invaluable. As said, we did not have any traffic at all this time so we breezed through on the end of the ebb tide. Once through, we kept a no-wake speed until we passed Brown Bay, which is a marina on the island side. In order not to damage the moored yachts, which are not always tied up properly and then we sped up again.

After Seymour Narrows there are two more narrow passages with a lot of current and that is Race Passage in Johnstone Strait and Blackney Passage just east of Alert bay.

For me it meant that I was on the bridge all night long. This time it lasted from 21.45 to 05.30 and then it was a few hours sleep until my day job started again, running the ship.
We had horrible weather going through Johnstone Strait as a big squall came over with 50 knot winds but it was a good day for the guests as the wind died down in the morning and sun came out. It was just a little bit rocky as there was a long ocean swell running into Hecate Strait. A swell caused by very bad weather in the North Pacific.

After sailing north from Victoria during the night, we arrived at 06.15 under the Lions Gate bridge which connects Vancouver with Vancouver north. Behind it is Vancouver harbor, which official name is Burrard Inlet. The Lions Gate Bridge derives its name from a double mountain top in Vancouver North. Some say that it resembles two watching lions, guarding the entrance to Vancouver. For me they look more like a pronounced part of the female anatomy.

However you look at it, sailing into Vancouver harbor is always nice. This morning was no exception. The sun was coloring the skies bright red and there sea was as smooth as a mirror. By 0645 we were off the dock and I took over from the pilot and swung the ship around to dock starboard side alongside, on the West side of Canada Place. Normally ships dock here with their noses into the city but that means that the guests have to walk further to get into the centre of the terminal. Thus there was the request from shore operations to park the ship the other way around, to improve the flow of traffic.

Vancouver will be our home port for the summer season and after two 7 day cruises, we will call at Vancouver every other Friday. Being a home port means that it is the port were we load supplies and provisions, bunker fuel oil and offload recyclables. The latter becomes more and more important as the company has adopted an aggressive policy of increasing the amount of recycled waste by 15% this year. I am all for it, as a thrifty Dutchman it goes against the grain anyway to throw anything away and secondly the money that we save, apart from the environmental gain, goes into the crew welfare fund on board. So all the more reason to separate, contain and sort out everything that in the past would have been shoved off to a landfill.

As we are a Friday ship, we were the only cruise ship in port during this call and later in the season we will be joined by one more ship, the Celebrity Infinity. On Saturdays and Sundays there are normally four of five cruise ships in port and that makes things a little bit more hectic, especially during arrival and departure. Being a Friday ship has another advantage, namely that all the shops are open, which is great for the crew, and that it is a normal working day. That means that repairmen and suppliers are all available and servicing the ship, while on a Saturday and Sunday, they do not always show up. Especially on a sunny day, if there is the choice is to go to the beach with the children or to tinker on a ship with a piece of malfunctioning equipment.

In a change over port I am always intensely interested in the timely arrival of the guests. That is the case in Tampa but even more in Vancouver. Although we sail on a regular schedule to Alaska, there is an issue that can gravely affect the whole operation and that is the tide at Seymour Narrows. This is a narrow passage about 100 miles North of Vancouver, where Vancouver Island almost touches the mainland. As a result the water is squeezed through a relatively small opening and thus a strong current is present. Depending on the monthly cycle of the tide the currents can go up to 16 knots during a spring tide. Needless to say, that we do not go through the Narrows when such a tide is running. It is either slack tide, when the current is zero and goes from Ebb to Flood or the other way around, or there is a window when the current is not yet too strong. However the slack tide time changes each day and that can play havoc with the schedule. If the tide is too early in relation to our departure time, then we have to go slow until the next tide, and after the passage go flat out to try and make up the lost time.

That brings then for me the question, if guests are late, do I wait, or do I go and have them fly up to the next port. If I sail late, I might endanger a timely arrival in the next port and thus inconvenience 1200 guests because I waited for a few.

This time everybody was on board, we pulled out just before 5 pm. and went pedal to the metal for making the Seymour Narrows tide window by 11 pm. That means that after the Narrows, I should have some time in hand for a timely arrival in Juneau, the day after tomorrow. How much I will only know by tomorrow 6 am., when we are out of the first part of the inside passage and out of the current that will have been most of the time against us.

With the movement towards cooler weather there comes the moment that we change from white to blue uniform. This is a decision that is solely made by the captain and nobody else and is based on his personal take on the matter. If a captain favors a particular uniform he might hang to Whites but in general the moment is gets too chilly for the white material to keep warm in, the switch is made.

So after looking a few days ago at the 10 day weather forecast for Victoria, it was easy enough to see that it was going to be chilly, very chilly. While the ship is at sea the sort of uniform is not as important as most of the time is spent in air-conditioned spaces but when in port it becomes an issue. Therefore at 6 am. this morning it was time to change to blue uniform. The 6 am time is chosen so that the coming watch and the hotel day shift shows up in blue at 8 am. and the off going shift, still in white, is gone by 8 am. The two hours between 6 and 8 are a bit of a muddle as nobody is on exactly on the same time schedule for starting work but as there are hardly any guests around at that time, it is not much of a problem.

By 9 am. we turned into Strait Juan de Fuca. I was expecting a predicted ebb-current, slowing us down but as the wind and swell had been westerly in the past days, the whole current pattern was out of kilter and we had 1.5 knots with us instead of 1 knot against us. Thus we arrived nice and timely at the Victoria pilot station and the pilot stepped on board exactly at the requested time of 2 pm.

It is only a short distance to the dock but an ignorant fisherman had decided to run his nets right across the fairway. I am saying ignorant as he probably did not realize the cost he might incur to damaged nets if a ship would plow through it. We do try to avoid cutting through nets but it is not always possible to go around them, due to traffic, water depths or other circumstances.

This time the fisherman was in luck, the pilot wanted to make a wide approach to the dock anyway and thus we could sail around the nets with a wide curve. If we hit a net it is more of a problem for the fisherman than for us, as we have knives on the propellers that will cut all the netting apart.

There were two other cruise ships in port, the Oosterdam in the berth next to us and the Celebration Infinity in the berth opposite the Oosterdam. The Volendam could be heard making noises on the VHF as they were in drydock in Esquimalt which is a mile to the West of Victoria. As the two big boys occupied the middle pier, the Veendam had to dock at Ogden Point South which is the most difficult berth to get into. Especially when it is windy. Today we had only 10 knots on the sb beam and I was not unduly concerned about that. So a 1000 feet from the pier, the pilot handed the conn back to me and with a slow speed we floated into the dock space, keeping the breakwater about 200 feet to the starboard of the ship and the dock about 15 feet to the port until we were in position.

We were supposed to dock at 15.00 and we had at 14.59 the gangway out. How about that for timing. Two minutes later a steady stream of eager shoppers and sightseers swarmed ashore to enjoy Victoria on a chilly but sunny day.

The ship was scheduled to sail at midnight heading for our final port of call Vancouver and at 11.45 pm we raised the gangway and let go the lines. We will be docking at Vancouver Canada place West at 07.00 hours tomorrow.