This was our second day at sea and during the early morning the wind finally started to abate and came down to about 15 knots. The ships movement however continued, as a long rolling swell kept coming in from the North-mid Pacific. There was a lower, 2nd swell running as well, more from the West, and that made the Veendam both pitch (bow going up and down) and roll (sideways movement). The latter kept the hips stabilizers nicely occupied. The pitching we just have to live with. Thus far nobody has been able to invent a satisfactory system that stops the ship from doing that.

Although it is being studied. Especially Japanese scientists have been working through the years on bow and stern fins with the idea to dampen the vertical movement of the ship. The last I heard was that they managed, with a smaller ship, to reduce the vertical movement measured in G force (that is basically what you feel in your stomach when the ships deck suddenly falls away from under your feet) from 0.25 to 0.20G, thus a reduction of 20%. If you take into consideration that stabilizers on average reduce the ships roll by about 90%, you can see that anti-pitching devices still have a long way to go before becoming effective.

However it did not seem to affect the guests very much, the sea-sick bags hanging in the ships where looked at with disdain and all the shipboard activities were well attended; as far as possible with only 70% of the ships capacity filled. We passed the California –Oregon border at noon time and we should reach the entrance to Strait Juan de Fuca by 9 am tomorrow morning.

Today was also the Official Birthday of Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. In reality she was born on 31 January but she kept her mothers birthday (the late Queen Juliana) to officially celebrate it with the nation. In Dutch we call it Queen’s day (Koninginne dag) and big parties are thrown all over the country. Standard item is to wear something orange. This color comes from the fact that the Queen is from the house of Orange which is originally an area in the South of France. In the bigger cities, street parties and parades are organized and orange is then the predominant color. If the ship is in port we hoists all sorts of flags, there is an official protocol for that even to the extend of which flag should go up and down first, but with this wind there was little I could do at sea. Maybe next year.

As we are coming closer to Alaska there are a few things that the guests will notice while on board. That is apart from the outside temperature of course, which dipped below 50oF today. Through the years, American States and Canadian provinces have passed legislation that extends to onboard the cruise ships. The first one we will notice is tomorrow morning. When we are sailing in Washington State waters (e.g. three miles or closer to the shore) we are not allowed to have the Casino open. Now technically it is just possible to stay out of the 3 miles when in the Strait of Juan de Fuca but the moment you have to change course for a fisherman, you are inside. And fishermen always tend to be in the way. Thus to avoid violation of this rule, the Casino will be shut tomorrow.

Canada, read British Columbia, has a different rule. Here it is 5 miles from the port. So when we leave Vancouver on 2 May, we have to wait until we are five miles from the harbor limit before we can open. Not a difficult rule but it is one that needs remembering and so the Casino Manager calls the bridge to verify that the ship is passed the magic five mile line before eager gamblers can attack the slot machines and gaming tables.

In the course of the evening the swell became slowly become less prominent and by the tomorrow morning it should be gone completely. Weather for Victoria looks good, at least for seasonal standards. Mid fifties and partly cloudy.

Today we spent the whole day sailing along the West Coast of the USA. The wind was blowing up to 40 knots full on the bow and the swell increased during the day, resulting in a lively ride. It is supposed to get better in the early hours of tomorrow morning when we move out of this frontal system. This evening around 9 pm. we passed San Francisco. Too far away from the shore to see anything but we sailed by two ships who were killing time before entering the port. I assume that their berths were not available yet otherwise it did not make sense to be out here in the ocean floating with the current weather conditions.

Apart from rocking and rolling along it was a quiet day and as the ship only has 800 guests on board it is also quiet in the lounges and during the shows. The Veendam has a space ration of 43.5 and that means that with a full house it still does not feel crowded. Thus now with 400 guests less on board it feels almost empty. The only advantage is I presume, that there is no line at the ice cream parlor.

I have very little else to report apart from the fact that I am still digging through the Alaska manuals to become fully aware of the latest developments in the Great Land. Today I took also all the crew, in two sessions, through an Alaska indoctrination program. We showed a video with guidelines of how to respect nature and I explained a few things in regards of way of operating during the coming season. The guests can see the same video on their cabin TV’s during the cruise.

Time to answer some questions submitted during the past period:
1. Stabilizers when deployed. My normal policy is to leave it to the discretion of the Officer of the watch. This normally means that when the ship starts to move, they are put out, by operating them from the bridge. As they slow the ship down by about 0.75 knots in the hour, I might sometimes leave orders that I have to be consulted first, if we are on a very tight schedule or when I expect that the rolling might only last a short time because we are about to change course and the ship will go from rolling to pitching. It takes about 3 minutes to pump them in or out.
2. Spouse policy. The higher the rank, the better the arrangement. All Staff, officers and petty officers, who have single cabins, have the option to have a spouse, fiancée or close friend on board for a certain amount of time. It goes from unlimited down to two months a year.
3. Late arrival penalties. Not in the ports. Pilots will board a ship when it arrives and linesmen/longshoremen are paid for a fixed period of time. Docks are paid for by the day. However it can cost the ship a considerable amount of revenue if tours have to be cancelled because of the time frame. In the home port there can be a severe impact on guests missing flights and the necessary rebookings, which might be a lot dearer than the original price.
4. Ships log. It is half half. We have a black box system that automatically stores radar picture, gps position, course speed, and bridge audio (captain singing) on a hard disk. The paper ships log is still filled out for positions and occurrences during the watch such as course changes, drills, drafts, meetings and other legal requirements. We still plot on paper charts but it is expected that we will go fully digital in the near future when legal approval in the USA is finalized.
5. Bsc. Nowadays all Dutch officers that graduate from an Academy level have a Bsc. It is not necessary for Short Sea licenses and neither for promotion from there to deep Sea. Neither does a Bsc make you a better sailor but it gives you a wider horizon to work from. A Bsc does give you faster access to higher certification as your basic school level is more extensive.
6. Veendam sailing from Ft. Lauderdale. No we are not; we stay for the winter in Tampa. There is an oopsy in one of the cruise brochures.
7. The tent will not go up in Alaska, it would help against the rain but it would block out watching wild life flying overhead.
8. The training facility MSR at the Wilhelmina kade does not do regular tours, but they have open days for the general public and schools at certain times in the year.

Tomorrow we have another day at sea, and hopefully the wobbling will get less. However there is a collusion of 3 frontal systems in the North Pacific going on and that might send some waves our way.

San Diego is a port that every Holland America Line navigator knows even without ever having been there. Reason is that it is one of the standard ports that we get trained on during our Simulator courses. We call those BRM trainings, which stands for Bridge Resource Management. Every 5 years or less each navigator undergoes a weekly training. During that week several scenarios are played out on a ships simulator and marine accidents are scrutinized to learn lessons from.

A simulator is basically a fully operational bridge on dry land. The bigger ones look a bit like an Imax theatre. We train normally in Rotterdam where they have several units available and the biggest bridge can also roll and pitch as a ship in real life does. Using a simulator gives the option to try things without the danger of it going wrong with disastrous consequences and it is a great tool for building up routine. Normally there are two groups during a week and while one group is preparing an exercise the other group is doing it. Each group is accompanied by a captain who acts as an assessor to evaluate the performance of the juniors. That takes half the day; the rest is spent on discussing accidents and incidents that took place in the industry. Almost 80% of incidents in the maritime industry are connected to human mistakes. By using case studies we train ourselves to recognize where an error chain started and how to break it so that the incident does not occur.

Approaching the Port of San Diego is one of the exercises. It is not a difficult port so the sailing in does not take all the focus of the bridge team, but it is a navy port and the navy does not always play according to the normal rules. As they are almost constantly in training, they are not always part of the “normal” world of shipping. The simulator exercise is based on having to take action when suddenly a navy convoy comes down to sea and has to be met in a narrow part of the fairway, with wind and current adding to the difficulty. Together with “navy speak” on the VHF it is enough to distract a bridge team and mistakes are starting to be made. The idea is that the team is so aware of each others actions and responsibilities that they recognize where the pattern of making mistakes starts and that it get instantly corrected.

So when we arrived in the early morning it was as if the whole exercise was played out in front of us in real life, only difference we now had a pilot on board. We had a navy ship (Nbr 4) coming down to sea and Navy ship (Nbr 100) was making noise on the VHF while conducting exercises off the sea buoy. The exercise turned into real life.

The weather turned out to be a lot warmer than predicted, as the Santa Ana was blowing. This is a wind that comes from the desert and brings hot air and a lot of dust to the sea. Thus it was not 73oF and sunny but about 95oF and also sunny, while a brown cloud of dust was hanging over the port. We docked next to the Carnival Elation but we had the terminal while they had to make do with an open pier and some tents. San Diego still has some ways to go with getting proper cruise facilities. The good thing is that the terminal is located in the middle of the city with a shopping centre nearby. The moment the ship had been cleared, there was a wave of crew rolling ashore straight for the shops to stack up for Alaska. Alaska prices there are a lot dearer and the crew knows where the best deals are to be gotten.

We disembarked over 700 guests here who preferred not to do the last three, maybe wobbly days, and fly home from Vancouver. 300+ guests came on board for these few days. Some of them long time mariner repeat guests, some of them new to the company and here to sample the HAL product, without having to commit to a longer cruise to do so. We pulled out on time and indeed it will be wobbly tomorrow. There is a gale blowing off San Francisco and we are going to meet it had on.

Today we had a quiet sea day while on our way to San Diego where about 700 of our guests will be disembarking. We were sailing around 12 to 20 miles from the Mexican shore line and the weather remained good but the outside air temperature was slowly dropping.

We are in full swing with the preparation for the Alaska season. Due to environmentally sensitive area’s that we will be sailing in for the whole summer, there are numerous rules to comply with and to prepare for, plus a lot of local protocol. The navigation officer has to prepare all the charts, as although we will be sailing nearly constantly under pilotage, we have to have our courses and distances in place, to check on what the pilot is doing.

Most of the cruise is inside territorial waters and that means that for the first day and a half we have a Canadian pilot on board, then for 3 days an American pilot in Alaska and then for one and a half day a Canadian pilot again for getting back to Vancouver. It is also not one pilot but two, who relieve each other while we are under way. British Columbia has different rules as Alaska in relation to navigation and all of this has to be planned.

Same goes for the ports. Apart from the regular navigational rules, the Captains of the port in Alaska (USCG) have made special rulings for the interaction of local craft and the big cruise ships, while in the port. To have a successful season without incidents and accidents all navigators have to be aware of all these issues and thus we have started to do extra training sessions.

In the coming blogs you will read about the various peculiarities of the Alaskan ports.
Apart from the navigators, there is also work going on in the engine room as we have to comply with very strict emission regulations. So the chief engineer is busy with fine tuning all the machinery that emits any form of exhaust. In the hotel department it is the same. There are a few different procedures in regards to custom and border protection as the (small) Alaska ports can not muster as many officials as on the mainland. Furtheron special licenses have to be applied for so the purser is also a busy man.

To get this all properly prepared we get help from our agent in Alaska. All the cruise ship companies use one agent called Cruise Lines Agencies of Alaska (in the old days South East Stevedoring) and they have been there for years. During the winter in Alaska they prepare all the information that is needed for a successful season and send it by April to each ship in the fleet. Information about clearance procedures, Medivacs and hospitals, docking arrangements and dock layout, which ships are calling each day in which port,
Etc. Etc Etc.

Thus I spent most of the day perusing the information that the agent had forwarded to the ship and in the coming days I will be checking if everybody is fully aware of what is needed to know and if all is ready by Vancouver.

San Diego is supposed to be bring us a sunny day with temperatures in the mid seventies. Perfect for the guests to travel home and with the airport minutes away from the ship.

With the whole deck department orchestra in tune, as mentioned yesterday, we managed to anchor the ship in a nice position by 7 am. and sent the first tender ashore to collect the authorities. By 8 am. we were up and running and the guests were streaming ashore. We were together with the Elation and they came in at 9 am. But as that ships sails on ships = read San Diego time, it was for them still 8 am. They were going to leave at their 3 pm. time which was thus an hour later than ours.

I am saying Elation but officially it is now called the Carnival Elation. As part of the rebranding process of the fleet, Carnival has now added the prefix Carnival to all its ships. A tradition that began with the Carnival Victory which was baptized as such. Celebrity is doing a similar thing and now all their ships have the prefix Celebrity in front of the name. All meant to more easily recognize not only the ship but also the company who operates it. Luckily with our Dam names HAL does not have to go that way. Our name company relation is so distinctive that everybody knows who operates the “Dam” ships.

The weather was indeed cooler than predicted in the weather forecast and gentle 77oF topped the thermometer for the day with this breeze coming from the Pacific Ocean. It resulted in a very pleasant day in Cabo san Lucas and no doubt all the guests must have enjoyed the stay. We left nicely on time and as the water becomes very deep as soon as you are off the anchorage, I could sail by Los Arcos, which comprises the “Cabo of San Lucas” at a distance of about 1700 feet without fear of shallow waters.

Just around the corner to the West is a beautiful stretch of white beach that was named sometime in the past by Playboy magazine one of the most seven beautiful beaches in the world. As we all know that Playboy magazine is known for its authorative and in-depth articles, we have to assume that they know what they are talking about. However that title was given when there was only one Hotel on that whole beach but now the whole coastal stretch has been developed with hotels and condominiums. No doubt a lot of people are very happily living there but I still prefer what I saw back in 1982, with that one hotel, and a little fishing port with a single restaurant and flea market.

At the end of this white stretch of beach is another cape. Cabo Falso. This is the western corner of the southern tip of California. It is also called the “Cold Cape” because as soon as you come around the cape, the water temperature starts dropping from 26oC to 17oC in a few hours. The whole weather pattern changes due to the convergence of the different water currents and it is one reason for the abundant sea life in the area. The meeting of cold and warmer waters brings a lot of krill to the surface. Whales like to come and feed here in the summer and there was a whole fleet of Tuna fishermen floating off the Cape waiting for the fish to arrive. Tomorrow will be a sea day and the temperature will be a lot lower than in the past days but it is expected to be sunny.

Finally after all these warm days we had a bit of a cool breeze. There was a moderate North Westerly breeze blowing caused by a disturbance off San Francisco. This brought cooler air from that area and thus the temperature dropped from the high 80’s to the mid seventies. For tomorrow in Cabo San Lucas the prediction is temperatures in the high 90’s but if this wind keeps blowing than it might be there a lot more comfortable.

For most of the night we sailed close to the Mexican coast and passed Manzanillo at 8 am. From there the course line diverged from the coast as we started crossing the waters of the Baja California. By mid day we were 80 miles to the South of Puerto Vallarta, as the crow flies, heading on one straight course for the Cabo San Lucas anchorage.

We had to maintain quite a high average speed to make it on time and so I was very much interested in what the Ocean current was doing. The predominant current here is about 0.5 knot to the South East so directly against us. 0.5 x 24 hrs. is 12 miles and that sets the schedule back 40 minutes. Either you arrive 40 minutes later than planned or you have to go faster to make up for it. However the for some unknown reason the current was most of the time absent and sometimes even a little bit with us. Maybe the wind-still period in the last few days had some influence and I was certainly not the person to complain. Thus tomorrow morning, we will be on time. I hope to arrive even ahead of schedule to be able to set up the tender service in good time, so all is ready when the first guests want to go ashore.

The Veendam has not been to Cabo for awhile and for most of the officers and sailors it is a new port. That means that extensive instruction is given to all about the operational specifics for this port. All the tender drivers receive instruction from the 3rd officer in the route to follow from ship to shore and all dangers are pointed out. Shallows, other traffic, where to wait before coming to the dock etc etc. Cabo San Lucas is full of marine tourism and boats, jet skies and canoe’s are hired by tourists, who are, let’s say are less than qualified to operate them properly. So when they do something wrong it is for us the professionals to make sure that their mistakes do not turn into our disasters.

Apart from the sailors also the security guards are instructed; by the security officer. Each port in the world adheres to the ISPS code which regulates ships and port security worldwide. However within this legal frame work there is room for local interpretation and thus every port is different. A few days before we come to a port, the port security officer is in contact with the ships security officer to exchange information about what is needed to comply with the local rules and for the shore to know under what level of security the ship operates.

Finally for the navigators there is a morning session during which I discuss how I am going to approach the anchorage, where I will park the ship and we review each officer’s role in the evolution. While I park the ship, the chief officer communicates my orders to the bow, where a 3rd officer is standby to let the anchor go. On deck another 3rd officer is standby to start lowering the ships tenders when the ship is almost stopped. Then there is a second officer on the bridge who has the watch and answers telephones and he is assisted by a 4th officer for filling out the ships log and the checklists. Finally there is an officer standby at the gangway for pumping out the tender platforms when the ship has come to a standstill. The more each officer understands the parts the other officers play, the better the operation works. It is like an orchestra where everybody plays the same tune in the correct tempo.

Acapulco is still one of my favorite ports on the Pacific West coast. It is nice to sail in and out of; and the town is located right on top of the terminal so there is no fuss with shuttle busses and taxi’s to take to get somewhere. The only thing that can spoil the fun is a swell running into the bay that makes the ship rock alongside the dock.

We approached the pilot station around 06.30 with an official pilot boarding time of 07.00 hrs. I had built in a bit of lee way as you never know where the Acapulco pilot boards. It depends mainly on the fact if the boat is working or not. I have seen them coming out in regular pilot boats, in fishing boats and once in a real canoe. The latter one happened when a hurricane put the regular pilot boat and the senior pilot’s private boat on the beach. It was a bit of an unusual sight to see a regular canoe coming out peddled by two people and the pilot standing in the middle waving a big Mexican flag to attract our attention.

This time the pilot was in his regular boat and came all the way out of the bay as it was nice weather. I have known the senior pilot here for years and he has the good grace to let me continue to navigate the ship and assists with guiding the lines men on the dock and keeping fishing boats out of the way. For the rest he likes our coffee and drinks a lot of it. “Strong coffee for a strong pilot”, the whole deck department knows the saying and the quartermaster concocts a coffee potion in the morning that only he likes to drink. I have a strong suspicion that the bo’sun is using the rest of the coffee to grease the lifeboat wires as the stuff is really thick.

He also solved the mystery of a cruise ship at the cargo pier and a car ship at the passenger pier. The cargo ship, a car carrier was not there yet but they had started parking new cars on the passenger dock. There are two Nissan car plants close to Acapulco, one in the city of Pueblo and in Cuernavaca. The finished cars are then transported to Japan. Sounds to me as if they are carrying water to the sea but it seems to make economical sense to do so. The carrier was coming after the weekend to pick up 2000 cars and to get those on board quickly the new cars were already arriving at the dock. Thus I had more or less the whole pier for myself but as there was a little bit of well running alongside the dock, I decided to go in as far as possible. That meant for the guest a longer distance to walk but at least there would be no accidents due to a moving gangway.

So we sailed into the bay during sunrise and docked accordingly. By 8 am. the gangway went out and a stream of eager shoppers rolled ashore. It was another very warm day as the sea breeze that was blowing, came from the North West and was stopped by the mountain range around the city. We did not stay for the evening as the schedule to the next port, Cabo San Lucas was too tight and sailed out of the port at 5 pm. The pilot preferred to leave inside the bay, as the swell was increasing near the entrance and that give me the chance to build up some speed before the ship came outside. For the ships stabilizers top operate properly you need a ships speed over 10 knots and now I could switch them on before the Veendam came in open waters.

For the next 36 hours we will sail along the coast of Mexico and will cross the Baja California. Arriving at Cabo San Lucas the day after tomorrow. That will be the final port for most of our guests as about 700 are leaving in San Diego.

Well the pilot in Puerto Chiapas was right; there were not the required weather conditions for a Tehantupecer and so we had a quiet and windless night again. I had hoped that he was right but as a precaution did advise the guests that we might list during the night in case one started blowing, as these winds are nearly impossible to predict. You can monitor the circumstances under which one might or might not develop but you can never be certain.

We arrived at 06.30 at the pilot station and this time the pilot decided to come out all the way to open sea. Normally he boards about a 1000 yards from the dock but this time he came 3 miles out towards the ship. It turned out that he was concerned about the very strong current that was running across the entrance. It was indeed strong almost 2 knots and when you approach with six knots speed, you set considerably. There is normally a current running here but it is never more then 0.5 to 0.6 knots, so two knots in comparison is a lot.

Thus I kept the ship under an angle into the current until we entered the bay and the current fell away. If this current was going to be there again in the evening, I would have to make two knots of speed extra to make it on time to Acapulco. So I decided to swing on arrival and dock stern in. That would save me about 20 minutes on departure. The pilot was very proud about his buoys, that denote the 10 meter depth line and especially about the fact that all the lights were working. He also solved the big mystery about why I had to dock on the west side of the pier. Yesterday I thought that I had my choice as we were the only ship in port but then the agent sent an email saying that the West side had been reserved.

When we sailed into port there was a blue tugboat parked on the East side. That’s why I had to go West. Owned by the Mexican Navy, it was involved with some work in the corner of the harbor. Normally anything navy is grey but it seems that the Mexican Navy has some sort of Army Corps of engineers, similar to the USA and they are blue; at least according to the pilot.

The new pier at Huatalco and construction on the hill side. Courtesy of my wife Lesley.

The pier at Huatalco is only a few years old, in the past we had to anchor outside the bay and tender in, and has the perfect length for the Veendam. It is a bit of a walk to the end of the pier but there is a little resort there with shops and restaurants. The area is an up and coming tourist attraction and a lot of condominium building is going on the hill sides. The area is blessed with a number of nice beaches, some large, some small and thus much potential for further development.

It was another warm day but in the afternoon a good breeze started to pick up bringing slightly cooler air from the sea. On departure we had that wind against us, slowing us down a bit more but it felt good after a number of windless days.

As planned, departure was a fast affair and we were in open waters within 10 minutes. The longest part of the operation was waiting for the pilot to get down from the bridge to the pilot ladder. This took awhile as it was rush hour in the elevators, it being close to dinner time. As soon as he was away, it was pedal to the metal and heading for Acapulco, a few hundred miles to the North West. The adverse current died down after a few hours of sailing along the coast and thus we could set our regular scheduled speed for the remainder of the night.

In Acapulco we will have the next mystery. We are docking at the cargo terminal and a cargo ship is docking at the passenger terminal. Does not make sense but no doubt all will be revealed. Not that I mind. There is less swell at the cargo dock so the gangway will move less. And yes it will be another warm day.

Today the ship and I, visited a new port; Puerto Chiapas, located close to Puerto Medan in the province of Chiapas. This is an attempt from the local Province to attract (cruise ship) tourists to this area and since last autumn cruise ships are starting to call here with greater frequency. The port is a nice alternative in case other ports are overbooked, which quite often happens during the spring and autumn migration of the cruise ships to and from Alaska.

The port is so new, that the American nautical charts that we use have not been updated yet, so we sailed towards the harbor entrance and then the pilot brings the chart on board.
Also there is nowadays Google Earth and local websites that help a lot with our passage planning, if the Hydrographic agencies are running late with updating the charts.

The newly constructed breakwater

Thus we sailed into Puerto Chiapas just after sunrise and it now has a nice wide breakwater and is dredged to 11 meters depth. In the middle is a turning basin, so larger ships do not have to back in or back out of the port anymore. I swung the ship on arrival, as we are on a slightly tighter schedule this evening and docked at a nice new pier, with plenty bollards on the dock to secure the Veendam properly.

The new cruise pier

There are a number of tours to choose from, including a mangrove boat tour and a city and archeological tour. For those not interested; the authorities had built a terminal in Mayan style with inside a dance pit and plenty of local craft shops around it. Also there was the option to go to the larger city of Tapachula nearby, by taking the hourly shuttle with a transit time of about 40 minutes.

The cruise terminal

As with each maiden call, the authorities came out in full force for the traditional plaque exchange ceremony. They produced four big ones this time and the ship replied with four framed and dedicated photos. After a few speeches and drinks they all marched into the lido to enjoy some good Veendam cooking. The forward staircase of the ship is getting fuller and fuller with these plaques.

As there was still hardly any wind blowing, it was again a very warm day, officially 92oF. but it felt close to a 100. The weather is not supposed to change very much in the coming days, which is nice as it provides a smooth ride through the Pacific but it makes the days very warm for our mostly very mature guests. What is also good is that this weather normally means that there is no Tehantupecer blowing in the Gulf and thus we should have a smooth ride during the coming night.

We left exactly on time, with the last tour hopping back on board at exactly 17.00 hrs. and sailed out of the port the same way as we had come in, with two course changes and a pilot who used his PDA with GPS module to see where he was. I prefer to look out of the window and keep the ship in the centre between the buoys but he tried to stay on the red line shown on his PDA. Result was the same and thus we ended up safely in open waters. After the pilot disembarked, we got an escort from the Mexican Navy while we sailed deeper into the open Ocean.

Tonight we cross the Gulf of Tehantopec and tomorrow we are in Huatalco de Santa Cruz. Again we are the only ship, so I will have the difficult decision to make on which side of the pier I will dock. Maybe the pilot will have a preference.

After spending the day at sea yesterday, because of not making it into San Juan Del Sur due to that local wind blowing there, this was the scheduled day at sea. The seas were completely flat today. At the moment there is hardly any wind at all. Not here no anywhere else in this area of the Pacific. As the sea is so flat, there is a lot of sea life to be seen, sea life that otherwise would be covered from view by swells and white caps on the waves. All day long we saw small dolphins and a lot of sea turtles. The first jumping around the bow, the latter happily paddling by on the way to, wherever a sea turtle goes to.

For me it was a day of paperwork. As explained in a few blogs ago, I am running a cruise ahead with planning and at the moment I am looking at the legal requirements for sailing the Alaskan waters. Every year the legislation gets more and more complicated and basically each stretch of cruise has to be checked mile for mile to see what rule applies to it.

Thus little to report today. So let me answer a few questions posted in the last few days.

1. My sailing schedule next year.
I do not have definite dates yet, as it depends what the company does next year with the Captains conference in March/April. Tentatively I will be on the Veendam from 4 April to 4 July, and then from 4 Oct to 4 Jan 2010 give and take a few days.

2. The statue in the middle of Cartagena Bay.
With answering this question I might get myself in hot waters as I have heard different versions. According to some it is the Virgin Mary with child to some it is another saint. According to the pilot it is the Virgin Carmen. She is Cartagena’s patron saint of the navigators. As South America was mainly conquered by the Spanish on ships, the Spanish sailors brought their patron saint with them and nowadays the Virgin Carmen can be found in nearly every town in south and Middle America. I know that she is revered as far North as Cabo San Lucas where there is a statue of her in the local church. The only thing I do not understand why she is carrying the Child Jesus. I would expect the patron saint of the sailors to carry something else. According to the pilot it is the Virgin Carmen and hereby I pass it on. It is standing in the middle of the bay with the face to open sea to protect the ships in the port and to provide a safe haven for the tired sailor.

Standing at the cross roads of the two fairways that lead to Cartagena harbour

Tomorrow we are in Puerto Chiapas, which is a fairly new town on the cruise schedule. The port itself has not much to offer, apart from some shops in the cruise terminal, but the tours to the hinterland seem to be very good. They have just rebuilt the harbor and it now cruise ships fit in. It will be the first call for the Veendam, so there is a local deputation coming on board, headed by the Mayor to do a presentation. I hope the guests are ready for it; it is going to be a long and very warm day, as also tomorrow there is no wind predicted.