It is always interesting to see cruise ships converging at the pilot station; all at the same time. You just sometimes wonder if there is not going to be a one big cruiseship pile up around the pilotboat. It can look like a row of cars coming to a shopping centre. After slowind down and lining up, we went in with 30 minutes apart. The Carnival miracle was coming from the South, we were coming from the North and behind us was the Navigator of the Seas. The latter is tomorrow in Roatan and then we will see her again in Cozumel, where she will be docked next to us.

The line up for the channel through the reefs is covered by two flashing white lights, the leading lights. The peculiar thing is that the leading lights lead you right over a shallow spot, while at both sides there is much more water. 160 feet to the left of the line, 35 feet in the leading lights and 80 feet to the right of the line. The Veendam has a draft of 26 feet. Thus we prefer to approach NOT in the leading light line. Much to the dismay of the pilot, who has a hard time understanding that we always like our margins big where possible.

Due to the winding approach through the reefs, to get to the anchorage, it is quite an interesting issue from a nautical point of view. Because of that all navigators are so scheduled that they are all part, of either the arrival or the departure sequence (except the two officers of the dog shift who will just be going to bed) so they can see how it goes. I am training up two newly joined deck officers as well and this will be part of their crash course in Holland America familiarization.

The pilots are very good in Belize but of a very peculiar breed. They seem to have problems with uttering one more word than strictly necessary and there is not much of a captain to pilot exchange going on. Just the bare orders and that is it. As with every pilot, I follow each action very closely, directly prepared and ready to take over if a mistake is made. When you visit a port for the first time, you have to rely for a large degree on the expertise of the pilot as you lack the local knowledge. If you come more often to the same port, the pilot becomes more of a compulsory presence and the need for his navigational presence starts to diminish. Some ports you can get a pilot exemption if you have done a certain number of trips but for most ports it remains compulsory. Thus we have quite a few ports where the pilot is very content, to eyeball how the captain is conning the ship to the dock, while showing a very big interest in the coffee machine and the pastries.

While going through the reef, we run an average speed of 12 knots, slowing down to 10 for two very big and tight turns, before taking the speed off completely near the anchorage. Being the second ship going in means that we have to find a spot after the first ship the Carnival Miracle has parked itself where it wants. The pilots or the port authority do not assign anchor locations. Belize roads is big enough to hold 10 cruise ships, with room for an aircraft carrier to spare, so you just find a space. It is a free for all and may the fastest one win. What we all try to do, is to anchor as close to the port as is safely possible, to keep the tender transfer time as short as possible. Thus there was great interest on the Veendam bridge, to see where the Carnival Miracle was going to park itself. As expected, lright in the middle of the anchorage.

That was good enough for me, as just past that location, is an area that exactly fits the Veendam, it is even a bit closer to the port and it is out of the way of all the speedboat and tender traffic. No passing traffic means no swell along the tender platform and that means a safer transfer for our guests in and out of the tender.

The Navigator of the Seas anchored on the other side of the Carnival Miracle, even closer to the port but had therefore to contend with all the tenders servicing the Carnival Miracle coming by.

We had a very quiet and peaceful day. The sun was shining with a gentle breeze, so good fun could be had by all.

Tomorrow we are in Santo Tomas de Castilla.

Another great day at sea. Wonderful sunshine and with a ships speed of about 15 knots the prevailing winds strong winds where just turned into a nice breeze over the decks. Most of the kids were happily locked away for the day in the club Hal house behind the funnel and also guests were having a great time.

Talking about kids. During my Voice from the Bridge announcement at 1 pm. I explained how the tender procedure worked in Belize with the fast shore tenders. It seems that I stirred up quite a bit of excitement with our younger guests who are now all determined to get on the fastest one. We have been allotted four fast boats that each can take a 100 or more, the other boats are going to the two other cruise ships. I have explained in an earlier Belize blog that there fewer boats this year, then before due to the cruise dock construction. Some boat operators are already getting out of the business and into buses and taxis. But four fast ones should be enough to expedite the disembarkation. Tomorrow I will find out if I lived up to their expectation and if my “fast” was fast enough.

Although Holland America is not a company who focuses on children on board perse, we offer the facilities so that whole families feel welcome. Since we have built our two story clubhouse behind the funnel, they have a perfect place to enjoy themselves. Depending on how many children we are expecting, we have a number of youth Councilors on board. During regular cruises, mostly only one, as there are never more then two or three kids on board but during a cruise like the current one, we have four on board. The clubhouse is made up of a Toddler area, a children’s area and a teen area. On the top we have the Oasis which looks like Polynesian Island, with palm trees, a water fall and volcano cones. The teen area is called the loft and the layout of this place puzzled me for awhile. I could understand that it is a bit dark as that gives atmosphere but in the middle of the room there is a full length mirror standing, taking prime position.

This I found a bit of a waste of space but what do I know about Teen Psychology. It turns out that this is the most popular item in the loft with all evening long preening teenagers hovering around it. So my compliments to whoever dreamed this up, it works really well. To give the whole place a bit of disco effect, we have color lights rotating on the TV dome behind the oasis outside. In the course of about 10 minutes the dome goes from green to white to purple to red etc. I will have to sail one day behind one of the other HAL ships to see what it looks like from a distance. I saw once the Costa Allegra coming by who has laser lights going up in the air, coming from a Disco on the aft top deck and that looked really strange. The laser beams were visible against the night sky long before the ship itself came above the horizon.

Club HAL has their own daily program and activities that keep the kids busy all day long with the latest activity lasting until of 9 in the evening. After that the place remains open until late for the teens, with always a youth councilor there to keep an eye on things. Thus far the reports have always been very good without exception and that is the only thing I need to know.

Tonight we have our captain’s welcome on board toast just before the show but I do not think that there will be many kids there. Too boring. My speech will never win it from the temptation of a game box.

Tomorrow we are in Belize and it looks a perfect day for water sports.

Thus we were happily on our way to Key West for an afternoon call, cranking up the ship to full speed as soon as we had disembarked the Tampa bay pilot. Just before midnight we had to slow down again as we developed issues with one of the propeller shafts. It took all night and most of the early morning to control the problem and as a result we had to cancel our call at Key West.

The schedule between Tampa and Key West is very tight and a delayed departure or a slow down on the route, has immediate consequences for the arrival time. So I made an announcement explaining the situation to the guests. The guests received a compensation letter from the office and we continued on our way to Belize for a normal scheduled arrival of 8 am. at the anchorage, the day after tomorrow. It is never nice to cancel a port, not when it is weather related nor for port issues nor for ship issues. It all takes away from a care free cruise experience and we as crew always feel guilty about it, even when we can not do anything about it. Technical issues are especially very frustrating as you know that the engine department does its utmost to repair it all and to keep everything well maintained but things still happen occasionally.

The Caribbean cruise season is really getting on the way and in Belize we will not be the only ship. A luxury we had during our first call three weeks ago. Now we will be joined by the Carnival Miracle and the Navigator of the Seas, two of the very big boys. So if you look for the Veendam, we are that little blue boat sitting between the two white apartment buildings.

The weather looks very good for the coming days, which is a relief because if it is too windy, then some of the snorkeling tours are cancelled as the stirred up sand obscures the view. With our Thanks Giving Crowd on board there is great interest in snorkeling, diving and all other water sports, so good weather is of the essence.

We do have a bit more swell than normal and the ship has this dipping wobble at the moment. The stabelizers are balancing the ship against the rolling and we are not really pitching. However occasionally, the ship lurches a bit forward when the two swells that are running meet up together and create a “hole” in the water. It has the same feeling as if you twisted your ankle and then try to run. This ships movement is not uncomfortable, just a bit strange.

I am looking around the ship at the moment to find a nice wall to hang the picture/painting that we received yesterday in Tampa. See entry and photo of 18 November. Normally we receive small gifts, like plaques or plates but this time we received a five feet high framed photo on art paper. Thus we have to find a nice location and order a descriptive sign for it. The latter is more difficult as all interior signs have to be from standard prescribed brass with blue letters to keep it in synch with all the others. This can be a very lengthy procurement issue as each sign has to be custom made by one manufacturer.

The weather is good and very sunny and so it will be a great day tomorrow, when we have the scheduled sea day, which is now the second sea day.

After arriving at the pilot station we were in very good hands. Not one, but three pilots came on board. One was the official pilot and the other two junior pilots who had to make a certain of trips under supervision before they could get licensed for the larger type ship. When a pilot passes his exam, he or she is first limited to a certain tonnage, draft or length. After gaining some operational experience the license is endorsed for a large(r) vessel until after a number of years it becomes unlimited. So under the watchful eye of the senior pilot one of the two juniors conned the ship in. On departure all three returned and then the other junior pilot conned the ship out of port. I think they were both rather disappointed that I dock and undock the ship myself. However as the Captain remains responsible for the ship at all times, a dent caused by a pilot is still going on the account of the captain. So I prefer to make my own dents or better said do the docking myself so there are no dents. Pilots are normally very skilled ship handlers but nobody knows his own ship better than the captain, as he handles her every day.

So we happily docked (without a dent) and started the change over of our guests. We had a bit of drama with the two guests who had missed the ship in Aruba. They had flown from Aruba to Grand Cayman to rejoin the ship. They had just arrived on the pier when the medivac tender was coming back in again. I could then not pick them up anymore, as I had been already in an uncomfortable situation when having to make a lee for the medivac transfer. Thus the agent put them back on the plane to Miami and from their to Tampa. How much bad luck can you have? Upon arriving at the passenger terminal there troubles were not over yet, as now local security rules forbid them to come back on board. Upon departure Aruba, I had double locked the cabin with my master key and sealed it was well. The day before Tampa the security officer, with witnesses present, had packed and inventoried all the belongings. So on arrival Tampa, we took their luggage ashore, checked everything against the inventory list and that was it. Why were they late in Aruba??? They thought that all on board time was 15.30 hrs while it was 14.00 hrs. Thus they arrived at the Aruba dock side around 15.20 hrs. I do not think that they will make that mistake again.

Meanwhile I was occupied with something else. This week it was 25 years since Holland America came to Tampa for the first time. On 16 November 1982, the old Veendam left for its first in augural season from Tampa to the Caribbean. Since then the company has had over 600 000 guests sailing from Tampa. We also had the 1 millionth passenger sailing from Tampa on board the Noordam in 2001 when I was in command of that ship.
Thus we had to have an official party with all the movers and shakers from the port of Tampa and our Vice president Caribbean Operations Mr. Matthew Sams. We also recognized two employees who had been from the beginning. One was a Lady, Mrs. Aldona Weekly, who had been part of the shore operations check in staff since the first call of the Veendam. Second was Mrs. Sandy Naugle our ships agent who started looking after our ships from 1983 on. For both I made an Letter of Commendation expressing our gratitude and I think both made it on the 6 pm. news that evening.

We pulled out on time sailing through Tampa Bay as fast as we could as it was going to be a high speed run to Key West. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is still under maintenance with only one pillar lit up which was a bit of a pity. This is a Seven day Thanksgiving cruise and we have a lot of family’s on board including approx. 150 kids. They normally keep the security department VERY MUCH occupied during the cruise, as the guards try to re-unite families all evening long. Mothers who desperately want to be “re-united” and kids desperately trying to avoid being “re-united”. It is going to be a noisy week.

The cold front moved faster over Cuba and Grand Cayman than expected. This had the pleasant result that the winds died down very quickly in the Gulf of Mexico. That helped in turn to reduce the wave area of 8 to 10 feet high waves in the middle of the Gulf to dissipate faster. As a result I could adjust the ships average speed and we had a very comfortable ride to Tampa. The ship is pitching a little bit (Bow going up and down) but it is a pleasant motion.

Today I had something special on my hands, something I had not experienced in my 26 years with Holland America. The Veendam has the employee of the year on board, or better said the recipient of the Presidents Leadership Award. As I explained in one of my earlier blogs; the company has several ways of recognizing crew for outstanding performance. The selection of the employee of the month is the best known one. However the President and CEO of the company Mr. Stein Kruse also selects once a year three employees who will receive the Presidents Leadership Award. One award goes to the fleet, one award to a person in the office and one award to a person in Holland America Tours, the latter being the hotels, the buses, the trains etc etc.

With 13 ships and two more coming, there are over 9000 employees at sea. Thus it is a great honor if you are the employee chosen to receive this honor. Everybody can make suggestions to the office and bring candidates forward. A committee of wise men and women read the motivations and arguments that go with each nomination and then a final selection is made.

The recipient receives a company pin with 10 precious stones, a engraved glass plaque, the congratulatory letter from the President and a cheque of $ 5000,— The latter is normally the most appreciated. It is then up to the ships captain to make the appropriate recognition and to ensure that the crewmember is duly recognized. As you can understand I am very happy to have the employee of the year on board. I consider TEAM Veendam the best crew in the fleet and now having the EOY on board gives that argument a considerable bit more weight.

The employee of the year is our ships printer, Mr. Balthasar Rafales. The printer has a job that unfolds fully behind the scenes. It is a one mans job, except for on the world cruise when there are two. If this man falls ill, half the communication to the guests come to a grinding halt, as nothing gets printed anymore and stop gaps have to be made by using copy machines. When I just started sailing in 1981, I once worked a few days as the ship printer, as it turned out that I was the only one who could read in mirror and could operate a Heidelberg printing machine. I had just learned that the weeks before from the real ships printer as I had been fascinated by that old fashioned machine; that still printed with lead characters. Because of that only just acquired skill I was quite the bees-knees for a while with Hotel manager and Purser hovering around making sure that I was oke and not falling ill as well. So I know from past experience that the printer has a very vital job on board as a cruise ship operation relies on proper communication a lot via printed matter.

I presented Balthasar, who goes by the name of Balt here on board, his reward during the disembarkation talk when we had the crew farewell. As expected he received a standing ovation from our guests and caused a lot of envious eyes from the whole TEAM Veendam behind him on the stage, when the $ 5000 cheque was presented. Balt is a very worthy recipient as he is always doing a job that ranks under the 125% header and he is capable to anticipate problems arising and correct them and ring the bell when print requests are coming to his shop that are incomplete or do not make sense.

Congratulations to Balt. I have added a section under the My Ship page with a post about Balt in more detail.

The good ship Veendam had a beautiful last day at sea, with calm seas, a gentle rocking swell and glorious sunshine.

Tomorrow we are back in Tampa to do one seven day west Caribbean cruise, followed by the next 14 day cruise.

Days like this give you a real trust in the weather forecasting abilities of the weather people. You look at the weather forecasts and the weather charts and you say, this is not going to be too bad. The wind a bit more to the North then I would like but not too strong so all will be well. I woke up around 4 am. in the morning as the ship started to move about. But as we were still in fully open waters I had high hopes that the angle of the swell would be just right to have the island protect the ship from it, when at the anchorage. When the senior navigator gave me my wake up call and mentioned the wind velocity, I knew we were in for an interesting time.

So we approached the anchorage with the wind gusting from the North to the North East with speeds between 20 to 28 knots and we saw a swell running along the beach that was not pleasant. But the pilot said that things looked good near the anchorage so I went to have a look. It wasn’t pleasant. The pilot boat was bobbing up and down by about 3 feet at the designated anchor spot, the wind blew from the north, setting the ship towards the beach and then the pilot admitted that there was a long surge running along the tender dock in downtown………………time to get out of there.

Then the phone rang and there was the ships doctor who had a patient who needed to go off, otherwise a developing infection would cost the patient her eye. Thus we got the pilot boat alongside to take her and her husband off. From on deck it all looked quite a simple job but while the pilot boat was alongside, I had the Veendam fully perpendicular on the wind, to make a maximum lee and we were drifting with a sideways speed of almost 2 knots towards the beach. Thus there was only at 15 minute window for the pilot boat to get the people off before I had to swing the ship away. All went according to plan and hopefully Georgetown hospital could give efficient help to the Lady. The Veendam continued her cruise towards Tampa.

At 1 pm. during the voice of the bridge I explained in more detail what had happened. It will not have made the guests any happier but at least they understood.

Ladies and Gentlemen, (as part of the voice from the bridge 13.00 hrs)

My apologies for the inconvenience caused by cancelling our call and also my apologies for this lengthy announcement but I hope it will help you understand the why behind the decision.

The local weather at Grand Cayman never made it into the weather charts. What the he weather charts do still indicate for the Gulf of Mexico is a strong wave field so I went to full speed again with the ship. When we reach this wave field, I will slow down again, so that the ship will ride more comfortably. Tomorrow the wind is supposed to die away completely in the aftermath of the passing of the Cold front, so it should be a nice day.

After departure Aruba yesterday we had a day at sea. We basically have to cross the whole of the middle part of the Caribbean Sea to get to Grand Cayman and that takes some time. Most guests were ready for a less intense day after doing 8 ports in a row. So a quiet day at sea was not a bad thing. Although you if then do everything that is mentioned in the daily program, it will still be a busy day.

For me this sea day was a time for a few extra inspection rounds, a few hours sleep in the afternoon and then to get ready for the evening. Tonight was formal night, with a dinner table, followed by the Black and White Ball. We have this cruise, among other groups, a group of 76 Shriners on board of which I wined and dined the Potentates These are the current, past and future chairmen of the local chapter. This group came from Sarasota and as I did not know anything about Shriners, it is a very American organization, it was very interesting to listen to hear what they exactly did. Just one basic fact: there are about 400.000 Shriners in North America. They raise money for their children’s hospitals and in a year the budget for all these hospitals is around $ 700 mln., so it is quite an organization and it does very good work. For a Dutchman, it is funny to hear the name “Potentate” for a chairman’s name. In the Dutch language, the word Potentate has a similar meaning as the word Despot and I do not think that the Shriners exactly mean that when they talk about their chairmen.

The Black and White Ball is a Holland America Line tradition that is being done normally on cruises of 14 days and longer. If the cruise has sufficient sea days, that is. On this 14 day Caribbean cruise we can normally do it, as Grand Cayman (tomorrow) is a not such an early arrival and we have an hour back tonight to adjust to Grand Cayman time. Thus I can get sufficient officers and those with officer status to come out of the wood work for an evening to dance with the Ladies. As there are also sufficient ladies officers, the gentlemen do not have to feel to be left behind. The one thing I make sure of is, that the first dances, are slow numbers. This is to ensure that I also get the officers with two left feet to attend and to prevent “show-offs” from stealing the show. The show lounge is dressed up with black and white balloons and the ball is named after the officers uniforms. Black pants and white dress jacket.

To get some of the officers over their “initial hesitation” the Hotel Manager provides a little bar for the necessary “Dutch courage” and confidence building. One thing I have not figured out yet is that sometimes the Ladies are lined up to dance with the Captain, and sometimes they seem to shy away and I have to chase them up. This time it was easy. I have a number of guests on board who follow this daily blog and they were not going to be denied. Always nice to put a face to an email name…………

We had nice weather during the day, even periods where the wind died fully down. The weather is a bit unsettled at the moment as there is a cold front building in the Gulf of Mexico that in the course of the coming days will sweep through the Caribbean. The weather forecast for Grand Cayman is quite good. The wind is not going to be from the perfect direction but as it is supposed to be not too strong, it should be a good day for anchoring. We are also the only ship in port tomorrow and that is a luxury we do not enjoy very often.

This was a very early morning arrival and well for two reasons. First of all, the earlier you arrive, the less wind there is and secondly I wanted to get in before the Empress of the Seas. That ship was sailing later in the evening and that would mean that the Veendam would be docking closer to the exit of the harbor ahead of the other ship. Thus if I would come in second, I would have to sail past the ship and dock just in front. That is not pleasant with a lot of wind blowing. You sail pass a ship, it blocks the wind, so you loose the balance of course and speed in regard to the wind angle and force; and then when past that ship, the wind blows against the ship again, you need to re-find the balance and you have to put the breaks on to stop and then come sideways alongside. It is much better to be first.

When we came in the port, it was blowing and not a steady wind, but with wind gusts. With just a steady wind you can compensate with speed and drit angle can contain a sideways momentum to the dock. With gusting wind, there is the danger is that when you give the ship a certain speed in drifting towards the dock and the wind falls away, the ship will suddenly set very fast towards the dock with a danger of hitting the dock. When the wind falls away, you compensate for that by stopping the sideways movement. But, of course, the moment you do that, the wind comes back and blows you to the other side of the fairway. Sometimes the only option is then to sail out of the bay and try again.

The harbor of Oranjestad Aruba is a natural Banana-shaped-bay, separated by a reef from open water. Most ships come in through the North West entrance and leave via the South East entrance. So if the maneuver would have to be aborted, you just put the throttle forward and sail out again through the South East entrance. It is always good to have a plan B, even if you have no intention of using it.

Well the good ship Veendam sailed into the port, with a lot of wind into the harbor and with the pilot announcing half way in, that there was a strong current running that had not been there before. Always nice to find that out when you have committed yourself to an approach already. However as it was a following current, it just meant going a bit faster astern on the engines. The docks here in Oranjestad are prepared for a lot of wind, a wind that in the same way as in Bonaire, blows full on the beam. Big bollards are set in the middle of the dock to take the breast lines of the ship which will hold the ship alongside. We made sure that we put plenty of those breast lines across the dock. Good thing we did as during the course of the morning we observed wind gusts from up to 30 knots and that is near gale. The guests had a great time, a bit of a breezy day, but a sunny day.

One of the guests had the passport blown out of the hand by this breeze when coming up the gangway and that passport went straight into the water between ship and dock. However an alert Asst. Housekeeper got a fishingnet and scooped it up in no time. I hope that the guest appreciated his quick actions.

With a fast speed stretch ahead of me to Grand Cayman, I was in a hurry to pull out of Aruba and then we had a delay because guests were missing. After verifying the security system, checking the cabin and making announcements, we were certain they were not on board. After waiting for another 15 minutes, I pulled out. Doing something like this is a very difficult decision. You know that the guests are most likely delayed for a reason not their fault, so you want to wait, but you also have 1200 guests on board who want to go to Grand Cayman. In the end the couple arrived on the pier 1 and ½ hour after the ship had departed. We always make sure that the ships agent remains on the dock until missing guests have been found or arrived and then the agency helps them to get back to the ship in the next port. In this case they will have to fly from Aruba to Miami and from there to Grand Cayman. Flights and two hotel nights; that is not going to be cheap. When they come back on board, we will find out what happened to them.

The Veendam made a flying departure from the dock and with 30 knots of wind, first on the side and then in the stern, the ship was very quickly on the way to Grand Cayman, where we will arrive the day after tomorrow.

Bonaire is one of the six islands that are still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In the north east of the Caribbean Sea we have St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba and in the South West we have Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. The latter three are normally called the ABC islands. They are the remnants from the empire days when Dutch Merchants fleets controlled the world and had trading posts in Nieuw Amsterdam (New York), Kaapstad (Cape Town), Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Suriname (Surinam) and a host of other places. When the empire started to dissolve after the Second World War, these islands opted to remain part of the Dutch Kingdom in one form or the other. Therefore it is always nice to come to Bonaire as it is Caribbean with a Dutch touch.

Kralendijk is a name derived from Koralendijk, or Coral—–dyk. It used to be the main trading post for the island and as Bonaire is nothing but an elevated coral reef, the name makes sense. Water is very deep here; about 200 feet from the dock it still goes four hundred feet down and then suddenly rises to very shallow. When approaching the dock it almost looks like, for an outsider, as if I am steering the ship onto the beach and only at the last minute bring the bow over and line up against the dock. Due to this deep water just of the land, they could never built docks here that extended further out to open waters. Had the shallow area more wider then they could have built a dock in the direction of the wind. Because it is the wind what is causing problems for the ships to dock here.

The dock, being in line with the shore, is built perpendicular on the prevalent wind direction of North East to East. The Tradewinds blow with average velocity of 15 to 20 knots and that is close to thruster capacity to counteract. When coming alongside the wind comes full on the beam and then you ahve to hold the ship in position while the (very long) mooring lines are being paid out. Best thing is to do is to arrive before sunrise when the winds are not so strong yet, as they tend to pick up a bit more after sunrise. On this cruise that did not work as our official arrival time was 9 am., due to the distance we had to cover from Isla de Margarita.

On arrival however, the winds were reasonable and that saved me a few grey hairs. There are tugboats available if needed but they have a long call out time and waiting for them will delay arrival. The dock is fairly small and the ship sticks out at both sides of the dock. Thus we have to run very long lines to the shore side. Lines that are mainly there to keep the ship from drifting away from the pier because of the Tradewinds. There are two of these small docks but we were the only cruise ship in port today.

The Dutch officers tend to use this port to go shopping. The local supermarket has a lot of Dutch goodies for sale and normally an extensive contribution to the local economy is made. As I have a half Dutch, Half British officer complement on the bridge and in the engine room, there is a sort of indoctrination program going with both sides trying to exhort the greatness of certain national treats. The Dutch, including me, are trying very hard to get the British hooked on Dutch salt Licorice (zoute drop) and near Christmas time on spiced nuts (pepernoten) but thus far the only thing that has been found acceptable is Syrup or Caramel wafers (stroop wafels). The British on their side are having a hard time in convincing the Dutch that Bangers and Mash and Bubble and Squeak are real and edible dishes and that warm beer is really drinkable. I have been converted to warm beer, Ale, in the mean time but the British National dishes are still a challenge for me. So I eat “zoute drop” and leave the Bangers and Mash to the British.

Bonaire is not too touristy as a matter of fact they try very hard to keep their own identity, having seen what happened to Aruba and Curacao. They regulate the tourist industry and try to prevent unbridled expansion of shopping arcades. Therefore the guests, maybe apart from the shop-a-holics, really like the place.

Due to the ever blowing wind, departure was easy, let go the lines and by the time the long lines have been brought in, the ship is 500 feet from the dock and we can just swing around and set sail for Aruba.

Now that is a Shop-a-holic paradise,

Isla de Margarita is a long and wide island with the place where we have to go in the middle at the South side. Thus the approach takes a while to complete. Coming from the open Caribbean Sea we first sail for 30 miles through a fairly shallow channel and then make a sharp turn into the bay of El Guamache. There is really nothing there, apart from the cargo dock and the tender pier.

The reason that we are calling here is one out of necessity. When Holland America Line came to Isla de Margarita for the first time in the last 80’s, we anchored at Porlamar. This is the main town on the island and a resort in the style of Acapulco. However the anchorage is very open to South Easterly winds and swell. Because of that it was often that we could not operate a tender service as there was too much swell running along the boarding platform. In the end the decision was made to start docking at El Guamache cargo dock. This meant that the guests have to get on a mini bus or go by taxi to Porlamar but at least the can get there, instead of having to look at the area from the ship while it sails by.

When other company’s saw that this worked very well, they also started calling here. Some company’s did this on weekly and all year around cruises. In the same way as it works in Dominica (see blog of 9 Nov.) with docking preference the ship with the higher frequency of calling docks, and the other ship(s) have to anchor. As we are only calling here four times during this winter season, we will have to anchor each time. Every call, the Empress of the Seas (RCI) will dock from 06.00 to 15.00 hrs. and the Holiday Dream (Pullmantur) docks from 15.00 to 22.00 hrs. The holiday Dream comes in at 10 am. and has to use tenders until the Empress leaves.

We were at anchor by 7 am. after having followed the Empress of the Seas through the channel towards the dock. Venezuela is not yet that regulated that the local Coastguard controls the air waves so for most of our journey along the island we had very nice South American music to listen to, broadcasted on VHF channel 16. This VHF 16 is the hailing and emergency channel so in principle not such a good idea but I have to assume that the person transmitting the music was not aware of that.

With the two other ships moving from and to the dock, I was forced to anchor a bit further out, then I really liked. If the Empress had stayed put all day, I could have almost dropped the anchor on the dock and keep the tender ride to a minimum. But that ship was leaving at 15.00 hrs. and had then to go between me and the Holiday Dream, so I had to keep a bit of a distance, thus increasing the tender ride to about 5 minutes.

It was a very windy day but as we anchored in the bay, there were only wavelets but no long waves which you only get over long stretches of open waters. Thus it was not uncomfortable. I had a visit in the morning from the local director of tourism and the harbor master who brought the good news that they are building a cruise ship dock in Porlamar. That will mean that by the end of next year, two ships will be able to dock close to the resort. The Veendam is not coming back to this area next year, as we are doing a 32 day Amazon cruise followed by seven day West Caribbean cruises. However the company might be back in 2009 there as I have not yet seen the sailings schedules for that year.

It being a windy day meant that departure meant doing very little. We raised the anchor and while swinging around on the bow thruster the wind blew us right out of the bay into open waters.

Tomorrow we are in Kralendijk, Bonaire and a piece of my home country in a Caribbean setting.