In the Dutch language we have a saying: To first see Naples and then Die. This refers to the outstanding scenic beauty of the Bay of Naples. The early morning approach to the port is indeed very beautiful. You have to the south the island of Capri and ahead of you the sun climbing above the horizon behind Mount Vesuvius. After a few days of rain and drizzle in the various ports, the sun was a welcome sight, with the promise of a beautiful day in port.

Naples is an important ferry port with connections to Palermo in Sicily and a lot of smaller fast boats going to Capri and Sorriento and thus we had to do our daily bit of ship dodging again. These ferries call in to the pilot station in Italian, local Italian, which does not help us one bit in finding out what their plans are. As a matter of prudence we normally line up behind them and make our approach when they are safely out of the way.

Some of the pilots come from these ferries and they can get very impatient with the careful way we tend to maneuver. Their idea of arriving is to charge full ahead into the port, swing around, give full astern and charge astern to towards the dock, hoping that their engines won’t fail at the crucial moment. They do fail sometimes and occasionally you see the most spectacular dents in near the waterline of those ferries. So I took my time as saving five minutes on a 12 hour day does not make sense to me.

We docked at the Naples passenger terminal which is a left over from the trans atlantic heyday of ocean travel. It was built during the years of Mussolini in Italy and is of a stark neo Bauhaus style. Similar to what the Nazi’s built in their years in Germany. It has two rearing bronze horses on the top and white sweeping steps leading up to the terminal from the town. The inside is a wonder of high soaring walls, marble floors and large spacious area’s. It is now only used as a cruise terminal, but for me it was wonderful to see that the old First class, 2nd class and 3rd class waiting rooms were still there.

I asked permission to walk around behind the scenes and see the operational side but as it was a Sunday no high enough authority was available to grant permission for that. We are going to Naples one more time, so I will try again then. Naples is one of the few ports where we are still allowed to do full maintenance, so the chief officer had a good day catching up with outstanding window washing and painting. We are still having problems with the sand in the air and the ship got a good hosing down today to get the sand out of the nooks and crannies where the rain from the past few days could not get to.

Sail away was after dark and our guests had a nice view of the lights of Sorriento and Capri twinkling on the horizon. In past we sailed between Capri and the mainland. There is a two mile wide passage but recently that whole area has been turned into a nature reserve and thus we had to sail around the island. Tomorrow is a sea day when we sail through Strait Messina, in the early morning, and then around the South side of Italy on our way to Dubrovnik.

From Monte Carlo to Ajaccio on Corsica is only a short hop and by 7 am we were at the pilot station after a very scenic sail away from Monte Carlo at 10 pm last night. Ajaccio is a major ferry port and as usual they go first so we had to line up behind the Ferry Napoleon Bonaparte and sail into port staying a mile behind this ferry. The ship docked in downtown and there was only the vast expanse of the ferry terminal to cross before arriving in the old town of Ajaccio. Corsica is of course the island where Napoleon was born and one of the ships tours visited his birth place.

We only only stayed for a short while here and at 2 pm, it was departure time. To get to our next port of call, Naples, we had to sail around the Southern part of Corsica, as Ajaccio is located on it’s West side. From there we passed through the strait between Corsica and Sardinia and those extra miles make it a tight schedule to get to Naples on time. The weather cleared nicely during the morning so we had a very scenic transfer through Strait Bonefacio. This area is of great natural beauty with National Parks on both sides of the strait. Apart from that there are a lot of ruins to see as well. In the past many a battle and skirmish was fought in this area and several old forts and look out posts remind of this.

Traffic here is regulated by a Traffic Control station that advises ships about local situations. This time we had a very French Lady on the VHF inquiring about the Pessanger sheep Eendamme and wanted to know all sorts of things for her records. Things got a bit complicated when it came to the name and nationality of the captain. Wass isse Utch, was country issa Utch. “Dutch is Holland” we came back. Ah Holland, Pays Bays verrrry goote. And ze name of zee captain ?? Then things got very complicated with my last name. After one vague attempt of trying to pronounce it, she gave up and wished us a Bon voyage.

Nowadays sailing through this area is quite simple, we have good radars, we can project the sea chart on the radar screen and with GPS as a back up we can stay nicely on the course line. The main thing the navigator has to do is keep a good look-out for traffic that might be in the way. Along the route we could still see the various navigation markers from the old days. Pyramids, which when in line with each other, would give clearance around a rock or a shallow patch. Also we saw old navigation markers that when in line with each other indicated the border between Corsica (France) and Sardinia (Italy). There must have been a time in the past, when it was not appreciated when one crossed the border here as these markers did not have any other navigational significance.

It takes about 90 minutes, at full speed, to get through the Strait of Bonifacio and then it is a straight shot to the Bay of Naples. The weather for tomorrow looks very good, so hopefully a lot of the guests will take the tour to Pompeii and Sorriento, as the city of Naples might be very much closed, it being a Sunday. Naples is a beautiful city to explore but I have warned the guests not to stray too much from the beating track. Naples was once known as the capital of the pickpockets and there still are quite a few locals working very hard everyday to retain that title.

This morning we had a bit of excitement, more excitement then I care for. In the early morning we approached the pilot station with a gentle breeze blowing from the North East and it looked a very promising day. We were scheduled to dock in Monte Carlo which since a few years has a semi floating dock that can accommodate two medium size cruise ships.

The pilot station is about a mile from the shore and so we were happily approaching with about six knots speed. The pilot came racing out in his boat and while he was approaching the ship, the wind suddenly started to increase to 30 knots, to 40 knots and then to 50+ knots. That is storm force. By the time he was on board and on the bridge, I had the “brakes” on and was making an abort maneuver. What was happening was that the Mistral had suddenly started. The Mistral is a local wind that can suddenly develop in the Rhone Valley of France and then build up very rapidly to storm force. A Mistral is normally not predictable and just happens. According to the pilot it only happens about twice a year in the Monte Carlo area and today we were the lucky ones.

An “abort” maneuver is something that is always in the back of the mind of a captain. When preparing for an approach, you think, what can I do if the approach does not work. What is plan B.? Monte Carlo has deep water all the way up to the coast so there is room to come quite close before it is too late but with 50 knots of wind blowing, a modern cruise ship drifts very quickly and a decision has to be made rapidly. So in this case, full astern, bow and stern thrusters full to port and use the wind as a friend instead of an enemy and let it blow you back to open waters.

For those who are not familiar with ships, a good way to compare it is with driving a car. You are driving into your garage, the hood is just going through the door and suddenly your grand daughter jumps in front of the car. What do you do: full on the brakes, even use the hand brake as an extra, try to stop on time and at the same time try to keep the car from swerving into the garage walls. That’s about what is on a captains mind when he approaches a port or a dock.

The pilot left the ship again, to be called if things got better and I decided to wait; as a wind that suddenly pops up normally also suddenly disappears again. My guests did not notice that much of the whole happening although some felt the ship shuddering when I suddenly applied all the horse power available. But when I made my announcement to inform them of the situation, it was clear for even the greatest landlubber that “those seas out there were not normal” as a gentleman from Iowa put it to me later in the day. In the mean time we had company in the form of the Sea Princess who was scheduled for the anchorage but due to the wind and whipped up waves also had to wait for better times to come.

By 9 am. the wind died indeed down, and we moved towards the port. Picked up the pilot at the breakwater and backed into the harbor, docking on the inside of the pier. This made the Veendam the biggest and most expensive yacht in Monte Carlo harbor that day. Bit of a dreary day but everybody was happy that we at had a least made it.

Cruise ships call at Livorno because it is a convenient port for the ships tours to Florence, Sienna, Pisa, and other places in scenic Tuscany. The port itself is very busy with ferry and cargo ships going in and out twenty four hours a day. The entrance to the port is rather narrow and requires at 90o turn to get into and for somebody who has never seen it, it can be quite unsettling to see the big ships bow sweeping just past the breakwater. However the Veendam can turn on a dime so it is just a matter of lining her up correctly.

In this port two pilots come on board. While one is doing the navigation from on side of the bridge wing, the other is at the other side of the bridge, calling out distances. We were docking in the old section of the port and that requires a maneuver astern through a narrow opening. An opening which leaves less then a ships width clearance at either side. We position ourselves people as well to double check on the pilot’s decision and information. Although the pilots are very capable, when things go wrong it is still the Masters fault, so it is always advisable to have a second opinion from one of the navigators stationed aft, forward and in the side.

In order to make these maneuvers go smoothly and without hiccups, each member of the docking team has to know exactly what is going on, what to do when and to understand what the captain is doing with the ship during the evolution. To accomplish this, we have a meeting the day before and then we go through the whole maneuver. This is called Bridge Resource Management and the idea is that each member of the team hears what is going on and also has the chance to give input. The senior navigator explains the approach requirements, who to notify, when to call on the VHF, what the local requirements are for speed, the no go zones and any other issues. This is followed by the captain who explains his planned maneuver and where he needs people to be on standby and what information he needs from the bow and the stern in order to get the maneuver done as intended. This is followed by the chief officer, for where to position gangways, security issues, planned maintenance etc etc.

During this meeting everybody has a chance to bring issues forward and I have been in port preparations where I found out that the only officers who had ever been to a certain port where the 4th officer and the cadet. So their observations are very valuable as well, and are directly incorporated in the docking plan. Sometimes none of us have ever been to a port (see our call at Koper last week, which was a completely new call for Holland America Line) and then we all try to envision what problems might occur during docking and what the essential issues are that we have to keep an eye on.

The weather let us down a little bit today, here in Livorno, as it was mainly overcast with showers, thus not the most perfect weather for sightseeing but at least it was not cold. Maybe tomorrow it will be better in Monte Carlo.

It was an early arrival this time, mainly to beat the crowd. We were together today with the Saga Ruby, the Grand Mistral, the Pacific, the Marco Polo and the Silver Shadow and all had planned to be at the pilot station at 6 am. The Saga Ruby decided in the end to do the same ting as I did and went for an early arrival as well. The other four kept the same pilot time, so the pilots had to decide who was going first. Right in between there were several ferries going in and
two were only coming in, while the Veendam was already dispatching its tours.

Apart from a shower in the mid morning, it was a nice day, not too warm so good for sightseeing. The longest tour today had a duration of 11 hours and was not expected to be back on board until 8 pm. Normally there is a traffic delay as well for the buses trying to get out of Rome and as a result we did not sail until close to 9 pm. The motorway between Rome and Civitavecchia is very good it just takes a long time to get out of Rome itself.

With the ship being nearly empty of guests, I had the perfect opportunity to do some onboard inspections. That is what nowadays a lot of the captain’s work is all about. Inspecting and auditing. It is a fact of life that everything is getting more and more regulated from the outside but also from the inside. With Holland America expanding, more company procedures are streamlined and codified so that the product and the shipboard routines are the same from ship to ship. That means walking around and checking if it is all done according to the latest updates,

The company has all their rules and regulations streamlined in a Safety Management System and everything is posted in manuals and directives on an Intranet system. So when in doubt of something a search engine is available and things can be found. This aspect of the cruise business keeps changing very fast and thus we also have that intranet connection at home. During our leave period we check once or twice a week our company mail box to see what the latest updates are. In that way we do not have to catch up with an enormous backlog when we get back to the ship. Our people in the office are connected to the system by means of a black berry when not behind the desk. Some of them get so much correspondence that if they do not check their mail box very frequently it gets overloaded. That earned these Black berry’s the nickname Crack-berry’s, as you can get easily into the enslaving habit of checking the thing every five minutes all day and night long and starting to feel lost without it.

I remember with a bit nostalgia the year I joined the company and one day the captain got highly excited because he received a telex from the head office. Only one, but it was the most important event of the day. It had to be discussed at great length and the captain found that he had done a good days work after sending an answer back. Now the ship goes through around 400 emails a day, both external and internal and nobody thinks it is unusual.

Tomorrow we are in Livorno, or Leghorn as the British call it.

Today we were in Messina, located on the east side of Sicily just opposite the Italian Mainland. Approaching the port is always interesting due to the ferry traffic coming and going from the port. Messina is located close to the mainland, only separated by Messina Strait and most of the traffic from Sicily to the mainland goes therefore via Messina. As a result there is a ferry movement about every 5 minutes. These ferries have sailing preference over other ships and that means that you suddenly might have to wait.

This was also the case on our arrival, according to the pilot we could approach the port slowly as they only had to move a small ship from our dock (only 5 minutes captain..) and we could sail straight in. About one mile from the entrance, the pilot requested less speed, as the small ship was still at the dock (but only 5 minutes more captain…..) So I reduced speed. Half a mile from the dock the pilot requested the ship to stop as the small ship was still at the dock (but only 5 minutes more captain………..) I did not like the idea very much to sit there still with a ship just outside the harbor entrance, and I requested to wait inside the harbor. This was not possible as the harbor master does not allow ships to wait inside, as they might hamper the arrival and departure of the ferries. So we had to wait outside.

5 minutes later the pilots requested the ship to go astern a little bit, as now two ferries were coming out. The small ship was still at our dock. (But only 5 minutes more captain…………….) Luckily the ferries came charging out of the harbor at very fast speeds and that minimized the delay. While the ferries were leaving the small ship moved as well. However instead of docking 30 minutes early, what I liked to do to get the ship cleared and not delay the ships tours, I now docked 10 minutes late. Moral of this story, 5 minutes Italian time is 40 minutes ships time.

1 May is a national holiday in Italy. It is Labor Day and as a result hardly anybody works and that also meant that the shops were closed. Not working on Labor day, I find that somehow a contradiction in terms but as a lot of countries celebrate May 1st., there must be something to it. Most of our guests were on tour and as we are doing three more Italian ports it had not too much impact on the shopping needs of the guests. We only stayed to 1 pm., as it was going to be a fast run to Civitavecchia, the entry port for Rome. So we left nearly on time, two ferries in the way again, and then sailed northbound through Strait Messina. 35 miles North of Messina is the active volcano Stromboli and I had set my courses in such a way that the Veendam would sail past at close distance on the West side of the mountain.

We sailed by on the West side for two reasons, First is was sunny and the view is much better with the sun behind you instead of trying to glare into it and Secondly I like to keep the Volcano on the Lee side of the ship, so the sulfer smoke does not get into the AC system. Even by staying two or three miles from the shore or even further, if the mountain is smoking, the wind can push the smoke very easily towards you and nobody likes the smell of rotten eggs in the cabin. Today there was no smoke to be seen as the volcano top was covered in clouds. The port lecturer gave a narration while we sped by at full speed aiming for an early arrival at Civitavecchia. Six cruise ships are expected in port tomorrow (all arriving at the same time of course). Planning to come in in a little bit before the other ships means that we can be cleared first by the local authorities and have our tours on the way ahead of everybody else.

The only problem with Italy being a long and narrow peninsula is that you have to sail a long way south and then west to get to the other side. Due to the shape of the land we call it in Europe the “Italian Boot” with Sicily as some sort of football located at the tip of that boot. Maybe that is the reason why Italy is such a soccer mad country, the whole land is shaped like it.

We had once again nice weather with a slight brownish haze. The brown color is caused by the sand in the air that is transported by the wind from the Far East. Every morning we find a thin layer of sand on the decks and that makes my chief officer curse as it is a continuous job to get the sand of the ship again. At the same time we are hampered by local port regulations to do so. Quite a few ports do not allow washing the decks anymore while in port. The logic behind it being, that they are afraid of oil being washed into the water as well. That we are a clean and well maintained cruise ship makes no difference. The rules are the same for everybody. Thus the sailors of the deck department do their best while at sea but as the ship spends a lot of time in port the hours available are limited. Hence a dusty looking ship after a windy night.

Another strange result of the sand in the wind is that it acts as a sanding paper. The ship has wooden railings along the decks and on the balconies and these are greatly affected by the sand. When the ship sails it already creates a relative wind of 20 knots caused by the ships speed. If the real wind is against us, then the total relative wind force can go up to 40 or 50 knots over the deck and that is storm force.

With this relative wind whistling around the ship, it pushes the sand particles with the same speed along the hull. Causing the phenomena that the sand is “sanding” off the varnish from the wooden railings which are starting to look bare. That does not help the image of an immaculate maintained cruise ship at all. We do “touch up” as much as we can, but as soon as we leave for Northern Europe we will have to take all the railings off one by one and completely revarnish them. For the guests with balcony cabins we take the complete railing out and substitute it with a temporary one. In that way they are not affected by wet varnish.

The fishing boats were out in force yesterday and of course exactly on the tracks of the deep-sea vessels, including us. Why, nobody knows, but it seems that the fishing is always the best there where the big ships are passing by. When looking at the radar you see all the fishing boats congregating in the area around our projected course line and a few miles to the West or a few miles to the East there is nobody. We try to go around the whole fleet as much as possible but on the other hand we still have to get to our destination within a set time frame. So with two navigators behind the radar (one navigating, the other checking the safe progress) we zig zag between the fishing boats keeping them all at a safe distance.

By midnight we came to the south side of the Italian boot and whether the people in this area do not like fish, or the current is wrong, but here we never see fishing boats. You do see a increase in commercial traffic, as it is near the Strait of Messina, the waterway between Sicily and the Italian Mainland. Traffic approaches here from the South, South West and South East and also goes in those directions, coming out of the Strait. The strait of Messina or Stretto di Messina in Italian is named after the town of Messina on Sicily which is our next port of call tomorrow.

The ship spent the night in Venice and this morning the disembarkation started. For some guests very early (like 5 am.), depending on what time their flights were leaving. For those staying in Venice there was not such a hurry of course. Getting to a hotel in downtown Venice is different from the rest of the world. Venice is pedestrian and hardly any of the hotels can be reached by car. There are two options. One is by motorized transport from the ship to Piazza Roma, which is a big square at the edge of Venice near the train station is and from there porters will help you to walk you to the hotel with your luggage. The second option is to take the boat. Most of them are called Vaporetto’s and they maintain regular services throughout the Venice canals with fixed calling points. It is a sort of bus service but on the water. Some of their routes stop at the major hotels and near the minor ones. Transport into Venice is not cheap as nearly everything is done by manual abor.

For us the day was fairly quiet as we did not have many supplies to load this time. Just fresh vegetables and fruit came on board and some spare parts for the engine room. Still the longshoremen had enough work to do with loading all the luggage. The ship is sailing with a full house again and most of our guests are not traveling light. The luggage either arrives with the Bus that transports the guests or by separate truck from the airport. It is screened by security and then loaded on the ship. Luggage transport here at the Venice terminal is nearly identical to the little luggage trains you see running around the air planes at the airport. Once the luggage has been received inside the ship, Housekeeping comes into action. A supervisor checks the label of each suitcase and directs it to a trolley. The trolley is loaded with luggage just for one deck and when full is then taken up to that specific deck. There it is offloaded in the lobby and picked up by the cabin steward. He carries it by hand to the correct cabin and puts it inside. Quite often the luggage is there before the guest reaches the cabin but that time frame depends very much on how fast the longshoremen can get the luggage from the terminal. Luggage that lost its label ends up at the Front office and the Guest relations manager will then try to match the bag with the correct owner.

The ship sailed on time and as it was a sunny day, Venice was showing its best side again. It being a Sunday, Saint Marc Square was full of people, who were enjoying the sunshine and had of course the additional benefit of seeing a beautiful Holland America Line Ocean Liner coming by and going to sea.

The major part of this cruise will be spend sailing around Italy. Venice is located in the top corner of the right side of the Italian peninsula and eventually we will end up in Monte Carlo which is located on the top left corner of Italy. That meant that after leaving the port of Venice we sailed on a south easterly course, hugging the Italian coast, until we reach the The South East point late tomorrow evening.

Today was a busy (last) day for the guests as we did two ports in one day. In the morning we were in Koper, Slovenia and in the late afternoon we arrived in Venice for an overnight stay. The weather was once again sunny and not too warm, resulting in a beautiful stay in Koper and a spectacular arrival in Venice, where the setting sun framed the houses along the canals as if it was a Canaletto painting.

Koper, was a first call for the Holland America Line and we on board did not know exactly what to expect as none of us had ever been there. Upon the arrival the pilot told me the Veendam was the largest cruise ship ever to call at the port and the biggest ship that would fit in the down town berth. Koper is a medium size industrial port with some great deep water docks for cargo ships, but that is not where you want to put a cruise ship. So I swung the ship around outside the harbor entrance and then backed her all the way to the dock.

The town of Koper is working very hard to get a slice of the cruise business so by 10.30 we had about 25 newspaper people on board and two cameras of the National Slovenian Television. I was going to be world famous in Koper during the evening news. Koper has a lot of tours to offer, both historical and otherwise and our guests were very happy with the port stop. The only comment being that the ship should have stayed for a full day. So many things are available there, as Slovenia reaches deep into the Balkan with spectacular sights and it is a clean, friendly and peaceful country. Even if you do not go on tour, the old town was only a 1000 yards away from the gangway.

We sailed at 2 pm. and with the Veendam’s whistle booming over the old town a lot of locals waved us out, watching the event of the day, the BIG ship call. It being a Saturday meant that the whole bay was full of sailing boats, so the Veendam had to zig and zig its way to open waters. Then it was a four hour run to the pilot station of Venice, where we arrived at 17.30 hrs.

Today we had an Italian lady pilot who guided us through the lagoon and past the sights of Venice. As a captain you stand a bit with your fingers crossed while sailing through the Canal, as the fairway is so narrow that the only option you have is to stop when something happens. your can not cahnce course. The local ferries and tourist boats seem to consider 30 feet a safe passing distance but it is a bit un-settling to see one boat after the other disappearing from sight under the bow of the Veendam and to pop up again at the other side. From my conning position on the bridge I have a dead angle of about 120 feet, where the bow blocks the view, so what might be a safe distance for a small boat, looks awfully close to me. But there is always on officer forward in the bow, who will advise me if something happens where I can not see it.

The ship arrived in the evening, to offer the guests the chance to do an evening tour into Venice, including a gondola ride. Also a lot of my crew grabbed the chance to get off for a few hours. Most of them do not have that much time to go ashore, so if we have an overnight port, I encourage the heads of various departments to split up their departments as much as possible (with crew covering for each other) so that everybody gets a chance to go ashore. One group during this call, the next group during our next call. Tomorrow is change over day and then we start our next cruise, sailing to the Western Mediterranean.

After so many days of going ashore and seeing the sights, this was a day to rest and to enjoy life on board the Veendam again. Although the sort of resting depends upon what you want to do while on board. The cruise director packs the sea day full with activities and that means that there is not much rest for the guest, if the guest decides to partake in everything on offer.
Tomorrow we are in the morning in Koper and in the early evening arrive in Venice during sunset, so what ever the guest still wanted to do on board, it had to be done today.

This is also the last sea day and that means that we have a get-to-gether with the guests to say good bye. The disembarkation procedure is explained and about 200 crew come on stage for a farewell song. This is always much appreciated by the guests and some of them find it a very emotional affair. Following the farewwell party is the Gathering of the Society of Holland America Mariners (for details see 17 April) and then it is already lunch time.

The celebrity chef was cooking Greek food in the afternoon and those who had seen or eaten too much food in the past week could attend a lecture with our environmental officer or gain some in depth knowledge with our Exploration Series speaker about how the Mediterranean was geologically formed. Formal night finished the evening off and the evening dinner also featured the parade of the baked Alaska and the line up of the chefs of the kitchen. I have on formal nights a table in the dining room. People are always curious about how you end up at the captains table. There are basically three options: one, the office sends a recommendation to the ship, two, I know myself guests from previous cruises, three the Dining room manager selects 8 guests who might enjoy the experience. It is not always easy for the dining room manager to do this, as he/she has to find the right mix of people who are comfortable enough with the experience and who will enjoy good conversation as much as the food served. The menu at the captains table is different from the entries of the dining room menu and the guests receive a copy as a souvenir, the next morning, after I have signed it.

The sea was flat calm during the whole day, while we sailed by Brindisi and into Croatian waters on our way to Slovenia. My navigators prefer a bit of wind at sea, as it keeps the fishing boats away from the shipping lanes but no such luck. So for most of the day, the ship was zig zagging all over the place in order to avoid them all. In the evening we had a spectacular blood-red sun set which promised another beautiful day tomorrow.