Today we had one of the highlights of our cruise, a full day in Civitavecchia which is the entrance port for Rome, the eternal city. We were blessed with great weather, sunny but not too warm, so a perfect day for sightseeing. The Veendam arrived at the pilot station at 06.30 and the pilot was right on time. He stepped on board 30 seconds before 06.30.

During the past winter the port has been working on an extension, and make the breakwater that protects the port from swell, half a mile longer, so it was a bit of a surprise to find the entrance not at the same location. Any changes to port lay-outs are normally forwarded by the designer to the local hydrographic office, who then issues a Notice to Mariners and this notice is eventually incorporated in the chart. Somehow the notice of the completion of the breakwater had not made it yet to the outside world. We knew that the pier was under construction but we did not know that it had been finished. It did not matter for the safe navigation, as they had moved the lighthouse as well, still standing at the end of the pier, and that is where you aim for, when lining up for the entrance.

With the new harbor layout also came a new cruise pier. Still very much under construction, but nice and spacious. The old cruise dock was more convenient to walk into the town, but the port authorities had alleviated that concern by putting on a free shuttle bus to the port gate. This port gate is located under the local Fort Michelangelo (designed by THE Michelangelo and later named after him) and from there it is a little walk to the boulevard of the town with little restaurants and shops; very good for our crew. However our dining room crew had other plans and had chartered their own bus to get to Rome. As most of our guests were going to be out for the whole day the dining room was closed for lunch, giving about 50 stewards the chance to go ashore between 09.30 and 16.30.

Departing from Civitavecchia, on time, is always a gamble. We never know if the busses from Rome will be back on schedule. Traffic around Rome can be horrendous and the buses can be delayed by a good amount of time. That also makes it dangerous if you venture out on yourself and do not keep a close eye on the time and do not allow ample time for coming back. The ship will wait for the company tours to return, at whatever time they might return, but I do not wait for individuals who do not adhere to the official departure time. So for complicated port calls such as Rome it is best to book a company tour, as you know that the ship will wait for you.

Traffic was however good, and the last bus pulled up at the ship at exactly 1700 hrs, so ten minutes later the Veendam was on it’s way, heading from Dubrovnik, with a sail by the volcano Stromboli and scenic cruising through the Strait of Messina.

It is always a pleasure to come to Monte Carlo, even if it is only for the view from the ship. The bad weather dissipated during the night and there was hardly any wind at all during the day, just sunshine. However the wind had left some swell behind, so we were looking at a wobbly tender ride to get ashore. We were in port with the Amsterdam (on the last leg of her annual world cruise) and as she was on the best anchor spot, having arrived earlier, I decided to stay on the engines. That means manuvring all day, so it was going to be al long day for me on the bridge. however I was not planning to expose my guests to a long and wobbly tender ride to the dock. Thus we floated in front of the harbour entrance, reducing the tender ride to less then 5 minutes. Monte Carlo now also has a regular dock. This is a floating dock, at one side connected to the land and on the sea side kept in position with a whole series of anchors. The Seven Seas Voyager was docked at this pier, so there was no room for us this time.

We try to dock as often as we can, but sometimes a shuttle operation with boats is the only way to get guests ashore. We call it a tender operation and we use dedicated boats for this purpose, boats that seat approx. 80 guests. The British call them Launches, we call them Tenders. They are driven by Quatermasters or experienced sailors. These gentlemen are specially trained to operate the boats and their training consists out of Navigation, Rules of the road, manuvring and what to do if something goes wrong. We have four tenders on board and depending on the distance from the ship to the shore, we use 2, 3 or all four.

The guests leave from the ship through a side door located on B deck. This is the lowest deck of the ship above the water line. We have four such doors, two on each side of the ship, but most of the time we can only use one or two, depending on the swell that is running. In Monaco there was still a considerable swell so I had to keep the ship under such an angle that as little swell as possible would reach the platform that is used to moor the tenders to and we could only use one door. Taking into account that there was also a current pushing the ship towards the beach and a bit of wind pushing at the funnel, meant that the manuvring all day with the Veendam, was a constant balancing act with the thrusters and the main propellors.

Most of our excursion tours went in the afternoon, as we had to share buses with the Amsterdam. Some of them were delayed in coming back, thus delaying our tours and their later return delayed the departure of the ship by an hour. However as the weather was glorieus, a good time was had by all.

Most guests were back in time to see the Amsterdam leaving and to listen to the exchange of greetings with the ships whistles between the two captains. We left shortly after, once again sailing across a nearly flat sea surface. This North West Corner of the Med. is called the Ligurian Sea. Liguria is a region in North West Italy that gave the name to the adjoining water. The region is named for an ancient pre-Indo-European people, the Ligurii. The area was subdued by the Romans in the 2nd century B.C. and was later (16th-19th century) controlled by Genoa, which is nowadays the biggest Italian City in the area.

Today was the first day of bad weather that we had this cruise. During the night a weather system rolled in from the East Mediterranean with Winds up to 40 knots. Luckily the swell in the Med. is only wind driven, there is no long ocean swell as the Med is surrounded on all sides by land, so the ships movement was not that bad, just a bit bumpy.

We arrived on time at the pilot station, and where then told to wait as there was outbound traffic. Waiting is no fun in principle as we are on a schedule, but drifting with 40 knots of winds blowing at you is very unpleasant. However the pilot finally made it on board and in we went.

Upon docking we still had 30 knots blowing, mainly on the bow so I could not swing the ship around to dock nose out as was my intention, so we docked starboard side alongside the new cruise terminal in Barcelona. There is an older cruise terminal near the World Trade Centre in down town, but according to the pilot that is only used, when their new terminal is full of ships. So, the guests had to use a bus shuttle service into town, which ran frequently.

The weather improved during the day, and I was hoping for a nice departure, However Murphy’s law applies at all times and just before sailing the wind picked up again . By the time that we were ready to go the 30 knots winds were back. Now I had to swing in order to get out of port. I can hold the Veendam against the wind in position with about 25 knots of wind on the beam but this was more so we used a tugboat to help push the stern around. The ships funnel catches a lot of wind and therefore it is not that easy to get the stern into the wind. With the tug on the stern I swung the ship around in the turning basin as quickly as possible, to get the wind on the stern so the Veendam would not drift towards the piers on the other side of the harbor. Then the pilot took the conn and we basically blew out of the port. Back in open sea, the wind was still blowing, but it got less and less in the evening.

Barcelona is a beautiful port and the Church designed by Gaudi, The Holy Family Cathedral, is something that has to be seen. Although still not finished in construction, the church is the major tourist attraction of Barcelona. Quite a few of our crew are dedicated fans of the Barcelona Football club, so they went sightseeing in the Soccer stadium, which seats close to a 100.000 people.

Another glorious day. It was supposed to be rainy and windy today, but it seems that the frontal system coming from the East Med has been delayed. So it was nearly wind still and sunny with temperatures in the low 60’s.

After leaving the Straits of Gibraltar behind us, we entered the Mediterranean Sea. The fist part is called the Sea of Alboran, which is just a local name. We will come across more local names for specific area’s that all form part of the Med.

As we are sailing straight courses, the land is sometimes closer and sometimes further away from us. Every time that we have to turn the corner we are close to land again. So we passed Cabo Palos and Cabo Nao to name just two of them. Cabo Nao is at the edge of the Strait of Ibiza but you need very clear weather to see both the mainland and the island at the same time. Ibiza is part of the Balearic Islands, which consist of Ibiza, Mallorca and Menorca.

There was quite a bit of wildlife. We saw whales and dolphins playing around the ship. With our ships speed of 17 knots, the dolphins can just ride the bow wave that comes off the bulbous bow. The whales are a different story, they just swim by going about their business. We have a company protocol in how to deal with them. As soon as we see a spout, we try to figure out which way the whale is going, and then change course the opposite way. If we cannot get out of the way, or the whale is just floating, we slow down and try to maintain a good distance. All the navigators and the quartermasters (these are the sailors on the look-out) get trained in this. Sometimes the whale is curious and comes to the ship to have a look. Then we slow the ship down completely until the animal moves on again. The whales in the Mediterranean are not as big as those we see in Alaska and sometimes they are hard to spot, but do what we can do to give these majestic animals the right of way.

In the early morning we started our approach to Cadiz. This town is located at the mouth of a river, a real estuary, with a wide shallow opening with mud flats/shallow water and then slowly tapering inwards to a regular river. That means that the tides in the port are generally higher than in non-estuary ports as the sea is pushed into the funnel with nowhere to go but up. Luckily it was neap tide for Cadiz, which means that the variation in height of the tides is at its lowest cycle. High tides mean steep gangways, and shifting between the higher entrance doors to the ship and the lower ones and that can be quite inconvenient for our guests. Especially those with wheelchairs or walkers.

The pilot boarded at 05.30 am and from there it was less than 5 miles to the dock. The port of Cadiz is a very large U-shaped basin and we were assigned the best berth in the port, the ferry dock, as the ferry did not call today. Best berth meant docking in the forward corner, so our guests only had to cross the street to get to the town. I always try to dock with the bow out, so there is no delay on departing, and in this case it also meant that the gangway was directly opposite the exit to the town. So we were all docked at 06.50 for an official 07.00 arrival.

This was the first time that the Veendam had called at Cadiz. As a matter of fact the ship has never been back to Europe since it was built in Venice in 1996. So that meant a plaque exchange with the local authorities. This is a sort of tradition, and as a result the staircase walls of a ship will slowly fill up with the various plaques and crests, when ever a ship calls at a new port. Especially ships on world wide routes can amass an extensive collection. This time it was the Secretary of the Mayor, the Chairman of the port and the Chief pilot who came on board for an official welcome and a little chat. Pictures of the event were supposed to be submitted to the local newspaper, so your captain is now “world famous in Cadiz”.

The weather was better then expected, much of the rain was delayed, so we had clear but chilly day. Good for sightseeing and that is of course the main objective of a cruise like this. The rain is going to catch up with us tomorrow, supposedly.

We left at 17.30 as soon as all the guests were on board and sailed the same way out as we came in. The remainder of the evening was spent by transversing the Straits of Gibraltar. The Strait is at its narrowest point about 5 miles wide and all the traffic for the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal has to go through there. Also in this area, has a Vessel Traffic Separation Scheme been established with the ships outbound hugging the Northern, Spanish, side and the inbound ships staying on the African side. There is a reporting requirement to an operations centre in Tariffa on the Spanish side near Gibraltar. this center monitors all the ships going through. They are especially interested in knowing whether ships have dangerous cargo on board, so that in the unlikely case of an emergency, appropriate action can be quickly taken.

New in the Strait is that the narrowest part of the passage has been designated Whale waters from April to August. Through the years an increasing number of whales have seen going in and out of the Med, and an advisory speed in this area has been established. Ships are requested, it is not compulsory yet, to maintain a maximum speed of 13 knots and keep a sharp look out. Well the latter we always do, the speed advisory was new to us, so we slowed down for this particular part of the passage to 13 knots. Most cargo ships and tankers have an average speed of 13 knots and thus do not have to do anything special.

By 23.00 we could see the Rock of Gibraltar in the distance on our port side and we came to more open water again. During the passage I counted approx. 75 ships on the radar that were making speed and another 40 ships at anchor in the Gibraltar area. The port of Gibraltar is an important bunker fuel loading port and also a place where many ships anchor that are waiting for order.

This day we had the calmest weather possible. The sea was like a mirror with just a very low lazy swell rolling in from the North. A great way to end a crossing. Most of the day we sailed in deep, deep water again, on average with 15000 ft. under the keel.

This changed in the late afternoon, when we passed the Gettysburg Seamounts. These comprise basically out of two very steep mountains that rise up from the deep to almost the surface of the ocean. According to the nautical charts they stop at 20 meters or 60 feet under water. I am always a bit apprehensive to believe these sort of soundings in the middle of nowhere and I do not like sailing over them, “just to see” if the soundings were indeed correct. So we keep our course line well to the south where the water is much deeper. Late in the evening we entered the Gulf of Cadiz, which is basically just another name for the end of the North Atlantic Ocean where it hits the Portugese shores. Cadiz is located in Spain, just to the south of Portugal.

Here we see a bit more traffic. Traffic coming from and going to the Straits of Gibraltar cross on a straight course through the Gulf of Cadiz rounding Cabo Sao Vincente to the North of us. Cape San Vincent is the most south western point of Portugal and the traffic lane bends around it. To regulate traffic, a Vessel Traffic Separation System has been established, to keep north and south going traffic apart. This is a safety measure, as in the past not all ships kept due distance of each other and, or, tried to cut the corner so tightly that it endangered other ships. There fore a sort of dual lane highway has been established that guides all traffic in a proper way around the Cape at a fair distance. The International Maritime Organization has established these traffic separation schemes in a lot of area;s in the world where there is dense traffic.

Tonight will also be our last hour forward of the crossing. This is about the only negative part of an Ocean crossing Eastbound. Between Florida and the European mainland we loose six hours in total, so most nights there is an hour forward. Westbound is the opposite where we gain an hour each night. An hour extra sleep, or an hour extra party time, depending on your preference. For the coming days we will stay on West European summer time, until we come to Dubrovnik, there we have to go forward one more hour.

After all the excitement of Punta Delgado, back to the restful routine of a ship at sea. The weather is holding up and the sea is starting to smooth out more and more. There is still a low swell rolling in, but it is getting less and less. The Azores are nothing more than mountain tops that rise from the bottom of the Ocean and they form part of the East Azores Fracture zone.
Thus shortly after leaving we are back in deepwater again. By this evening we will be past this mountain range which reaches up to about 9000 feet below us and the depth will increase to 15000 ft., when we sail over the Iberian Abyssal Plain.

The guests are preparing themselves for our next port Cadiz, where we will be on the 12th. The port lecturer has given his port talk and many guests are checking out books from the Explorations Café or are surfing the internet for information. Modern technique makes it possible to arrive anywhere in the world, well prepared and informed.

Today we had our next formal night, which included the Black and White Officers ball. The black and white comes from our uniforms, black for the pants and white for the jackets. The dining room is decorated in white banners with black dancing scenes in relief and black and white balloons. The ball starts after the dinner and as our show lounge has two levels, groups of officers assemble on both sides of the upper level. At the intro tune (appropriately Anchors Away) the captain accompanied by the hostess, or in this case my wife, leads the officers onto the stage so all the guests can see the full line up.

Then at the start of the first dance captain and wife descends onto the dance floor to open the ball. After a few twirls they split up and invite a partner from the audience. This is the cue for the officers to follow and invite ladies or gents (depending the officers gender) to join them on the floor. Each alternating dance is a letter dance. This means that some officers have a numbered envelope in their pocket. At the end of the dance, the number is called and the lady or gent who danced with the officer is asked the name and function of that officer. If the correct answer is given, there is the prize of a bottle of champagne or some logo items.

The idea is in principle that the guests ask the officers for a dance, however some of the ladies (and gents) can be a bit reluctant to approach the officers, so the officers reverse the trend and keep the dance floor as full as possible. It is a Holland America given to do a Black and White ball on cruises of 14 days and longer, weather permitting.

As the weather was beautiful with a very stable ship, the dance floor remained full, so full that many couples stepped up to the stage to have more room. Because lady officers are still in the minority on board, I also ask the concessions to attend (Ladies from the shops, the casino and the beauty parlor) to balance the totals a little bit. Many a gentleman sees here the chance here to get “his hands” on the girl he only sees standing behind the counter otherwise. The dancing lasted for an hour and by that time was close to midnight. This is quite late for many of our guests and quite a few started to drift away by then. Also the temptation of the Midnight buffet often wins it from having an other dance with an officer. For those who could not get enough, the crowsnest remained open until the wee hours.

We arrived exactly on schedule at the pilot station. The pilot was slow in coming out and as a result he stepped on board when I was about to start the turn into the harbor. The weather on arrival was un-expectedly very windy (so much for weather forecasts to be correct) which caused the ship more to “drift” into port, than to “cruise” into port. As we were to be docked at the inner side of the far end of the breakwater, the approach was mainly making a turn of 90o to the West stopping on time, and slowing the ship’s sideways movement down by the thrusters, so that the wind did not push the ship too fast to the dock.

We were docked at 09.15, for an official arrival time of 10 am. This gave the local authorities ample time to clear the ship, the shorex department time to set up the buses and thus there was no delay for the guests, as the first one could step off the ship at 09.40. During the day the weather cleared and the sun came out, although it remained chilly. Some of our guests were expecting Mediterranean temperatures, but it is only April and the Ocean still has some Northerly winds blowing.

The second day of Easter did not seem to be a big thing in the town, as the port was fully operational and all the shops were open. However as we were docked at the end of the breakwater, the guests had to get all the way to the beginning of the pier to make it into town. A shuttle bus was laid on and for those in big hurry taxi’s were available in good numbers. It was good to see that the port is building a dedicated cruise terminal on the town side. This terminal with a dock length of 350 meters is supposed to be ready by April next year and then the guests can just walk from the terminal directly into town without having to go through the cargo port.

For those who have an interest in cargo operations, a small cargo vessel, docked in front of us, was unloading corn in bulk. Bulk means that it is not packaged but loaded directly into the cargo hold. Before a ship loads such a cargo an inspector comes on board to see if the hold is clean, spotlessly clean, and when satisfied approves loading. The corn is then “pumped” into the hold(s) by means on a Grain Elevator, which is nothing else but a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks the corn from the storage silo into the ship. Here into Punta Delgado there is no Grain Elevator to do the work, so a crane with a grabber is used to discharge. That makes the process much longer. Thus the longshoremen had to hurry up, because after the Veendam’s departure two other cruise ships were expected, taking up a bigger part of the dock, so the cargo ship had to be out before 6 am. the next morning and the dock cleaned.

Departure was a quick affair and consisted of what I call the “blow-away-maneuver”. It just meant in this case going astern from the dock, and when clearing the end of the pier, let the wind push the ship out to open waters, while the pilot disembarks. Both on arrival and departure we had a pilot onboard whose presence is compulsory. I do need not a pilot for docking and undocking, but he is in contact with the shore side and most of the time that speeds up the docking procedures greatly.

It is amazing to see that while guests love seadays, after a number of them in a row they are all getting restless and want to feel land again. The weather for tomorrow is looking good, just the fact that is the 2nd day of Easter might have some impact on the shopping possibilities for the Ladies. However as we still have some major shopping ports to come I do not think that the disappointment is going to be too great if we find on arrival that not all the shops are open.

The day was filled again with activities and it was a busy day for me as well, as I started my own training class. Holland America had a very clever idea a few years ago and that was to find a way to un-lock the vast experience gained by the senior officers during their career and to have that somehow transferred to the not so experienced. Human Resources came up with what is now called Leadership In Action Workshops. A training book was compiled and with the aid of the book workshops are given in groups of eight to improve the leadership aspects of a person in his function on board. A senior officer who is trained as a facilitator moderates the course which runs for about 9 weeks. Apart from useful for the participant, I find it fascinating myself as it is amazing to observe that each culture approaches the same issue in a totally different way. In my current class I have an Canadian, A Filipino, two Dutch, three Indonesians and an Australian. Although it costs me a lot of time, I believe that training is the only way forward, so we have to spend time on it, in order to keep the quality level up.

Another happening yesterday was my lecture about the Holland America History. If a cruise has sufficient sea days, and the Cruise director has an opening in the schedule, I like to do one as it is very popular with the guests. Quite a few of our guests came over themselves with an Holland America ship in the 1950’s, or had ancestors who once emigrated on a DAM ship. This time the audience numbered about 500 and indeed, there were guests who sailed on the old Veendam (1922 – 1952) on the Groote Beer (emigrant and student ship, first only under HAL management, hence the no-dam name) and a greater number on the Rotterdam V (1958 – 1997) which still has a warm place in the hearts of our long time cruisers.

Last night was the second formal night of the cruise and it is something that I really enjoy. People dress up nicely, there is stylish dancing, good dinner conversation and an elegant atmosphere pervades the whole ship. There is now the trend to go to less and less formal nights in the industry but Holland America tries to keep up this tradition although it seems to be more and more difficult to do so. Our next formal night should be a very good one, as it is the black and white officer ball. Then all the officers, except the watch standers and those going on watch, come out of the wood work to dance with the ladies. As I normally invite the concessionaires as well (shops, casino, beauty spa) there is also a sufficient number of ladies available to keep the gentlemen occupied, who lost their wife to some good looking young officer. But first the Azores.

Today we were the furthest away from land as we can be on this crossing. 750 NM. or almost two days of sailing. 750 NM translates into 870 land miles, as you have to multiply a nautical mile by 1.16 to get it converted to a statue mile. We were 750 NM away from the Azores, and about 800 miles away from Nova Scotia and the same from the Bermuda’s. The weather is still holding and the wind is now blowing with us and as a result the gentle pitching of the ship has changed to a rolling motion that we can stop with the stabilizers.

Stabilizers can only help against the rolling (that is the side ways movement of the vessel) and not against pitching (that is the up and down movement of the bow). A stabilizer gets its effectiveness from the water flow over the fin and its ability to create an upward or downward force because of it. In a similar way as you can see flaps moving on an airplane wing during take off and landing. The faster the ship goes, the better the stabilizers work. They do not take away the complete rolling movement but dampens it down by about 90%.

The sea bottom under us is called the Sohm Abyssal Plain, a relative flat area of the sea bottom. This will change when tomorrow evening we start approaching the Azores. The Azores are mountain tops located on a ridge near the Mid Atlantic ridge. The Mid Atlantic ridge is a cleft in the sea bottom, where the European Teutonic plate meets the American. (the names are slightly different, but they are the plates that carry the specific continents)

A German scientist, Mr. Wegener figured out in the 1880’s that the continents are drifting apart by means of plates moving over the Earths core. The European plate is slowly going under at the Mid Atlantic Ridge and the American plate is surfacing there. The American plate is disappearing on the West of the Rocky Mountains at a ridge that we know as the St. Andreas fault.

The collisions of those plates there, are causing all the earthquakes. Where plates meet, there is a gap in the earths crust and thus volcanic action. So most volcano’s are found in area’s that border the edge of a plate. If one would go down to the bottom of the ocean at the Mid Atlantic ridge, one could observe volcanic action in various forms. (my apologies to any expert who reads this blog as I am trying to avoid going into too much detail and there is much more detailed info available on the internet)

The ship is gearing up for Easter, and various things are planned to make it a special day. As a cruise is to be a period of enjoyment, we grab everything excuse there is to throw a party or at least do something out of the ordinary. Special morning services are planned, egg hunts in combination with Bingo, special egg baskets in the ship, an Easter Bonnet contest etc etc., and the internet café is offering an Easter special to call or email home. Our cadet is hoping for a proper egg hunt as he is used to that at home, him coming from a large British Family. I told him to get dressed up as an Easter bunny, so now we have to wait and see if he takes it seriously.