We are sailing with a speed of 16.5 knots on our way to Fanning Island. Going faster has no use as it would mean that we arrive around midnight. As Fanning Island is not known for its exuberant night life, there is no reason to go faster. Also the slower we go, the steadier the ride is as we have some long ocean swell rolling in from the East. The weather is now identical to that of the Caribbean Sea, moderate to fresh trade winds from the East and a low long rolling swell from roughly the same direction.  The only worrying thing is that tomorrow we will have more wind and if that stays until Fanning Island, then we might have a very wobbly day as far as the tender ride is concerned.  Still that is another day away. We first have to safely get over the date line tonight. Continue reading

Hilo can be a very difficult port. On the chart it looks very simple, one 90 degree course change and you are approaching the dock and one other 90o degree course change brings you alongside. The whole happening does not take much longer than 40 minutes. The challenge however is the wind. When the regular trade wind is blowing, it is normally under a nearly 90 degree angle with the 2^nd course heading for the dock. At the same time you have to slow down because you are approaching the dock and that increases the drift angle. You cannot have too much of a drift angle because just before you enter the docking basin the channel is fairly small due to a reef on the south side.  Three items to consider and to make Hilo a lot more complicated than it seems.  Luckily today there was no wind and thus the approach was a simple happening. The pilot hopped on board at exactly 06.00 and by 07.00 we were completely and safely docked. Continue reading

During the night we sailed around the island of Lana, as I preferred an approach from the south West, setting the ship up directly in the leading lights of the port. Going north around Lana is a shorter distance but you sail for a prolonged time through a whale sanctuary and I try to avoid that as much as possible. I do not know if there are more whales inside the sanctuary than outside but the areas are indicated in the chart with the request not to go there if you do not have to. We did not and so we stayed out as much as possible. Thus far we have not seen that many whales, either they are somewhere else at the moment or they are still on the way over from Alaska.  Scientists are reporting that Hawaii has resident whales and transient whales but as far as I remember the count on resident whales is not that accurate, so it is difficult to say whether there should be a lot of whales around or not. Continue reading

After a windless night we started our 2^nd day in Honolulu. During sunrise we were greeted by a brown band lying over the city against the hills.  Smog in Honolulu, unexpected; it really does not go together with an image of pineapples and hula hula girls. But there was no wind during the night and thus it happened. During the morning a slight breeze picked up and the brown layer dissipated. I had a funny experience the night before, as I had gone ashore for a few hours to dinner in a restaurant right outside the dock. Friends were drinking wine but I told the waiter that I was staying on water as I was driving. When the bill was being settled, he asked for my parking ticket so he could validate it for me. When I said that my ticket would be a “little bit” too big for him, the answer was, no problem, we deal with large cars & limousines as well.  When I then pointed to 800 feet of “car” parked behind me, realization set in that my ticket might be a bit much too handle for the restaurant. It was funny to see the expression on the waiters face as he had never come across that one before. Neither had I never been given the opportunity to validate the parking fee for my ship. Continue reading

 In the morning the wind finally veered all the way to the East and became a following wind. The velocity reduced to 10 knots but only for a short while. Shortly after we entered Kaiwa channel between Molokai and Oahu and the funnel wind effect caused the wind to breeze up again to nearly 20 knots. The swell slowly diminished and by the time we came in the lee of Koko head it had mostly disappeared. Koko Head is a protruding cliff that comes out from the land in the same way as Diamond Head does, which is the next cliff/mountain top to the west. During the night the two are not dissimilar and the accumulated sailor’s wisdom in the pilot guide warns to be careful here. Many a ship took a turn to starboard too early, thinking it was sailing past Diamond Head and seeing the lights of Waikiki beach on the sb side. Not every captain realized the mistake on time and some ships ran aground in this area. We did not make that mistake, as we had read the pilot guide of course and we turned to starboard once we were past Diamond Head and saw the port of Honolulu on our starboard side. Continue reading

The wind did not veer as fast to the East as the weather forecast indicated and thus we had the wind blowing on our sb side instead of from behind. That also meant that the swells kept being sustained by this wind and did not abate as fast as I hoped for. That meant that I continued to lose .4 of a knot each hour and that is going to set my arrival time back by about 45 minutes. Nothing to really worry about as we have an overnight stay in Honolulu, so there will be ample time to see the sights and to eat pineapple.  Up North it still does not look very look and the people on Vancouver Island have a few windy days coming at them.  In the centre of the gale the waves are about 25 to 30 feet high giving room for another series of the “deadliest catch” if needed.  We are in a way still lucky as we are only skirting the southern edge of the wave field with 10 to 12 feet high waves. Together with the waves created by the current wind, the total height is about 15 feet and that is just enough for the ship to move about a bit. Still I did not get any reports about guests being sea sick, so all must be well in the world. Continue reading

The bad weather up north intensified and created winds of up to 75 knots under the Aleutians and that meant that the “ripple effect” came further down than was hoped for. So we caught the tail of that whole weather system. It started in the morning with 25 knots of wind from the South West and thus blowing against us. We are still on our straight course of 254o heading directly for the big Oahu and that meant we had the wind fine on our port bow. Then by lunch we had the tail of the frontal passage coming over which brought some strong showers. It made my Staff Captain very happy, as it washed all the salt away, but he was about the only one who could smile about it. During the passage it breezed up to gale force winds of 35 knots, but it did not last long. By 2 pm. we had left the rain behind us and the wind started to veer to starboard.
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We are now entering our 2nd full day at sea and thus far the weather has been very cooperative. It remains overcast courtesy of the bad weather up in Alaska, but the cloud cover also indicates that there is little wind; otherwise it would break the cloud cover open. And little wind is exactly what I like as it keeps the waves down. Late on the 27th I expect the wave height to go up from 1.5 meters to about 2.7 meters and that will reduce the speed a little bit, so along there is no wind, those waves will not be sustained and I can build up some plus, to ensure a constant average speed to Honolulu. The guests who are hoping for a sunny day were disappointed but on the other hand a nice a smooth run is also something to be appreciative about. Normally there is a long Pacific Ocean swell running here, which makes the bow rise and fall with the waves but the 3 day bad weather cycle up north is upsetting that pattern a little bit and that results in confused seas, which dampen out the regular wave pattern, much to our advantage. Continue reading

Note: you will see on the left that there are two entries on the same calender date and also one day with  an entry missing. Due to satellite location, (right behind our funnel) we have been out of connection with the whole world for a day (nice and quiet to a certain extent) until we could patch in to the next satelite. We should now be back in business for the rest of the voyage.

So we started our long awaited 28 day cruise to Hawaii and the South Sea Islands. The crew was buzzing as it is always nice to have a change of scenery and that buzzing was enhanced by the excitement of a 100 new crew who joined us yesterday.  They have a few busy days ahead of them, as apart from having to do their regular jobs; they also have to go through a myriad of trainings and indoctrinations to get back up to speed with the ever changing world of Holland America. When they come on board, the first thing that happens is that they have to attend a short safety briefing, followed by a boat & raft drill. Only then are they allowed to go to work. Then the next morning, today, there is an extended HESS (Health, Environmental, Safety and Security) indoctrination briefing which takes a good two hours.  This meeting starts with the Captain and the ships staff introducing themselves so all the new crew knows “who is driving the boat”. Then that is followed by training and indoctrination in the various elements of HESS. Continue reading

During the night the ships motion got less and less and as a result I was able to make it timely to the pilot station. When I arrived on the bridge at 04.30 I was confronted with an unusual sight. Haze; reducing visibility to about 5 miles…………and getting less. The combination of warm days before and the cold and very windy weather up north, which created that wave field of yesterday, caused a nice mixture of Cold air and Warmer water. Ideal to create some condensation which we, as sailors, recognize as very low hanging clouds; obscuring the visibility. It made for a nice view though, the lights of the city glaring through the haze making it look as if the whole bay was on fire. By the time we arrived at the pilot station even that glare had gone and visibility was reduced to about a mile. So, time to honk the horn and to let the whole world know that the Statendam was arriving in San Diego. I do not know if the people living on the hill side of Point Loma appreciated it, as the sound really bounced back from there, but at least every boat operator was warned about our impending arrival. Continue reading