My sailing period has finished and I am going on leave.  And it will be a long leave. The company has decided that I have to use up some of my outstanding vacation days.  I have about 8 months of paid leave outstanding and the idea is that I will take six months of that leave now.

The result is that I will fall out of the sailing cycle of the Prinsendam. With each captain doing three on, three on in principle, a six month off period simply does not work.

Thus I will transfer for one or more contracts to the Statendam in October.  I love to sail in the summer in Europe; on the other hand to have the opportunity to have the whole summer off is something that is not to be discarded either.

The next daily blog should pop again around 17 October and then we will do Trans Canal cruises from San Diego to Fort Lauderdale.

I would like to thank all of you for taking the time to read my daily blog which I hope you found interesting.   A special thank you to those readers who took the time to respond to the blogs.

Thank you for the remarks and the questions. I was glad to answer them.

As normal, there will be no daily blog during my vacation period. I do not think that you will be very much interested in “honey-do” list, which seems to be equal in length to my vacation time.  Still there will be some activity.

I will be attending some training courses while at home and I might drop a note in, about captains sitting in a school class.

Also I will add some more captains memoirs to the site.  There will be two large ones coming, Captain Haagmans who spent 54 years with the company from 1914 to 1958 and Captain Deddes, who was the 2^nd captain of the company in 1871. Both families have graciously given permission for publication. Some others will be in the pipe line as families are gathering information. Eventually there will be more information about Capt. Van Deventer and Capt. Timmermans and hopefully quite a few more. Also a few ships biographies will be added.  At least both Prinsendam’s and all the Statendam’s.

The company is going to roll out a revamped HAL BLOG site in the near future, so you might want to keep an eye out for that as well. Especially as quite a few of you have automatic updates/links to the site and I do not know if they will still work after the revamp.

Tot Ziens,

Captain Albert

The sun arose late over the Prinsendam, as was expected due to the time change, but all was well in the world. The wind had lessened off even more during the night but did not achieve the near wind still status as predicted by the weather forecast. We had still a wind force four to five blowing but by now it was a mostly following wind. That only helped by creating nearly wind still conditions on the deck as it balanced out the wind flow caused by the ships speed. With only a few clouds in the sky, it became a sunny day and that will remain so for the rest of the day.  Also for tomorrow in Fort Lauderdale the weather forecast is good with regular warm Florida weather.  It makes for a nice and good ending to this Grand voyage of 62 days. Continue reading

Why is it always that with bad weather the predictions seem to be right and with good weather it always seem to be worse. Today the weather forecast was right, maybe because it was worse…………….. The frontal system did deepen and increase in strength. The centre still lay above Bermuda so they must have had “a very nice day” there. I can say that, because with us being about 300 miles to the south of Bermuda we still had wind force 7 to 8 blowing around the ship.  More than was mentioned in the forecast. With so many hundreds of miles of open sea over which the wind could blow, the seas were nicely whipped up to heights of 14 feet, which is nearly 5 meters.  The good thing was that this swell was on the beam, so the stabilizers could take care of most of the movement. Still the ship was lively and “lurched” on occasion when an extra high wave was coming by.  The worst was around mid day and then gradually it became less and less. By late evening the ship was quiet again. Tomorrow will be a quiet sea day and tomorrow evening will be as well as we will be in the shelter of the Bahamian islands. From now on the weather looks good, with nearly wind still weather when we arrive in Fort Lauderdale on the 13^th. Continue reading

During the night we had thunder and lightning to the North of us, where the centre of this small weather system was passing by.  We only noticed the rain and a little bit more swell than the day before. However by 09.00 hrs it had all past by and it turned into a nice sunny day. The temperatures are also starting to creep up.  During the first day of the crossing the noon time temperature was around 66oF (19oC) it has now risen to about 70oF (or 20oC. Maybe not much of a rise in the absolute but with the wind chill factor disappearing it is becoming more and more pleasant on the decks even if it is a bit breezy. The latter has given the Front Office quite a headache. When it gets windy around the ship, the bridge phones the Front Office and asks them to put up signs on the doors that lead to the open decks. We have two sorts of them, signs I mean. Those to warn; to stay inside due to very strong winds; and those to open the doors carefully because of windy conditions.  With the wind patterns continuously changing around the ship, the signs go up; the signs have to be changed and in between the signs go off and then might come back again. Still safety comes first, so the Front Office Ladies keep trotting around the ship with new signs. Continue reading

Today was a day in accordance with the photos in the cruise brochures. The way cruise company’s like the ocean to look like and the way they like the weather to be. The sun was shining, the ship was as stable as a rock and the wind was from the right angle.  So it was a good day for everybody. The one thing that for me marred the whole thing is that the Gulf Stream is currently flowing a little bit further to the south than normal and so we had some of it against us. That meant I had to run a fourth engine and there went all my dreams of saving a good amount of fuel this cruise, because of the good weather expectations.  Still there is not much that I can do about that. We are now so far in the crossing that the difference between Great Circe and Rhumb line is almost zero and thus going further south to get away from this current, does not really help.  We just have to live with it. Continue reading

Last night the wind suddenly picked up and kept blowing until the early morning. A small frontal system that was lying to the North of our track line, intensified and thus it got a tail long enough to sweep over the ship. That resulted in wind and rain, luckily only during the night. In the morning the sunshine returned and the wind slowly abated during the day. So things are looking good again. Mother Nature might not be following the weather forecast but at least it schedules the wind and rainy weather during the night time hours. We will keep this sunshine again until tonight, when we will get a bit of rain and then tomorrow the weather will be sunny again with the swells dying off. The jet stream which controls the movement and directions of the depressions coming from the Cape Hatteras area is lying a bit to the North and thus the weather systems tend to stay further north as well. That means that in this area we might get the tail end of them and some swell, but we are staying out of the centers where the weather is the worst. All in all good news for everybody and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it remains that way. The long term weather forecast for Fort Lauderdale looks good as well and that all together gives high hopes for a very nice crossing.

Today we sailed over the centre of the North Atlantic Ocean where the mid centre ridge is located. This is the area where the European plate goes under and the American Continental plate comes up. The movement of these plates is of course extremely slow but there is movement and thus volcanic action. Nothing to worry about, although the Atlantic Ocean is here at it shallowest, it is still about 4000 feet deep. So with the continuous volcanic action far below us, there was a lot of action onboard the Prinsendam as well. The daily program was crammed full of activities for the guests to enjoy, including a fish barbecue on the Lido Deck. Hotel had arranged for a 100 kg. Tuna fish to enjoy and interest was “extensive” as they call it.

Some of the Grand Voyage Gifts. I always try to collect one complet set from each voyage, to form a complete record of such a voyage for later donation to the Maritime Museum. 

As this is a Grand voyage, the guests receive Grand Voyage gifts on a regular basis. Every few days, a small or large gift appears on the pillow. Every night there is a little card with a “thought for the night” as well. The gifts are quite often appropriate for the port or area that we are going to. So before we came to Africa, there was a “survival roll” with all sorts of items to survive Dark Africa and when we entered the Med. there was the Camel to prepare ourselves for Egypt. Then there are postcards of the HAL ships (by Stephen Card) Diaries, and now coming closer to home, there is a luggage trolley (to put all those amenities in), luggage tags and luggage straps all with the logo of the cruise. Piece de Resistance is of course the HAL plate to commemorate this long cruise. When our cruise starts, we always have a lot of luggage to load. On average 3 pieces per guest, and with the luggage trolley that goes up to at least four, so when the ship arrives in Fort Lauderdale there are about 2,800 pieces of luggage going off the ship. This is sometimes mind boggling for the longshoremen, as they offload the same amount off a 7 day cruise ship that carries 2,400 guests. The amazing thing is that we are still able to get all that luggage out in about 90 minutes and have it all laid out in the cruise terminal, for collection upon disembarkation. Although the latter is not strictly true, as a lot of guests have their luggage shipped home and only have to identify it for the shipment.

The challenge is to get all the luggage trolley’s (which all have a tan color) linked to the right owner. Many guests adorn these trolleys with strings and bright colored labels to make recognition easier; or simply use them as hand luggage when going off the ship. I mention a tan color, as that is the key color for this voyage. The previous one, South America had light blue, and last year we had Sahara Sand color and dark blue. Before that, there was green as well. These amenities and colors are planned far in advance. We have a lady in the office who together with the Hotel managers of the Amsterdam and the Prinsendam selects and prepares all these gifts. The selection is not that easy. Every year you have to come up with a number of new items, as there are many guests who make the world cruise each year or pop up during at least one of the Grand voyages of the Prinsendam.

One of the most enjoyable things of a westbound crossing is the time difference. It is the right way. Ever since we left Israel, we have been going back with the hours, which mean either a longer night in bed or more party time in the ship, whatever preference you have. Holland America has now settled into a routine of having the hours set forward on a crossing at noon time, and the hour’s setback during the night. I remember that when I was captain in 2001 on the Noordam (3) that I was experimenting with the lunch time option and the results were quite favourable. A reluctant Hotelmanager was finally won over when he saw his bar revenue go up and after a number of years it suddenly returned as “a ruling” from the office. So I am more or less implementing my own policy. This is not an unusual system for HAL, new ideas are constantly forwarded to the office for review and follow up. If these are deemed suitable for fleet wide implementation then eventually they come back to us in a form of a ruling.

Continue reading

That the weather is forever changeable was proven overnight. After carefully scrutinizing the weather charts I had happily announced that it would be smooth seas and slight winds for the night and the morrow, but Mother Nature did not agree.  The weather did not turn bad, it was just more windy and wavy then forecast  and as a result the ship moved about a little bit.  A stormy weather system crossing over from Cape Hatteras towards the North of England had left its straight North Easterly course and had made a bit of bend to the south while still heading in a general North Easterly direction. As a result the tail end of the system came over Madeira and our course line during the night. Pushing a wave system to the south that made the ship move and rain clouds that made the ship wet.  Still it is moving away and I expect that by this evening the ship will be as steady as a rock again. The swell is ¾ on the starboard bow and thus the ship is subject to a pitching and rolling movement. The rolling is taken care of by the stabilizers but the light pitching is something we just have to live with. It is not bad, it is just “there” and you can feel that the ship is a real ship today. It does not detract anybody from doing what they want to do and today a lot of things were going on. Continue reading

Normally you talk about romantic sunsets and at the same time you do not equate romantic with getting up early. However this was a romantic arrival even if it was early. Although we try to arrange our time changes in such a way that we keep sunrise in synch with the ships clock (or better said the other way around) it does not always work out that way.  The whole of Europe went to summer time a month ago and Madeira is just too far west to be completely in sync yet.  Another week or so and here also the sun will rise around 07.00 hrs as well. Thus at 05.00 hrs it was still night but the local authorities in Madeira had taken care of the fact that it was not a “dark night”. The whole south side of the island was ablaze with lights. Each street seemed to have a light pole at very short intervals, laying out the winding roads in a very clear pattern. Beautiful to see, especially as the weather was very clear.  Today was a wind still day but they had a lot of colder air a few days ago and that had cleared the skies nicely.  It was just pure pleasure to stand on the bridge and see the Prinsendam gliding as a serene swan over a wave less sea towards the port. Continue reading