Today we were in transit to Naxos. Not the Greek island Naxos but the little town of Naxos/Gardina which gives access to Taormina with the Volcano Etna. This port is not much more than a Marina hidden behind a small breakwater in a wide curved bay. The bay is basically a dent in the coast line and fully open to the Ionian Sea. It is located about 40 miles south of the Messina Straits. This is a port that has only recently appeared on the Holland America Calendar and was a new port for the Prinsendam. In order to get there we had a fast run from Ibiza across the middle part of the Mediterranean to the Strait of Messina. The course line took us about 12 miles south of the island Sardegna and by late evening it ran north of Sicily for the approach to the Strait of Messina. Continue reading

During the night the wind died down completely and apart from a low running swell, the sea was smooth. However in the tail of the weather front that generated all this wind was a certain amount of moisture, also called rain, which decided to deposit itself on Ibiza as soon as the Prinsendam was safely docked. You really do not relate Ibiza with rain, more with a sun soaked baking in the sun island, but today was not such a day. Thus: The rain in Spain did not stay on the plain as in the musical My Fair Lady but it did come down on Ibiza. Continue reading

The sea was as flat as a mirror when we approached the harbour entrance and it beame a clear and dry day. Although the harbour basin is quite big, the authorities had decided that we should be parked at the East dock and that gave not that much room to swing the ship into the berth. But as the East dock is also the Eastern breakwater it was at least close to the entrance of the harbour and that saved timed. On advice of the pilot we docked stern in, as there was the expectation of wind in the afternoon and if you are then docked nose out it is all a bit easier. The East dock was just a short walk away from the boulevard and large enough to have buses and taxi’s come to the gangway. There was even a little sightseeing train that offered an hour tour of the city for 5 euro’s, so not bad at all. Continue reading

During the night the wind got less and less and by the time we approached the pilot station it was calm. The swells were still running but as the port is inside a shallow bay, the swell is stopped by a long breakwater and inside it was as flat as a mirror. The weather forecast for the day was uncertain but in the end it was bright with sunshine all day. The approach to the harbour is very peculiar as the green buoys on the right hand side are located well inside the reefs and the reef buoys on the port side when going in, are over in the fairway. So if you would hug the green buoys when going in, what you normally do, then you would be aground almost at once. So when going in and when going out you have to favor the red side of the channel. That means that Port Control keeps an eagle eye on all the ships going through the channel as you do not want to create collisions with this peculiar setup. Continue reading

Well the wind did not die off and the frontal system did not diffuse or move away. Instead the flow around Cabot San Vincent only got stronger and whipped up a nice South Westerly swell. What made things worse was that the wind shifted about 2 points more to the South and was thus running in line with the approach course to Portimao. Approaching with the swell in the stern is never pleasant because when you start slowing down the swells tend to overtake the ship and then it feels as if you get a kick in the……. every few minutes when a wave hits the underside of the stern. However it turned out that that was the least of my troubles. Continue reading

As mentioned yesterday we arrived with glorious sunshine but an hour later dark clouds started to gather on the horizon. That had not been planned at all in the forecast. However the weather does not always follow the predictions. The weather front that created the overcast weather before we arrived in Lisbon, stalled and tilted a little bit instead of moving north and deposited a rather large amount of rain over Lisbon in the course of the afternoon of the first day. Then it remained drizzly during our over overnight stay. Only today the weather started to improve with sunny periods. Continue reading

During the night the swells from this weather front high up the North Atlantic reached us. A very long swell with a clocked time, from crest to crest, of about 12 seconds. The ships stabilizers could easily cope with this and thus the movement of the Prinsendam was minimal. The weather forecast for today was very good, with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid to high sixties although it turned out that that forecast had to be corrected later in the day. Continue reading

This was the last full day of our crossing and un-expectedly we came under the influence of some bad weather all the way to the North. A rather heavy system with lots of wind is moving towards the United Kingdom and that pushed a minor system, near the Gulf of Biscay, a bit further down. As a result the wave field generated by that minor system made it all the way down to our area and thus we had a Prinsendam that moved a little bit more than in the past few days. Still for an ocean crossing, not much movement at all. Later in the day the sun even came out and that was not predicted either. Continue reading

As the weather forecast had predicted, it was an overcast day with rain showers in the distance, but it remained dry where the ship was and that was in port today. After 6 very good days at sea. The Great circle that we had been travelling on came to an end just under the West point of the island Sao Migual (St Michael) on which Punta Delgada is located. A Great Circle line with a bit of a hic-up in it due to our deviation towards to Bermuda. Just West and South of the Azores is a bank, called the Alice Bank. This is basically an Azores island, a mountain top like the other islands, but one which did not make it to the surface. According to the chart there are a few shallow spots there, so we had to make certain that our course went just under it. From there it was one straight line to the pilot station. Continue reading

06 May 2009, Crossing the North Atlantic Ocean.

This is our last day at sea before we arrive at Punta Delgada in the Azores. The weather is still holding, overcast as predicted and with a low to moderate swell (4 to 5 feet), which makes the Prinsendam gently pitch. It does not look like this weather will change very much in the coming period and that will mean that we have had a very good crossing, especially for the time of year, as summer has not arrived yet. As mentioned before, we have made up the time lost from our crew medivac in Bermuda and that means that we will arrive on time. I am even planning to be a little bit early so that we have time to clear the ship and set everything up before our official arrival time. Continue reading