Very early this morning we made land fall under the coast of Puerto Rico and by 8 am. we were passing through the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico, to the East, and the Island of Hispaniola to the West. Right in the middle of this passage is the island/islet of Mona which gives its name of the passage. It is basically a round rock that rises about a 100 to 150 feet above the water, is almost flat and quite rounded if seen from above. Continue reading

We are on the way from Barbados to the Grand Turk and Caicos islands and this is one of the distances that fall right out of the regular schedule. This means if we go full speed, we arrive in the middle of the night and if we go slow speed it is costing us two days to get there. As the night life of Cockburn Town on Grand Turk is not that exciting for 1100 guests, we are going slow and we will enjoy two beautiful days at sea. The Trade winds are very light at the moment and that means that there is hardly any breeze over the decks as the ship is traveling at the same speed as the wind is blowing. Continue reading

After two relaxing days at sea it was time to hit the next port. Bridgetown Barbados. It being a Sunday meant that we were the only ship in port. Barbados is an island that tries to keep tradition going as much as possible and that has some impact on the cruise operation. Most shops close on Saturday afternoon at 2 pm. as there is the cricket game later on, and most shops are closed on Sundays as it is the day of the Lord. Hence most cruise ships are scheduled to call on weekdays and midweek it is not unusual to have four or five ships in on one day, including one or two mega liners. Continue reading

After all the hectic times that came with sailing up and down the Amazon, we had a nice and quiet day at sea. The sun was shining and the ship was making good speed, being pushed towards our next destination Barbados by the Guyana current. It seems that everybody used today to tie up loose ends and to get in the mind frame of enjoying the last week on board. As the chief engineer had reopened the self service laundries, it was extremely busy there. However most guests seem to view this a social meeting place as well and the laundries where well patronized from the early morning until the late evening. Continue reading

We did indeed pick up some following current and make good progress towards the bar. By 11.30pm last evening I could slow the ship down as we were coming near. As explained before, we have to reduce speed here otherwise the ship might hit the sea bottom due to the extra draft caused by squat. However the ebb and flood times were this time in conjunction with the ships schedule and while we approached the bar, the flood current started to come in. This caused us to loose some speed but at the same time resulted in more water over the bar and thus more clearance for the ship. Continue reading

We made good speed during the night, however as we had to slow down a few times for shallow patches, fishermen and other ships; we did not go as fast as I hoped we would. Still good progress was made and by mid morning we were at least two hours ahead of schedule. We passed Santarem by 2 am. and later on the guests could see during daylight the part of the river, that we had passed northbound during the night. It was one of the more scenic parts as well, where the tropical rain forest reaches all the way to the water. Continue reading

With the current in the stern we raced down the Amazon, putting the brakes on at midnight to disembark the Manaus pilot and then full ahead again going down stream. Although full ahead is a bit much to say, The Veendam was only doing 15 knots on the engines but the current gave us another 4.5 knots of extra push, so we were still charging down the river with 19 knots on average. This meant that I was going to arrive early, very early. It all worked out for the best as first I had promised the guests to be early and secondly, as we now had to anchor, it might take awhile before we had figured out how to dock the tenders in Parintins. We did not have to embark any pilots as the two we had onboard going up the river, rejoined in Manaus and where thus waiting on the sidelines to take over when the Manaus pilot disembarked. Continue reading

Although a lot of guests went out in the evening, it was particularly the crew who sampled the nightlife of Manaus to a large extent. Staying overnight gives the Heads of Departments the chance to split up their teams in groups so everybody can have a bit of time off and also in a longer continuous period. One of the interesting results of this is, that the crew tries to prepare for going ashore by learning a bit of the local lingo. When we are in Mexican ports suddenly half of Indonesia on board are bandying Spanish words around and now here in Manaus, we hear Portuguese being tried out. I do not know if the locals were able to understand the HAL version of their language but the effort in trying from our side was certainly there. Continue reading

We had the pilot exchange shortly after midnight and then we sped up again for a timely arrival in Manaus. Sailing this part of the Amazon was a little bit easier. The river has less shallow patches and as long as the pilot stayed with the ship where most of the current flows; we knew that we were in deep water. Again we had the peculiar situation that for about an hour we sailed over land, as in one particular turn the river is churning away the land on the south bank and adding land on the north shore. Thus the river is slowly moving to the south and the hydrographical services of Brazil have not been able to keep up with it. However we made good speed and I could keep my promise to the guests, we were docked one hour ahead of schedule. Continue reading

From Santarem to Boca de Valeria it is 140 miles on the river but with 3 knots against us that is closer to 170 miles for the distance that the ships engines have to produce power for. Thus after leaving Santarem we cranked the Veendam up to warp speed as I wanted to arrive a little bit ahead of schedule. Boca is an Indian village with a tidal plane in front of it and that can result in some interesting logistical problems when you arrive. Continue reading