We are on our way to Balboa for our evening call at Fuerte Amador. With 878 miles to cover, it will take two full days to do so. Hence our early afternoon departure from Puerto Quetzal and the 1800 arrival at the anchorage for our evening call. Luckily the weather is very good, nearly wind still weather all the way, and with the swell diminishing significantly so we should make good progress, on average. With the last I mean that there will be stretches with the current going with us and there will be stretches with the current against us. On average it should almost level out, except for the last morning and early afternoon when we get the current fully against us; courtesy of the fact that it enters the Gulf of Panama from the South East and then curves out again at the South west. With the nearly wind – still weather of the last few days, it will be interesting to see if the currents are stronger or weaker, now there is no “present” wind to influence them. Continue reading

It’s early, not only for me, but also for the poor people that were going on the flight tour. But however who said tourism was painless?  We approached the port entrance at 0400 hrs and saw the swell running towards the beach but as I was expecting the outer breakwater protected the entrance in the way it should and there were no issues.  Port Control was awake, the pilot was on time, the tugboats were in position (more to prevent their piers from being hit by the ship, than to help out) and all was well in the world.  With a great “lightning show” in the distance we sailed in with wind still weather into the port.  Swung around in the basin and went astern to the cruise terminal, which here is a floating pontoon. A great idea as we never have to fuss with the gangway because of the changing tide. By 0500 the gangway was out, 15 minutes later the guests started to stream ashore and by 0610 the airplane was in the air.  All went like clockwork and I went back to bed. Caught myself another two hours of sleep as I needed to be at my best for departure, where we have to make an S turn to get out of the breakwater and we drift enormously on the wind, which is then full on the beam. So no margin for error. Continue reading

 The Tehantepec wind behaved exactly according to our planning based on the weather forecast. It started blowing at 21:00 hrs and by midnight it was all over. Peak wind was 55 knots, which was a little bit more than we anticipated (45 – 50 knots) but as we were well prepared it did not matter that much. With wind still weather we arrived at the Puerto Chiapas pilot station listening to a very chirpy pilot on the VHF, promising us a wonderful day. Well it looked indeed very nice until I focused my binoculars on the entrance about a mile away. There I saw the swell exploding in 10 meter high foam eruptions onto the breakwater stones and that is not very nice. The low running swell was exactly under the right angle straight into the port entrance and once in, collided with the eastern arm of the breakwater. We were still in deep water so we did not notice the swell that much but once the swell started to cross the shallow area in front of the port entrance, it built up in height and then crashed in full might against the stones. A sort of mini tsunami but without the deadly consequences. Continue reading

 It was a perfect arrival at Hualtalco with perfect weather forecast, as long as you could deal with a hot and sunny day. Forecast was for 30oC/86oF but it went in the end a few degrees higher and the mercury rose to well over 90oF (32oC) Beach life, under the bow of the ship was in full swing all day long. Apart from being a cruise port, Hualtalco is also a major resort for the Mexicans themselves and that made the beach and adjacent bars and restaurants booming. We were the only ship in today and thus we had the port to ourselves. It would be nice for local economy if there would be more ships calling than just Holland America Line but for us it is of course perfect as least we always have a berth. As soon as a port becomes more popular, the small ships (and believe it or not, the Statendam with 1200 guests is a small ship nowadays) are assigned to the anchorage. That means a rather long tender ride as the authorities (read shopkeepers) require us to tender into the port itself instead of into the nearby Marina. So let’s keep this hidden gem of a port away from the lime light so we can continue to happily dock here. Continue reading

As soon as we turned the corner to a more south easterly heading, the wind fell away completely and it turned into a hot and hazy day. The ships speed of 18 knots caused a gentle breeze on the deck and made it very pleasant to be outside. As long as you were careful with your sun block; as you tend to forget how hot the sun is burning down when there is a breeze.  Not only down, but also reflecting off the white superstructure of the ship. Our visibility was no more than 11 miles and that made is impossible to see the shore line.  Which is a pity as it is always nice to see the resorts of Zihuatenego and Acapulco coming by. Even if we cannot call there at the moment, it would at least be nice to see something.  But the lack of wind prohibited that and thus we had to be happy with the wild life and the occasional tanker coming by.  This is the regular shipping route between the port of Salina Cruz, just to the south of Hualtalco and all the Mexican ports further to the north and that means we pass them on a regular basis. Continue reading

 We received a royal welcome today in Puerto Vallarta at least that was the way that it felt. But it was not meant for us. The President of Mexico had descended on the town for the World Forum and it had all the local authorities in a frenzy. As it is well known that Holland America guests are great in invasions (mainly into tourist shops……) so we had to be carefully checked out and thus we had a navy patrol boat buzzing around the ship and a helicopter hovering above. It seemed that we were not considered dangerous and we could continue our journey to the pilot station unhindered. As is normal early in the morning, there was no wind at all in the Port and that made arrival a real doddle. On request of the chief officer I docked today the other way around than normal, nose in, so he could do a lot of maintenance on the starboard side. Apart from San Diego, nearly all our ports are portside dockings and that leaves the starboard side hull a bit neglected. So when possible the chief needs the ship the other way around to keep up with it all. Continue reading

With strong winds in the back and following current we made good progress down the coast. To such an extent that I could run on one engine less, or less than normal would have been the case. So what we lost in extra fuel going up, we were now gaining back going south. My chief engineer was a happy camper today. For the guests the following wind has a benefit as well, as it creates a nice gentle breeze of about 10 knots over the deck. We are doing 18 knots and the wind is blowing with us 28 knots. I had asked the quartermasters to count the whales for me that they saw while on lookout and as expected, the number of observations went down the closer we came to Cabo San Lucas. The whales are definitely on the move. While we sailed by Cabo we spotted only two of them. One was breaching but did not repeat its performance, the other flipped a fluke and that was it. I still do not know whether whales like to play in rough water or not, but subjectively I seem to see less of them if we really have high waves. Maybe they can get affected by the motion of the ocean as well.

The only challenge with a following wind is that the smoke is flowing over the ship as it is being pushed forward. That is with regular sailing not a problem but once a day (middle of the night), the engineers start soot blowing. E.G they clean the exhaust pipes of the engines and the boilers from the accumulated soot of the last 24 hours. Regular smoke comes out in small particles and gets quickly dispersed by the wind but soot can come out in bigger lumps when it is “scraped” off the pipe surface by the wind. Those bigger lumps (looking a bit like orange peels but then in black) tend to settle quicker and quite often descend on the decks. Then the next morning the bo’sun has a hard time getting the stuff off and that results in a tantrum against the engineers. So we try to prevent that and that means that the officer of the watch has to discuss with his/her counterpart downstairs what is a good time for soot blowing, so if needed, we can change course and bring the smoke plume under an angle off the ship. Which way the ship then deviates from course depends on how close we are to the shore or if there is traffic or reefs and banks in the vicinity. As we do this run every 14 days, up or down, we pass the same areas at the same time. Thus we can plan for this soot blowing quite well but still we find sometimes soot on the deck resulting in a very unhappy bosun and subsequently chief officer. I wish inventors could come up with an underwater exhaust that would solve all our issues.

On the night of the 14th to 15th 1912 the titanic sank after hitting an iceberg at excessive speed. I do not think that there is a single tv station or newspaper who are not paying attention to this some way or another. I am still fascinated and at the same time a bit repulsed by all the hoola-baloo around it. I have about 75 books on Titanic in my library and those are the ones I could buy cheaply. If I would buy all that was out there, the total would climb to over 300. There is simply not that much to tell about one ship,but it has the attention of the world and thus the books sell.

The Statendam (II) that never was. With 33,000 tons she was 12,000 ton smaller than the Titanic. In comparison the Statendam (V) is 54,000 tons shorter, but higher and wider.

There are two Holland America Line connections to the Titanic. First one of our Directors, Viscount Reuchlin, was dispatched by the company to go on its maiden voyage to spy the ship out. Holland America was planning to order a very large ship at Harland & Wolff in the near future, so it was important to get a feeling for the work quality of the shipyard. Eventually we did order a new ship, the Statendam II, but it never sailed for the company as the war intervened and the British took the ship over as a troop transport. She was torpedoed in 1917 as the Justicia. Viscount Reuchlin perished on the Titanic as one of the three Dutch people on board.

The other connection is that the ss Noordam (I) sent a telegram to the Titanic warning them of ice ahead. That telegram was received but not acted upon and the rest is history. Why am I a little bit repulsed by all this Titanic fever ? Look at the list below. Who remembers these ships and those who were on board ?

1912 Titanic 1496 died

1945 Wilhlem Gustloff approx. 6000 died

1945 Cap Arcona approx. 6000 died

1987 Dona Paz ferry over 4000 died

Why do we not remember the last three…… ?????

As my Grandfather used to say: It is a funny old world.

 It is becoming a common complaint among my colleagues about all the wind that we have at the moment. Not only where the Statendam is sailing but nearly everywhere. From Down under, to deep into the East Mediterranean. It is blowing everywhere and much harder than what is normal. Even the weather forecasts cannot keep up with it. Since we have left San Diego it has been blowing at least 10 knots more than forecast. Luckily we now have it all with us. Although we suffered when we were Northbound to San Diego of course. It already started when we sailed out of the port. The forecast had indicated this frontal system coming by, with rain squalls but by the time we were outside, that band of rain had just passed over. When we poked our nose out to sea, sailing past Punta Loma, we got the full brunt of the wind on the Starboard side and with 30 knots it was more than expected. And not much has changed since then. Continue reading

It was wind still weather when we arrived at the pilot station. The ominous situation of the “silence before the storm”. Although we were not expecting storm, just a lot of wind on departure.  Ahead of us was a car carrier and to our amazement the Carnival Spirit who had unbeknown to us had changed their pilot time to 05.30 Unbeknown as on the agents ETA list it still gave 04.30  As she slipped in just ahead of us, it put us back by about 15 minutes as it takes some time for the pilot boat to get from one ship to the other.  We were still docked on time but not as early as I had hoped for.  It is important to have the gangway(s) out in good time as at exactly 07.00 hrs the longshoremen roll on board to start off loading luggage.  As soon as that is done disembarkation can start and with the inclement weather coming, the aim was to get everybody off the ship and out of the terminal, before the rain would start. That worked out quite well and as the rain did not show until 3 pm; we also managed to get most of the luggage of the joining guests on board. Continue reading

There is a very strong wind flow coming down the North American coast, initiated by a high pressure system off the coast. Unfortunately for us that wind flow is against us and that does not help with making a good ships speed without going full out. We already have the push against us of the California current here and together with the adverse wind; the engines are getting a real workout. I have all the ships power on line, 5 engines full output and that gives me on paper a speed of 21 knots. However we are barely making 18.5 knots. That is the speed that we have to maintain to be on time in San Diego. We are losing 1.5 knots from the current and another knot or so that the wind is holding us back. We had 40 knots yesterday on departure and this morning it was 30 knots. During the day it diminished a little bit but in the evening hours it perked up again. During the night it is to die away completely and on arrival San Diego it should be wind still. That wind still is then indicating that we will be sitting in the core of that high pressure system and thus no wind. That core will move over San Diego in the course of the morning and then the wind will start to flow the other way, bringing wind and rain over the port. But at least we will be docked by then and I will worry about departure when that time comes closer. Continue reading