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.

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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

The Atlantic showed itself from its best side. Sunny and hardly any wind at all. Just a gentle breeze from the North East and thus a following wind, as we were going South West. Madeira is located considerably closer to the equator than Spain and Portugal, although it is part of the latter.  The nearer to the south the ship starts the crossing, the more comfortable I am, as the bad weather is created much further North. It might come more south on occasion but at least it will have by then lost some of its intensity. The only thing that marred a perfect day was the fact that the current was not with us, or on the beam, but for some un-explicable reason against us. That meant that I had to run an extra engine for a few hours to stay on schedule and that was not nice for my fuel budget. It was only late in the evening that the current finally behaved according to what was expected and I could stop that extra engine.  Three engines on sea speed then brought us comfortably us to the Funchal pilot station. Continue reading

One nice thing about an overnight call is that the ship is so quiet. No movement at all from sea and swell. No wind whistling around the superstructure, only the white noise of the air conditioning in the cabin. With the ship docked by 8 pm and cleared shortly later by the authorities, there was the chance for guests to go ashore if they wanted to. Some did, the majority however was quite happy to be outside and look at the skyline of Cadiz.  I had the ship docked at the cruise terminal, which is the berth closest to the city, and most of the old town is situated directly on the other side of the road. So it looks quite scenic, both by day and by night. On arrival we were the only ship in the port but today we were joined by the L’Austral from the French cruise company Iles du Ponant.  In one of my previous blogs I mentioned that the French cruise market is not served by a dedicated French company with a big ship. There is however this French company and it operates a number of smaller cruise ships including a sailing ship that was hijacked awhile ago off Somalia. There were no guests onboard and the French Navy librated the crew and arrested the pirates.  Now they have commissioned two small very luxurious cruise ships. A bit in the style of Seabourn but then in the French-only- way.  She called into Cadiz on her maiden voyage from Ancona, Italy. Getting used to the fact that quite often the Prinsendam is the smallest ship in port, it is always interesting to see when a smaller cruise ship is parked behind you right under the stern. Also for Cadiz, the summer season is just starting and in the coming months, there will be days that the whole port is full of cruise ships with all berths taken. Luckily for us, this was a quiet day. Continue reading

I was called out of bed at 01.30 in the morning due to a developing traffic situation while the ship was passing the South West corner of Spain. As mentioned yesterday, the traffic flows from East and West meet here and diverge or converge.  50 ships on the radar screen and 49 were behaving themselves and one was not.  So the navigator slowed the ship down and called me out to witness further developments. After our troublesome friend was explained that we expected that he would follow the Rules of the Road, he changed course and passed us at a safe distance.  I always like it when I get called for these things. I fully trust my navigators, otherwise they would not be standing a watch, but it does make sense when there is an unusual development, to get the captain out. It brings more authority into the equation and a very valuable witness in case something would happen. So while we were watching our errant friend safely pass us by on the portside, I had a good look at the weather and it was not good. The wind was still blowing with us, while the weather forecast had planned that it would turn to the West around 10 pm last night.  That meant that the whole weather system was delayed and that meant trouble.  Still nothing we could do but wait and see how it really looked when we approached Motril. Continue reading

Today we crossed the middle part of the Mediterranean; the area located above Malta. This brought us automatically on the Northern side of the sea as our next port of call, Montril, is located on the Southside of the Spanish mainland. Our last port Cagliari is a bit off the beaten path as far as shipping is concerned and thus for most of the night there was not much traffic.  That changed in the early morning hours when we started to catch up with the various traffic flows, coming from or going to the Northern ports of Italy and Southern France.  All that traffic has to bend around the South East point of Spain.  So automatically all these ships that would normally be spread out all over the place have to come together to line up on this one south westerly course leading towards the Straits of Gibraltar. Traffic coming from there is doing the same thing the opposite way, and can only disperse in various directions as soon as they are past the corner. Now with the embargo placed against Libya and it’s no sailing zone south of Malta there is even more traffic pushed to the Northern side, so for the late morning and the remainder of the day there was a lot of traffic coming by. Continue reading

It was bad, very bad on arrival. While approaching the pilot station it was blowing over 50 knots from the East.  Not exactly the sort of wind that makes you feel happy; and certainly not when having to sail with slow speed through a narrow port entrance.  Luckily the reports from inside the harbor were better, 25 knots of wind, in line with the dock.  The harbor basin is quite wide and once we had swung around, we would not drift. I had ordered one tugboat to control my stern in case the wind decided to changes its mind and thus with that plan of action ready, we approached the pilot station.  Fully in compliance with Murphy’s Law, the pilot was late and we were requested to slow down and wait, right at a moment that you do not want to do that, as the slower you go, the more you drift. Had the pilot advised earlier that he was delayed, and then I could have slowed down in more open waters. Thus the best solution was to go as slow as safely possible and “drift” around the breakwater in such a way that the centre of the ship would stay in the middle of the fairway.  That looks a bit strange when you are standing outside and looking at the bow. That bow is constantly pointing towards the land, almost as if hitting it but then slowly but steadily you see the ship drifting by and clearing the port entrance. By the time that the pilot was onboard I was just pointing the nose between the breakwaters and drifting in.  Once the tugboat was secured it was a quick spin around and then going astern towards the berth. Near the dock, the wind was blowing from a different direction than had been predicted by the pilot so I was very happy with my tugboat.  It was windy, rainy and chilly. Still we made it and that is all that counts. Continue reading

Today we sailed westbound from Katakolon towards our next port of call, Cagliari located on SE Sardinia. To get there you have to sail by Sicily. As it is an island you can sail around it and thus you can go North or South.  Going North means going through the Straits of Messina and by going south you sail along the south side of Sicily for most of the day.  Our cruise brochure indicated that we were to go south of Sicily as we had done the Strait of Messina the evening that we left Lipari.  There was also a second and very convincing reason not to do Messina for a second time and that was the Royal Wedding.  Most of our guests were looking forward to the happening which was going to be screened fully onboard the ship. Then it does not do, that the captain decides to do scenic cruising Messina, right at the moment that the happy couple are exchanging wedding vows.  So we stayed away from Messina and followed the Sicilian coast at distance varying from 4 to 12 miles.  You cannot always sail close here, as especially on the southwest side, there is a shallow bank with the name “terrible bank”. Such a name is not given without good reason. During bad weather it is a dangerous place to be with ground seas and swells breaking over the bank. Today we had sunny and wind still weather and the bank was not a problem. Still we stayed clear as a lot of fishermen had parked themselves there, indicating that it must be a good fishing ground. Continue reading