This is one of my favorite ports to go to. Not because it is so special with what there is to see and do but because the cooperation with everybody here is so friendly and well organized. Also the locals have a very warm heart for the maritime world so it is always a “Can-do” situation instead of “this might not work because………..” The biggest reason that we call at Warnemunde is the option to take the train to Berlin for a full day tour. The train leaves early in the morning and returns an hour before departure. The important thing is that the train leaves before the commuter trains start running and thus it is my task to arrive ahead of schedule. So I did this morning. Official arrival time is 0700 but I had the gangway out by 06.20, which gave the local officials ample time to clear the ship and shore excursion enough time to march the troops to the train and get them away on time. All worked out, the train was ahead of any other train on the rails and the people had a good day in Berlin. Continue reading

At Elbe Pilot station ships converge that are going up river to Hamburg and beyond or to the Kieler Kanal. So there is quite a bit of traffic going on at any time. Luckily the river is very wide and plenty of room for everybody. The Prinsendam and the German pilot were both on time which meant he was onboard at exactly 07.00. Planning it on the minute we travelled up river with a speed of 16 knots (13 knots on the engines and 3 knots of flood current) for our scheduled arrival time at the locks at 10:00. This 10:00 hrs. comes from the Holland America brochure, e.g. our cruise plan. Traffic in the Kieler Kanal is down by about 30% this year due to the credit crunch and thus we could keep this schedule. No other ships in the way. The locks were waiting for us as soon as we arrived. While approaching the Brunsbuttel lock we saw dark clouds gathering above us and as luck would have it, it started to pour down the moment we were going into the lock. Not just any poor down; now for five minutes we had severe hail and sleet coming down and the Prinsendam has open bridge wings………. Continue reading

As it is for everybody who is coming home, arriving in your own country is always something to look forward to. I just wish it would not take such a long time to get there. To get through to Amsterdam you have to pass the locks at IJmuiden and then do a slow 2 hour transit through the North Sea Canal to the passenger terminal. The latter is located right in the middle of Amsterdam and that makes up for a lot of the inconvenience it takes in getting there. Those who are really excited were of course all who were going home today and even if you were not living in the Netherlands, Schiphol airport offers some of the best connections with the rest of the world in comparison with any other major airport. I might be biased but I still think that Schiphol is the best airport in the world, starting with the toilets. For those who went home, we have a Dutch saying: “Kanaal koorts” or channel fever. The phrase comes from the old Trans Atlantic passenger liners, where the last night onboard was the evening when the ship sailed through the Dover Channel up to Rotterdam. Everybody was packing, excited, nervous (have I not forgotten anything) frantically running around saying good bye’s to everybody. Etc etc. My Dutch and British Officers, who were going home, were showing all the symptoms of a heavy attack of this fever. Continue reading

Good morning,

Sorry to advise that the next daily will be delayed by a day.

My Amsterdam day lasted from 0200 in the morning until 2100 in the evening and today Kieler Kanal approaches and transit started at 0600 and will last until 1 am tomorrow morning. I am writing this while docked at Kiel for a short evening call and waiting for departure.

So I will catch up with my blogs on the 21st. when we are docked all day in Warnemunde and it should be a quiet sunday. In the meantime enjoy a photo from the Prinsendam in the Kieler Kanal from two years ago.

Best regards Captain albert

We were supposed to be in Ostend today but this was changed to Zeebrugge awhile ago when we found out that the tide was not cooperating with the departure time of the Prinsendam. Ostend has a very small harbour and the swinging space in the harbour is a maximum of 175 meters at low water. With the Prinsendam being 204 meters the pilots require that the ship leaves around high tide. That would have been 6 hours earlier than the scheduled departure time, which would reduced the port time to half a day and then you cannot make a good day in Bruges. I looked at the option of backing all the way out of the harbor and so avoiding to swing around inside but at departure time there would have been an estimated 3 to 4 knot current running perpendicular to the harbour entrance and than you cannot hold the stern while backing out. Thus Zeebrugge being next door was a viable and workable alternative. Continue reading

The fog never materialized and the haziness left us when we were about 20 miles north of Alderney, the last one of the Channel Islands. By hugging the French coast, as required by the Vessel Traffic separation scheme in the area, we steered a North Easterly course heading for a point opposite Dover. This might sound strange but you are not allowed to sail under an angle towards Dover although this would be the shortest distance. You have to follow the traffic lanes and then the rules require that you cross the traffic lanes on a right angle. Or at least as much as possible under a right angle. Continue reading

Today we invaded Saint Peter Port, with 760 eager shoppers onboard, ready to do battle over the goodies for sale in the port. Due to the tax status of Guernsey quite a few things are cheaper than in England and with the pound being quite low on the exchange rate this was a good day to go shopping. I am using the phrases “invading” and “battle” as the Channel Islands, of which Guernsey forms a part, have seen their fair share. You cannot look anywhere without seeing at least some sort of relic that had a military issue. Continue reading

The pilot was disembarked just after 3 am. in the morning. In the same way as he had come onboard, via helicopter. From the pilot station we set course in a Northerly direction along the French coast heading for Saint Peter Port, Guernsey. Although the weather was forecasted to be very good, with sun most of the day, there was a long and moderate swell running from the NW. This was caused by some bad weather travelling east under Iceland and the swell of it ran all the way down to the French coast. It made the Prinsendam a bit wobbly with once in a while a considerable “pitch’ from the bow. By now the guests had been onboard long enough to have gotten their sea legs and thus I did not receive any reports of guests being inconvenienced or ill. Still I tried to minimize the effect of the waves on the ship by slightly altering the ships course where possible and running at a good stabilizer speed. Continue reading

The pilot boat was indeed out of operation and so the pilot did come by helicopter. On cargo ships it means that there will be one crewmember on standby, maybe with a single fire extinguisher, waiting on a clear cargo hatch for the pilot to be lowered down. On a cruise ship it is a different situation all together. A helicopter can fall out of the air and on deck and then burst into flames. A very, very unlikely occurrence, but it can happen and thus the Prinsendam went to battle stations. Four fire squads on standby, a security guard for crowd control and crew with a lifeboat ready, to retrieve victims etc. As it was still dark and early, it being 05.30, the guests were still in bed and that reduced the need for extra crewmembers for traffic control to keep the guests away. (And especially their camera’s with automatic flashes) Continue reading

Just by looking at the chart we knew that this was going to be a peculiar place. No doubt a nice place but a peculiar place. The harbour entrance forms the border between France and Spain. Where the harbour entrance becomes a small estuary flanked by two breakwaters, the borders veer away from each other. Thus we have Spain to the West and France to the East. In the middle is an area of about a mile by a mile which they call the neutral zone. This zone does not belong to anybody but both countries exercise control over it and it seems to work, except when cruise ships come to visit. Continue reading