Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

The weather turned out to be beautiful indeed and that made approaching Marseilles very pleasant. The wind had died off completely and the sun was shining straight over the hills making the area look very “Mediterranean”. It was an active port day as far as traffic was concerned with the Prinsendam leading the parade. We were followed by the Coral (Lois Cruise Lines) The Costa Pacifica (Costa Cruises) and the Bleu de France (latest off-shoot of Carnival to get it into the French market). For the rest there was a whole line of ferries coming in as well about an hour later.

The entrance to the new port of Marseilles is at angle of about 90o with the approach course and only 100 meters wide. Thus there is about 110 feet clearance on either side when the Prinsendam enters in the middle. With nice weather not much of a problem but when the wind blows on right angles over the entrance, it is a tight hole to get through with a drifting ship. On our approach we were listening with amazement to the Coral who was about 10 miles behind us and was giving a pilot time of 5 minutes before us. Somehow the mathematics were not correct here, because there was no way that the ship could over take us with only 20 minutes to go. So it did not happen at all but the pilot going to the Coral had difficulty boarding as the Coral was still going much too fast when she was almost at the pilot station. So while the Coral pilot tried to sort that out we proceeded into the port with our own pilot and a nice and sedate speed.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

I had really hoped that for this port it would be a wind still day as anchoring in La Spezia with wind would have been an unpleasant challenge. Well it was. La Spezia is a big cargo and navy port. There is no real cruise terminal or a half decent cargo dock available that could be used to dock a cruise ship. Thus the authorities have decided that cruise ships should anchor and tender directly to the boulevard of La Spezia. Not a bad idea in principle. Instead of needing a shuttle or paying for a taxi, the ships tender deposits all the sightseers directly in the nicest location. For that reason an anchorage is allocated that is nearest to the tender float and out of the way of other traffic. That works fine as long as there is no wind in the port.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

The pilots had a major shuffle with getting all the ships lined up properly. I had already seen yesterday that it was going to be a busy day, so I had brought my ETA (estimated Time of Arrival) forward to ensure that I would not be delayed because of others. The only uncertainty now were the ferries who have their own schedule and just come in when ever they arrive at the port entrance. By setting the pilot time for 05.30 I was at least ahead of all the other cruise ships except the Celebrity Solstice. That ship had come in at 3 am in the morning and in order to make that time it had to race from Naples to Civitavecchia going full out. Especially as she had left an hour after us from Naples. However for that ship it is a necessity to arrive very early. With 2850 guests onboard, it takes a while to off load the luggage. If each guest has at least 2 pieces of luggage then it means that over 5700 pieces have to be off loaded. We can do about 800 pieces in 2 hours and if they do double with two shore gangs then it still takes 3.5 hours for them to be finished on time before disembarkation starts.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

Naples today was the last port of call of our cruise. Tomorrow we are in Civitavecchia where the majority of our guests will go home. Some have been onboard since Fort Lauderdale (April 30th) and some were onboard for only this one cruise. 22 guests that also boarded on April 30th. will stay with us until Amsterdam (June 19th) and some even beyond. Then there is a group onboard of 125 who embarked on 20 May and who will also stay with us until Amsterdam. This is one of the beautiful things of the Prinsendam, as no cruise is the same, you can just keep stringing the cruises together and eventually you will have made it from Antarctic all the way to the Arctic. Not a bad way to see the world from the comfort of the Elegant Explorer.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

Sailing through Steno Elafonisou turned out to be a pleasant surprise. There were a lot of ships but most of them were going with us in the same direction and we were able to overtake them as we were going full out to make up for our delayed departure from Piraeus. The only moment of excitement came when a car carrier next to us confused changing course to starboard with changing course to port and suddenly started to come in our direction. However before I could pick up the VHF and ask him what he thought he was doing, the error was obviously detected and we saw a rather fast course change to starboard. From then on all was well in the world. Opposite traffic mainly consisted of three cruise ships, the Crown Princess, the Ruby Princes, the Noordam and one small coaster.

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