We had a bit of a bumpy night and a slightly moving ship. What “slightly” was depended on the view of the guests as some spoke of a heavy storm and some dismissed it as an occasional “bump”. I have been assigned a cabin above the Azipods this time and the only thing I had to do was to move the coat hangers in the closet as they rattled on occasion. That is not a regular ships noise and thus it will wake me up. We did have quite a bit of wind during the night with gusts to over 60 knots but as we were heading into the first arrival of the storm, the storm had not been able to generate very high waves and thus the ship did not provide the roller coaster ride, something some guests had been afraid of. Continue reading
Category: Cruises of the Past (page 2 of 3)
By 10 am this morning we were at anchor at Newport. Further out than we really liked as the Riviera had the best spot because she had arrived earlier. It was sunny but there was a strong breeze blowing, stronger than we had hoped for as the wind was only supposed to get really going in the early evening. Referring to my blog of yesterday: the weather was not really organized. Still the circumstances were good enough to operate a tender service and thus the ship got things on the road. We had even drafted in a local tender, the Amazing Grace and later another on, the Katharine, to cover the long tender distance as good as possible. Still it was slow going for a while, due to the tender distance but also due to the wind which forced the tenders to be extra careful. But still it worked. Continue reading
And thus real life started again as I boarded the good ship Zuiderdam yesterday in Quebec. The Zuiderdam is too tall to go under the bridge just north of Quebec and thus cannot make it to Montreal and hence stays 2 days in Quebec. Earlier this year I was on the Zaandam and that ship does fit under but only with normal water levels. At Quebec the St. Lawrence River is still tidal and with high water spring and/or heavy rain fall or melting snow upstream, the water table can also be too high for the R class or even the S class. The Zaandam also had to do a turn over at Quebec in the beginning of this season before the river level dropped sufficiently and the ship could make it to Montreal. For the Zuiderdam there is no option at all and thus the ship stays in Quebec. Not that many people will be complaining as Quebec is one of our highest guest-rated ports. Thus I could board yesterday in Quebec and today the ship was still there as today is turn over day and the ship starts a new voyage. Voyage 693 to be exact. Continue reading
With the South East Alaskan pilots on board the ms Westerdam turned into the Inside Passage at 06.30 this morning. The Pilot Station is located at Cape Spencer at the end of the West Indian Passage. And the two pilots will now remain on board until we depart from Ketchikan. One of our pilots is a lady and although that is nothing unusual anymore it was when she started 25 years ago. And I know her since that time as well: 1996. I think at that time she was the first female pilot on the West-coast and certainly in Alaska. Like all of us from those days we are coming closer to our retirement and she will bow out most likely next year. I keep an eye on my number of sailings to Alaska and this is cruise 252 through the Inside passage. I clocked up a lot of those cruises in the 1980’s when Holland America’s fleet was always in Alaska for the summer season and it could happen that your schedule made you are arrive on the first day of the season and had you leave on the last day of the season. And that would then be 20 or 21 Alaska cruises in a row. Now with our large fleet we have officers who have been several years with the company and have never been to Alaska. Continue reading
Being on a cruise ship has some advantages that guests do not always realize. One of them is having preference of arrival in Port Everglades. Today was a busy day for the port with container ships going in and going out. They have to be scheduled for non-cruise ship days, which are normally the weekends, as the cruise ships also dock at the container friendly docks. But these ships have to wait when a cruise ship is arriving. So the captain of a cruise ship sends his ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) to the port agent and the harbor master and if the timing is not too outrageous, then he gets it. If a poor cargo ship captain wants the same time, then he will have to wait or come earlier. Continue reading
Today we are in Charlotte Amalie in the natural harbor they call Havensight. So good and so sheltered that in the good old days the pirates sought a safe haven here. Nowadays there are two cruise ship docking locations. The one here at Haven sight , which can handle four medium size ships or 3 big ones, and Crown Bay which can handle two medium to large ships or four very small ones. Crown Bay was an addition in the late 80’s and was originally known as the Submarine Base where the US Navy had a station. When they moved the docking area was redeveloped with the help of Carnival money to create an over flow dock incase downtown = Havensight was full. In the beginning it meant that the Holland America ships went there and the Carnival ships remained at Havensight. Then we were joined by the Princess ships. Now we are going the other way again as the Mega Liners from RCI are directed to this dock. Such as the Oasis and Allure of the Seas.
Havensight under reconstruction. Please note how long the spring is. Only one bollard left to use.
As a result the ms Eurodam docked at Havensight nbr 1. All the way in the corner. Behind us was one other ship, the Norwegian Gem which had been with us yesterday in San Juan as well. What happened to the 3rd one I do not know but if it had been known there were only two ships in, then we could have docked more to the middle and that would have been a lot easier. I already mentioned in my blog in December, when on board the Oosterdam, that the pier section in this area is under repair and it still is. The mess is just less big than last year. The whole pier is been restructured and new and stronger bollards are being installed plus new fenders. Very good for all of us but at the moment the ships are docking in a building site with only a little bit of space left for the gangway. And as most of the old bollards are gone there are not many left to put the mooring lines on.
Where once the Pink Hotel was and to the left, where the blue canopied boat is, used to be a very nice Bar.
I remember docking here in the 80’s with the old Statendam which had a draft that allowed it to be put all the way forward and later did the same with the N ships. This berth was always more shallower than the other berths and thus a selection was made on draft. Our old Rotterdam had 32 feet of draft at the stern and had to dock in the middle or near the end of the pier. There was not always space as larger ships – more passengers – would be given preference and thus we had to anchor very often in the bay. The good thing about that was that the guests were taken directly to downtown by ships tender, the bad thing was you had to wait for a tender to go and to return.
A nostalgic view of the late 1980’s. The ss Rotterdam docked behind a Carnival Holiday class ship.
When we could dock, the draft still caused a problem, which the captain solved by giving the ship a list of 1 or 2 degrees so the draft on the high side was 3 feet less and then we would winch the ship against and sometimes a little bit up the sand bank until the gangway could reach the dock. On departure we gave slack on the lines and the ship then slid back into deep enough water. You just had to make sure to arrive on lower water than what you had on departure. If that option was not possible then we had to rig up a long gangway, which we did not like as it was very narrow and tended to sag.
Is it a new Bar Restaurant ??. It looked closed and no details could be seen from the Eurodam bridge
The whole area has now been developed and the old pink hotel has gone, being replaced with more shops and also the old Bar & Restaurant on the end of one of the Marina Piers is also gone and replaced with new docks. That Bar was in the 1980’s a real meeting place for yacht and passenger ship crews as it was for everybody in walking distance, sometimes crawling distance, to the yachts or cruise ships. The ships now have Alcohol policies and St Thomas Real Estate policies so the Bar is no longer there. It looks that they have built something new, a sort of octagonal Dove Cote, but it looked very closed so I could not know yet if it is going to be a shopping hut or if it will be a Bar and Restaurant. It does have a perfect location.
St. Thomas is the furthest point we go on this cruise and now we will sail North West again, retracing our route and then call at Half Moon Cay the day after tomorrow.
The weather prediction of yesterday came partly out. The wind did turn but earlier than expected. It did so at 09.00 and Charlotte Amalie got a downpour straight away. But then it was sunny for the remainder of the day. Going back we will have the Trade Wind behind us and that will be good for Half Moon Cay, where you need Easterly wind to have a swell free beach. If we had gone to Half Moon Cay on the first day of the cruise, we would most likely have had to cancel as the swell and wind would have rolled directly into the Bay. But things look good this time.
A short update:
Although I had originally published a date of 1 Febr., to return to sea and to start blogging again, however due to some “dental challenges” this had to be postponed to Febr. 18. First ship still being the Eurodam.
I have updated my sailing schedule (still subject to extremely much change) and also uploaded the bio’s of the two captains of the Oosterdam under current captains and the bio’s of Captain van Roosendaal and Captain Slierendregt under captains from the past.
One ship has been added, the emigrant ship ss Groote Beer.
Best regards
Capt. Albert
Sometimes I think that our weather guru’s just put a bit of rain in the weather forecast to make sure they always have it right. Again today a bit of rain was forecasted but we have not seen anything yet. It was a beautiful sunny day with a very occasional cloud coming over but that was about it. I do not know if anything will change during the dark hours as we are here until 23.00 hrs. tonight but for the time being it is very nice. We are docked at the mega pier which is located outside the port and was inaugurated a number of years ago when it became clear to the authorities of Curacao that the new large cruise ships would start to bypass the island as they did not fit in the port and/or under the bridge when coming into the port.
Not an inspiring area; Caracas Baai. Where dock now is much better. This is the ss Nieuw Amsterdam II, around 1950.
In the old days there was the option to dock at Caracas Bay just around the corner. This is a secondary port for Curacao and mainly used for oil tankers and cargo ships. It is much wider but it is a long way from port and bussing in 5000 cruise guests would be a nightmare. Hence the new pier. There is now talk about building a second one for the even larger ships. The Oosterdam with a length of just under 300 meters fits comfortably alongside this pier and can set good mooring ropes under the optimum angles. Our Koningsdam which is 12 meters longer would already have to deal with all the forward or stern ropes becoming breast lines and that is with the predominant , strong, Trade Wind not such a nice thing.
The ms Zuiderdam towering over Otrabanda the left bank of Willemstad. If needed the ship does fit under the Juliana Bridge seen in the distance.
We caught up-to-day with the Zuiderdam who calls here before it goes westwards towards the Panama Canal. She docked in the port or better said just inside St. Anna Baai at the west side to the entrance channel to the inner bay. Which means her guests are closer to downtown than ours. So why would she be there and not us? Well, she leaves at 17.00 hrs. and that gives the guests less time. We stay until late in the evening and thus our guests have plenty of time to walk to town (it is only 5 minutes more) and to come back. There is a local bus service and taxi’s galore so it is not as if we are cut off from the world.
A busy day in Curacao, as it can be. Below at the mega pier a Princess ship,in port two R class ships and under the bridge a Celebrity ship. Today we only had Holland America in port.
Willemstad has been a cruise port since a very long. Already around 1900 there were the German cruise ships (The Hamburg Amerika Linie had the first dedicated cruise ship constructed called the Prinzessin Victoria Luise) who came here in the winter months before the first world war. I have a story about her on my blog. If you click Cruises from the past, and then click: the first real cruise ship.
Holland America showed up in the late 20’s and 1930’s when especially the ss Rotterdam came here on a regular basis while making cruises from New York. She docked at the same spot, the Mathey werf where the Zuiderdam is today. Later on when the Nieuw Amsterdam came, she went to Caracas Bay as the available tugboat power was not deemed strong enough to bring her in. That problem has been longtime solved and the ss Rotterdam of 1958 which was bigger than the N.A just sailed in docked anywhere in the port. Now they bring in very large tankers who are going to the repair shipyard located in the inner bay called the Schottegat.
Docking at the Mega Pier is a fairly easy gig. When coming from the East, as we did, you just make a wide turn, stop in front of the pier, make sure you keep the nose in the sometimes very strong current and go sideways. Going into port, into St. Anna Baai, is a lot more complicated because you sail 90o on the current which can run up to 4 knots. The wind is from the same direction and that does not help either. When wind and current are strong together it is quite tricky to enter into the fairly small opening. Thus it takes some planning and thus we saw the Zuiderdam stopping well outside the port, assessing the drift and then quickly moving forward to dock. Once you know the effect of wind and current on the ship you can figure out the drift, and then compensate for it. Which normally means steering a course which makes it look like as if the ship will hit the shore when it makes it approach but the current then pushes it back onto the course line at the moment you enter the Baai. While going in, the current will have less and less influence on the ship and then you have to reduce the drift angle until you are back on the normal course again.
We will sail tonight for Oranjestad Aruba at 23.00 and which is only a small hop to make as Aruba lies just west of Curacao. Here we will experience a Drive Inn, Drive Out harbor as the harbor is protected by a big sand bank with an opening to the NW. and a exit to the SE. (and vice versa) Weather for tomorrow, ……………………… more of the same.
As we were going to dock nbr.1 (That is all the way in the corner) we were in position by 07.00 hrs. due to the other ships following us, well ahead of our scheduled docking time. In the old days there used to be the “Pink Hotel” and a nice open air Pub on the pier but it had all been taken over by new buildings with shops. But Shops bring in more money than yachtie’s who come for a drink, so progress has to be. Also in the Good old days the pier could easily handle four cruise ships of the Statendam size but now it was a tight fit with three. Behind us was the Norwegian Epic and later on the Regal Princess showed up and thus the whole pier was full.
Somehow the phrase “Apartment of the Seas” comes to mind. This is the stern of the Norwegian Epic.
I went ashore for about 20 minutes as Havensight has a very nice bookshop with normally a good selection of shipping books. According to the internet the shop was still there but when I arrived the wooden doors were firmly shut and not a soul, let alone a librarian, was insight. Well at least it kept the world in balance. They did not sell anything and I did not buy anything. Normally I also try to buy the latest postcards, but there were issues from 10 years ago as nobody sends postcards anymore. The post office on the dock is gone because of it and instead the Pubs now advertise “Beer with free Wi-Fi”. I wonder if they also have that available in Tin Cans or in Bottles.
The sheltered harbor of Charlotte Amalie. This photo is from a few years ago before they extended the pier so it could take three much larger ships.
Charlotte Amalie has a beautiful natural and sheltered harbor and thus it has always been an important place in the Caribbean. First it was a shelter for pirates, we still have the name Bluebeards Castle as a result of it and when the Danish took it over it became an important trading post. They called the place Charlotte Amalie after their Queen, although it was originally called Taphus (house of draft) meaning there was a brewery there. So the Danish had their priorities right, you first built a pub and the town around it will grow by itself. In 1917 it was bought by the USA and since then it is American territory. The cruise boom here started very slowly to gather pace after tourists could not go to Cuba any longer. Before that time cruise ships called here as well but it was marginal. Holland America came here already in the 1930’s and one of the captains (Commodore Barendse) had a house here not far from where the Cable Car now runs. He had bought it together with a passenger of Dutch decent and each time the ss Statendam (III) would sail in, he had a house boy raise the Dutch flag.
The ss Statendam (III) used to cruise extensively to the West Indies during the winter months of the 1930’s.
Slowly but steadily the tourist trade increased not in the least because Charlotte Amalie is a Freeport. No taxes. This was instigated by the Danish and the Americans left it as is. Thus in the 70’s when RCCI and Carnival start to bring mass tourism to the port, cheap booze was a big draw. When I went there in 1981 and 1982 and if we were at anchor, we had to make one or two tender runs to load all the booze for the guests. If we had 7000 guests then there were at least 300 boxes. Invariably there was then a freebie box for the Captain, the Hotel manager and the Cruise Director. As we, the deck department who had to do the work did not get anything, it was standard procedure that either the Hotel manager or the Cruise Director lost a box during transport. (It depended on who was the least popular………..) Then in the 90’s the emphasis shifted more to quality shopping and we saw a large increase in Jewelry and Electronics shops. Now with the mega ships it has become a complete village which easily handles 5000 people on the Havensight dockside, let alone what downtown can take care of as well.
We will sail this evening for St. Johns Antigua. Today we were supposed to have quite a bit of rain but most of it bypassed the harbor and I hope for the same tomorrow as the weather will be similar. It cannot be much different as Antigua is not that far away. Again it will be warm to hot 82o F / 28oC with a fair chance of showers. Also here we will park right in downtown.
We were lucky, or better said the ships that arrived after us were lucky, as the fog did not materialize. The temperature balance between air, land and water was not such that water condensation occurred which is what fog basically is. Still better safe than sorry and the good ship Oosterdam was happily docked well before problems could have arisen. The wind still weather is to prevail for the remainder of the day and thus the captain opted for docking with the nose in to make it as easy as possible for the ships operation as everybody had just gotten used to the portside flow based on our last weeks docking.
Our cruise of 25 Nov. – 09 Dec. Also on the diagram the cruise we just finished and which we will do again after we have completed the current one. We have quite a few guests on board who are just doing that.
Now we are embarking on a 14 day round trip covering the whole Caribbean Sea by means of a clockwise circumnavigation. We have been doing variations of this cruise ever since the company started sailing from Tampa in 1983 with the Veendam (III). I write variations as we have not always made the exact same cruise in all those years. In the beginning it was purely to do “something different” but with cruising becoming more and more popular the schedule is now also based on where we can dock with trying to avoid tender service as much as possible. We are very proficient in running tender operations but going ashore via the gangway is a lot quicker than having to wait for the shuttle. If nothing changes we will have tender service once this cruise, in Grand Cayman, the last call on our cruise before returning to Tampa.
Because many of the ports in the Caribbean are very close together, tinkering with the cruise schedule is not so difficult. Thus the company can be flexible in negotiating with various ports. In the past they have varied between St. Maarten, St Croix and St. Johns (Antigua) and St. Johns and Bridgetown (Barbados) Then further south we have El Guamache (Isla de Margarita), Bonaire, Curacao and Aruba in a row which gives options as well. We are a Friday ship, which is an odd day for starting a cruise but it has the great advantage that we are out of synch with all the big boys which sail on Saturday and Sunday. We will still meet a few of them but less than if we would have been on a weekend departure as well. If the company can wriggle it then the ports selected are based on Guest feedback. One of the reasons we are now visiting St. Johns Antigua. This port of call has been getting better and better ratings and the feedback is really positive. (I am not a shopping expert, but it does have some really good beaches).
The final port on our cruise is Georgetown Grand Cayman, which is our only tender port. (Subject to change of course………) Mainly because there is only a very small dock. The local government has been discussing for years to build a dock for one or two ships but there is the economic faction (more ships are good for the economy) and there is a the ecological faction (building a dock will damage the reefs which is not good for the economy).There now seems to be a tentative agreement to go forward with a dock construction but I have not seen any final plans yet. Thus the port can handle four ships at anchor and if there are more, which happens quite often around the holidays, then the remainder of the ships will have to stay on the engines and drift.
So that will be the coming 14 day cruise going with the clock until we are back in Tampa on 09 December. When sailing out it will take us about 3 hrs. from the moment we let go the lines until the moment we pass the sea buoy and start heading south for our first port of call Key West, Florida. On the way out we will pass the American Victory a 2nd world war cargo ship which is now sporting a rather unusual paint coat. More about that tomorrow.
The ss American Victory, a museum ship in Tampa and docked behind us. For some time now it carries cammoflage paint on the hull.
The weather for the coming days is under the influence of frontal systems which are rolling in from the Southern part of the North Atlantic. So we might have some rain and wind on the way to San Juan. But first we will have a sunny day in Key West with partly cloudy skies, and temperatures of just under 80F or 26oC.
Caribbean weather. white bands over Cuba indicating rain systems coming over and a lot of rain in the aftermath of Otto in the south Caribbean.
Captain Albert
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