With sunrise at 06.00 and a hazy sky we serenely sailed over a flat calm Mediterranean and then into Santorini. The hazy sky was courtesy of the lack of wind today but it all cleared up by 09.00 hrs. when the sun burned it off. The high pressure system over the Balkans which causes the winds in the Aegean Sea is not yet permanently in place (they also have cloudy days on the Pusta’s) and thus it was wind still, yesterday and today. The captain had opted to come in via the South West entrance and then sail north to our “floating area”. The Celestyal Spirit was already at anchor on the hump as she is larger than the Ovation in guest capacity and makes more calls but still small enough to leave plenty of space to come close to the town. Sailing into Santorini is always interesting as parts of the outer Crater wall loom overhead and the black core creates a sort of round-a-bout where the ships have to sail around to get wherever they want to go. Continue reading
Category: Europe (page 9 of 10)
As part of the continuous upgrade of the Prinsendam, the ship received 320 new cabin chairs during the call at Barcelona on 15 November 2010. The new chairs have a slightly higher back but most importantly are more fire retardant. Chief Officer Ryan Whitaker, in charge of interior maintenance, asked the agent in Barcelona whether a charity would be willing to take the 320 old chairs coming of the ship, which were still in good condition.
The charity that responded was La Nau, which specializes in collecting non-food materials for the socially excluded. Items obtained are cleaned and repaired and then forwarded to welfare organizations. Thus retirement homes, orphanages, night shelters, etc., will now all benefit from our gift. As can be seen from the photos, Housekeeping and the Deck dept. set up a system whereby the old chairs were removed from the cabins and unloaded in the morning and the new chairs loaded and brought to the cabins. Before departure all guests had a new chair to sit on. The carton was recycled on the dockside at the same time and thus did not have to come on board.
At Barcelona, Spain.
Albert Schoonderbeek is master of Prinsendam.
On July 11 and 12, the ms Prinsendam made her yearly visit to Bordeaux — a city that can only be reached by the elegant explorer after a six-hour journey upriver.
The Prinsendam beverage department had the chance to visit the vineyards of this area and see for themselves the origins of the wine that they sell on board. The group visited Chateau Bailly and gained valuable background information on the production of the great wines from the Bordeaux. As the group found the visit very useful and informative, they discussed their experience with the guests on board, while selling and serving wine. This led to positive comments from our guests who appreciated that the Prinsendam crew was willing to spend their free time to enrich their knowledge in order to enhance the quality of service to the guests on board.
Albert Schoonderbeek is Prinsendam’s captain.
Photos by Cellar Master Leo Flynn.
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
The exit of the harbour of Sevastopol is facing west and thus you sail east while going in. With the sun rising in the East it means that you have the sun in the face and that makes it difficult for scenic viewing. We had to wait until we were past the first land on the starboard side before we could view the surroundings by looking aft instead of forward. The pilot boarded right on time and we then continued at slow speed towards the entrance. There is a speed limit of 6 knots all the way in, so it takes time to get to the dock, whether we like it or not. But as it was a beautiful morning, we did not mind and binoculars were applied frequently by the deck officers while I kept conning the ship to the dock. The pilot came on board with a VHF and two cell phones and was fully occupied with receiving calls and talking to other people. I did not know that it was so complicated to get into the port, that the whole world had to be called, but he kept at it. In between he smoked bad quality cigarettes on the bridge wing.
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
Today we ended our 20-day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Civitavecchia. The cruise was called “off to Rome” and to Rome we made it, at least to the port of Rome. We were blessed with yet another good day full of sun shine and little wind and as we were saying goodbye to about half of our guests, I approached the port early. Luggage had to be taken off and then there was the ride to the airport near Rome. Traffic in the Rome area can be horrendous and thus a timely departure from the ship is of the essence and then it helps if I dock the ship on the early side to give the Hotel department a good head start.
We were not the only ship in port. Apart from the regular ferry traffic was an Apartment of the Seas (Voyager with 3100 guests on board) and the Grand Celebration with 900 guests. (This is the old Carnival Celebration which now sails for the Carnival subsidiary Ibero Cruceros of Spain. With a base capacity of 1500 beds, the ship was not very full). What also was not full was the container terminal and the new car receiving area next to our dock. It was distinctly empty, a sign that the recession is still in full swing. The port has recently extended the terminal area by filling up part of the North side of the harbour but it looks like that they will have to wait for an upswing in the economy before more cargo ships are coming in. However the container dock is shared with cruise ships and thus the investment is at least partly paying off.
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
Another beautiful day and another beautiful port. As Monte Carlo is facing east, it is always a pleasure to approach the port in the morning as the rising sun shines over the whole area. Apart from a few fishermen there was nothing in the way. The Sunday sailors and gin palaces were still happily tucked away in the harbour and so we could proceed unhindered to our anchorage. As we were banned to Fontveille, due to the preparations for the Grand Prix, I had to find another anchorage. Our regular anchorage is just to the North of the new pier. Right abeam is the Hotel under which the race cars run their race, but using that location now would result in a much too long a tender distance. When going further to the South, the water gets deeper and the only shallow place that is really nice for anchoring is prohibited. The Oceanographic museum has some sort of water inlet system at the bottom of the cliff and thus we cannot drop anchor there.
The Captain of the Azamara Journey was obviously suffering from the same problem and decided to anchor all the way to the south. So far that I thought he was going to run his tender service into the marina of Cap Agile. However the boats were also going into Fontveille making it a long distance for them. As it was nice weather and no wind expected, I had no problem with dropping the anchor in 80 meters of water (240 feet) and could thus keep the tender distance to the port to a minimum. Dropping the anchor is really the wrong phrase here; with such a water depth we lower the anchor on the windlass, shackle by shackle, all the way down. (A shackle is one link of the chain, which is about 30 centimeters) Because of the depth most of the chain is hanging vertically and thus you are never certain if the anchor has dug in when the ship is in position. You can simply not see how the chain is leading and where to.
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
The distance between Naples and Elba is just too long to have an early morning arrival and so we were scheduled to be there at 10 am. That is a decent time anyway. Time for a leisurely breakfast on board, followed by a nice stroll into town. Having the best of both worlds. It was indeed a beautiful day and when we approached the island from the West, the sun beamed its rays over the green hills of Elba. We approached from the West as the entrance from the East side is a bit tight. Although there is enough water, it has several death angles (e.g. you cannot see around the corner) and if suddenly a fisherman comes in the way there would be nowhere to go but to put on the breaks very hard. Engineers do not like that very much so I prefer to go through wide open waters if the ship has a high average speed to maintain.
By 0850 we were at the pilot station and a very happy pilot came on board. We were his only job for the day and so he was bringing some money home that day. We were directed to the middle of the anchorage just in view of the harbour. There was a pier available but it was just too short for the Prinsendam to fit at. Next time when we come back it should be ok as they going to extend this pier during the coming winter. However as mentioned yesterday, the tender run into the port is very scenic and gives a nice overview of this most charming Italian town.
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
It turned out to be a beautiful day in Naples. Almost no wind, sunny skies from arrival to departure and temperatures in the mid 70’s. Just the weather that a cruise should have. The Prinsendam arrived as scheduled at 7 am. at the pilot station and as the pilot was already waiting we could just continue directly to the berth. Sometimes the pilot likes to do some work but not today. Which meant that I just continued conning the ship into the harbour and after swinging around docked starboard side alongside the cruise terminal or Stazione Marittima as they call it here.
Certainly impressive if you arrive from the city side.
This terminal was constructed in 1936 with the official reason that there was such an upswing in traffic from the port that a new dedicated passenger terminal was needed. What however played in the background was that Mussolini had started to push for a merger of several Italian passenger liner companies’ in what eventually would become the Italia Line and later Finmare. In the thoughts of the Fascists, this also meant that the terminals from which the passenger liners would depart had to be big and impressive. This resulted in an indeed very impressive terminal here in Naples that can deal with up to 10 smaller passenger vessels. Nowadays as the ships are bigger there is normally room for a maximum of four.
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
The sea was as flat as a mirror when we approached the harbour entrance and it became a clear and dry day. Although the harbour basin is quite big, the authorities had decided that we should be parked at the East dock and that gave not that much room to swing the ship into the berth. But as the East dock is also the Eastern breakwater it was at least close to the entrance of the harbour and that saved timed. On advice of the pilot we docked stern in, as there was the expectation of wind in the afternoon and if you are then docked nose out it is all a bit easier. The East dock was just a short walk away from the boulevard and large enough to have buses and taxi’s come to the gangway. There was even a little sightseeing train that offered an hour tour of the city for 5 euro’s, so not bad at all.
Today one of my daily chores was a little bit more unusual. Welcoming new crew onboard the ship. Each new cruise, a number of the crew go on vacation and are replaced by new crew. However there is a difference between new crew and new, new crew.
With new, new crew we are talking about all of those who are either brand new to sailing or brand new to Holland America. As the ships culture is considerably different to shore side life, the company makes an extra effort to have these new members of the Club Prinsendam feel themselves at home as quickly as possible. They get a little welcome present and when they board there is a “buddy” waiting who takes the new one around and makes sure he/she knows how to get a good start in their new life. To make this welcome to a new world a bit more festive, we throw a welcome on board luncheon for all of them. Here they meet their, also new, fellow crew members and also the ships staff. This is normally done once a month when we have a sufficient number to make it a nice occasion.
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
During the night the wind got less and less and by the time we approached the pilot station it was calm. The swells were still running but as the port is inside a shallow bay, the swell is stopped by a long breakwater and inside it was as flat as a mirror. The weather forecast for the day was uncertain but in the end it was bright with sunshine all day. The approach to the harbour is very peculiar as the green buoys on the right hand side are located well inside the reefs and the reef buoys on the port side when going in, are over in the fairway. So if you would hug the green buoys when going in, what you normally do, then you would be aground almost at once. So when going in and when going out you have to favor the red side of the channel. That means that Port Control keeps an eagle eye on all the ships going through the channel as you do not want to create collisions with this peculiar setup.
Staying on the red side makes sense as the turn into the harbour basin is almost 90 degrees, so the wider the turn you can make, the easier it is. The piers are named after Spanish Royalty and so we had the Princessa Sophia pier and the Alfonso XIII to name but two. We were docking at the latter one and it is almost the closest berth to the town. Almost; as we had to leave some dock space for a local ferry that was arriving later in the day. The beginning of the pier is a container terminal but when there are more cruise ships scheduled for the day, they delay the cargo traffic to accommodate the cruise ships. We were however the only one and thus there was not much of an issue about where were going to dock and about taking a berth away from a cargo ship.
Apart from being a cruise and container port, Cadiz is also very important as a ferry port with daily departures to the Canary Islands. During the winter time it is mainly cargo traffic that is being ferried over but during the summer time the ferries are full every day with tourists. Especially Tenerife gets a lot of car traffic in the form of SUV’s and Campers from the Northern parts of Europe. At the moment the season has not started yet and so we only saw lorries with containers driving on (Roll-on) and driving off (Roll –off)
Captain Albert
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