Today we had the first of our two sea days. Late last evening we passed the Norwegian Pearl which was trundling along with a speed of 12 knots on her way to Vera Cruz (near Puerto Caldera) in Costa Rica.  You can do the stretch from Puerto Quetzal to there in one night if you make 23 knots but most ships do not go that fast, nor want to face the fuel cost and thus opt for a sea day in between. We have two sea days as we have to travel a distance of 889 miles to get to the Balboa seabuoy. Our course is taking us in one straight line down to the border of Costa Rica and Panama and we can do that because the land is veering away from us here.  Last night we kept a distance of approx. 5 miles to the coast, today we were more than 65 miles away and that remained so until late afternoon when the coast was coming closer again. In the meantime we passed the borders of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.  Due to the strange twist in the continent here, some of these countries have large parts of the land connected to the ocean and some only a few miles. Continue reading

By 03.30 I was woken up by the Officer of the Watch advising me that it was time to poke my nose out of the bridge window again. With the wakeup call came the cheery news that Quetzal port control was advising that there was 20 feet of swell running into the port entrance. A remark like that gets you woken up very fast. The port entrance has a depth of 45 feet, so minus 20 leaves 25 and that is not even enough for the ship to get in, let alone the danger of such a swell. Although I was expecting more swell (there are two hurricanes blowing in the East Pacific, Jovan and Erwin) it should not have been that much. On top of that there was a tropical downpour with strong winds over the port, so my first thought was; this is going to be a day at sea. When I arrived on the bridge, I picked up the VHF and called Port Control myself. The voice of the captain normally results in more action that the scheduled called of the ships watch officer. After a lot of Spanish confusion the 20 feet was downgraded to 12. I was still not happy so I demanded to talk to the pilot. He came on line and advised it was only 4 feet. That I could believe as at that moment a cargo ship the Novograd was coming out. It was being banned to the anchorage to let the cruise ships in to use the dock.  While I was a happy man now, I think that the Novograd captain was less content. Continue reading

We did have indeed a nice bit of wind blowing while we crossed the Golfo de Tehantepec. Although the 40 knots predicted did not completely work out. For a while it breezed up to peak gusts of over 50 knots but as there was no swell and we kept the ship nicely upright with ballasting, the discomfort to the guests was at a minimum. What was correct in the forecast was that the predicted area was indeed very local. Basically a funnel wind coming down from the land and covering a maximum width of 60 miles. So it started to breeze up by 1930 hrs. and by 2300 hrs. it was calm again. Of course the wind gusts blew up the sea spray and within a short time we saw the salt settling on the decks, greatly displeasing the chief officer as it would be a lengthy task again the next morning to wash all off again. However Mother Nature was very obliging here and provided a torrential downpour just before sunrise which washed the whole ship down nicely. It is always nice to start the day with a freshly washed ship. Continue reading

 This time we did not have an early morning arrival as we were scheduled for a 10 am docking time and thus the ship approached the pilot station at 08.45. From far we saw the pilot boat already bobbing up and down on the waves as there was a considerable swell running from the South East. As Huatalco has a bay which is fully exposed from the south, an incoming swell is always a concern, but the SE angle of the swell was just good enough to make the dock area protected. The protruding cliff on the East side sheltered the port very nicely. In the past the port was not much frequented by larger ships and thus remained a well kept secret and hideaway. This is a natural bay but it was never wide enough for regular size cruise ships to anchor in, as the ships could not swing around on the tide, nor could they tie up with the stern (style mediteranee) and then lay behind two anchors, as the distance to the shore was too long; the end of the bay being very shallow. Cruise ships that visited had to anchor around the cliff to the East where the water is protected from the incoming swell by a reef and then tender into Hualtalco bay. That made the tenders exposed to the swell that is running most of the time, when entering the bay itself, and that could cause quite a bit of discomfort for the guests to say the least. Continue reading

 Only when sailing along its coast you realize how big a country Mexico really is. Since our departure from San Diego we have been constantly sailing along its coast and we will continue to do until the night of the 5th., when we will finally pass its southern border. We are staying an average distance from the coast of between 4 and 14 miles. The four to stay out of the 3 mile coastal zone which every country in the world sees as their property but sometimes we are much further out when the coast meanders away from the straight course line that we follow. We are also now starting to see ships again , as the coastal Mexican route is used by all shipping coming from and going to the Panama Canal or ports in that area. So we passed a few tankers and regular cargo ships who in some cases were going faster than we did. This is a novelty of the last few years. Continue reading

With nearly wind still weather we sailed into the Bahia de Banderas towards Puerto Vallarta.  About 30 years ago when the cruise ships started to frequent the port, you simply sailed in until you almost hit the land and then you tried to figure out where the entrance was. There were hardly any buildings or other construction that would indicate the existence of the town. So it was always a sort of puzzle to find the small harbor entrance.  Then through the years the building boom started and, what was handy for us, was the construction of two high rises right behind the low building of the flea market. Those high rises had red lights on the tops, to warn aircraft off and that made them ideal bacons for us to approach the port. Then port got more sophisticated with better entrance buoys and later on even a leading light and then we were really in business.  However the construction boom continued and now there are so many buildings that we cannot see the port entrance anymore. So we are basically back to square one, if it were not for the vastly improved radar equipment of the modern days.  With chart overlay and a very clear picture display we can now sail for the port on the radar until we are close enough to see the outline of the port entrance. Continue reading

In accordance with our hour forward the sun did indeed not rise until 08.15, which meant that the Dawn only set in just before 8 am. Not that it bothered many, as most of our guests were enjoying a lay in anyway. The weather is holding nicely and that meant, with following wind and seas, that it was going to be a warm day today. The ship was making the same speed as the wind velocity and thus it was nearly wind still on the deck and it was sunny, very sunny. By 11 am. We were coming closer to land and we could see the bare mountains and beaches of the coast of the California Peninsula. As Puerto Vallarta is located on the mainland east of the Peninsula we had to go around the southern tip of it and that gave a chance to do some sightseeing near Cabo San Lucas. The fact that is was at the most convenient time of 13.30 in the afternoon made it even better. No worries about disturbing the lectures or the bingo, most people were having lunch and so could see if from behind the panoramic windows of the Lido restaurant or the Crows nest. Continue reading

As the Navy was either tied up to the dock or playing outside, the sail away from San Diego was un-eventful and so it continued for the remainder of the evening and night. Until the Mexican border we sailed with a max. speed of 15 knots, to comply with the Clean Air Act of California. This is not compulsory for us but all the ships are requested to do so and it is the HAL standard that we comply with any voluntary environmental initiative where safely possible. What is compulsory is that we run the ships on Marine Gas Oil (MGO) instead of on HFO (Heavy fuel Oil) in order to keep the emissions down along the Californian coast. As it well-known, Los Angeles had to deal with smog quite often in the past and the local authorities have been quite active with measures to reduce it. One of those measures is that ships sailing along the coastal area here, or going in and out of port run on MGO, as slower speeds give less emissions. Which makes sense, because when you arrive or depart from a port you are not going that fast, do not have maximum load on the engines and thus there is not always optimum combustion. Once past the Mexican border we set an average speed of 17.5 knots with an engine configuration that enabled us to sail with maximum efficiency and thus the least amount of emissions possible. Continue reading

 And so after 5 months of vacation, I rejoined the wonderful world of Holland America. The company had been so good to give me a split flight from England via Amsterdam and thus I could visit my 96 old mother. She is still doing very well but as I am the only child, she has the problem that when I disappear for three months, there is no family visiting. So I managed to get a stopover in before I had to face reality again. I was not the only one descending upon San Diego to join a ship. Today there were 3 cruise ships in port altogether. The Statendam, Westerdam and the Sapphire Princess which was for the port of San Diego not a bad way to kick off the cruise season. All three ships were there for their first call of the season and all three were coming down from Alaska. The last two weeks of the Alaska season had been a bit windy; the Statendam observed on one occasion wind speeds of up to 80 knots and 45 feet high waves, making all crews quite happy when the ships were leaving the Great Land behind. A lot of them were even more happy as the call at San Diego meant that a large number of them could go for a well earned vacation. Continue reading

I have been able to add some more information to the Captains from the Past sub directory on this blog.

Several new names were added to the list (click on the Captains from the Past header), namely the captains Burger, Buhse, Van Erp, Geldtelder, Sjerp, Swart, de Witt, Coerkamp E and Coerkamp R. (it will be interesting to find out if these two were brothers or family) Kimmerer and Soutendam. These were all cargo ship captains in the period 1915 to 1930.

Photos were added of some old timers from the early years. Captain Bote Bruinsma, Captain Aldert Potjer and his nephew Adries Potjer, Captain Herman van der Zee, Captain W. Bakker, Captain Willem Ponsen and Captain Adriaan Roggeveen.

Also the bio and obituary of Captain Hans Eulderink was added, together with two photos. More will be added as soon as I have the paperwork of those years scanned in from the years that I sailed with him.

Best regards

Capt. Albert