As mentioned yesterday I was concerned about the weather. The Bahamas’ and the Caicos are all low lying islands, Keys and reefs and are completely exposed to the North Atlantic weather. The dock is not sheltered for any sort of ship higher than 25 feet or so. Also the pier is a concrete podium on stilts and the swell, if present, goes right under it. Lastly, the forward end of the pier is dredged to create enough room for the large ships. That means that you cannot drift sideways too much without hitting the reefs. All and all enough reasons to worry about being able to make the call. When we approached it did not look good at all. Winds of up to 30 knots and long swell running in. However you have to see the situation at the dock itself before you can decide what to do. That means lining up on the pier and creeping closer. Until about a 100 feet from the pier end it is very deep water so if things are not the way they should be you can always exercise the “blow away” maneuver and drift back to open sea. Continue reading

This place is one of the two alternatives that the company is developing for San Juan. The other one is Ponce on the south side. Mayaguez is located on the West side of the island and thus gives another option in case of inclement weather. At least that it is the way I am looking at it. We only call here during the Christmas cruises as it’s tourist structure is still very limited. However with the Prinsendam clientele that is more of a pro than a con, as the ship is being marketed as the Elegant Explorer. So our first port of the New Year was this little port on the West side of the island. It is a very shallow port in water depth. If I had to believe the charts, then I would not even be able to get in it. However we had ancillary information that indicated that the depths were enough for us to remain a ship and not become a landlocked hotel. Also the Prinsendam had already been here for two previous calls and things do not silt over that quickly. Still maneuvering in shallow waters is not that easy as it is difficult to push the water away with the ship when trying to move. I had problems with that in Port of Spain and I was not expecting much difference here. Still it is a very sheltered port from the regular North Easterly winds and that counts for a lot for the Prinsendam. Continue reading

Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar.

Happy 2011 to everybody out there in the big wide world. I wish you all a prosperous and healthy year and maybe it the best year ……….yet.

The centre piece of the midnight show (and eat) buffet. 2011 ice carving in multi colors.

Onboard the celebration of New Year is one big party, which starts with dinner. Here guests receive silly hats and rattles for use later during the party. At 22.30 the doors to the show lounge open and the guests start streaming in from dinner. There are always guests who go to bed early but at least 500 out of the 700 attended the celebrations this time. A standard part of the festivities is the Black and White officer ball. The officers assemble at 22.45 at both entrances of the lounge to welcome the guests and then at 23.00 Lesley and I lead all of them in a parade onto the dance floor. We normally open with a waltz varie, which means that after a few twirls we split up and invite guests onto the floor. The officers who were lined up in front of the stage do the same and that really starts the ball. Every other dance is a dance with the officers and one of the officers will have an envelope in the pocket. That envelope will be announced at the end of the dance and the lucky guest who was dancing with the specific officer (either male or female) will win a prize. Continue reading

The wind had died away completely during the early morning and it was calm of wind when we made our approach. However we saw a swell running towards the dock and that was not in the books at all. The continuous bad weather in the North Atlantic kept pushing wave fields into the Caribbean Sea and the swells were rippling all the way down to Grenada. Thus we had the unpleasant situation that the waves were rolling in from the North West towards the dock. For that possibility the dock has no protection as normally wind and waves are coming from the East and thus the piers are sheltered by the land. Things were looking interesting. Still you cannot really see how much swell there is or how it will affect the ship until you are alongside, unless of course the waves are running over the dock. The pilot indicated a “little swell” and that meant nothing to me either and the only thing we could do was to go alongside and see what happened. That is only a 10 minute affair as the cruise pier in St. Georges sticks out straight into the sea and thus it is a straight shoot in. Hardly alongside and the ship started to move on the swell. About a meter up and about a meter out. Not pleasant but it might get better, so I kept everybody onboard. It was 07.00 anyway for a 08.00 arrival and then I watched from the bridge wing what was going on. Continue reading

The approach to anchorage of Port Elizabeth is dead simple. Coming from the South you come around the most western point, line up on a course of 90o, pick your position and put the brakes on. The only three items of concern are the swell, the wind and whether the anchorage is blocked by sailing yachts or not. I was hoping that I could go forward enough so that the ship would be in the lee of a protruding cliff to the North so that the long and high North Atlantic Swell would not affect the ship. While sailing in, we saw that all the sailing boats were nicely tucked away, deep in the bay. That far in I could not go anyway as the sides of the bay are too shallow and the centre has to remain open for the frequently running ferries toward to St. Vincent and the other Grenadines. They even have patrol boats for that purpose in the harbour to ensure that the sailing yachts do not drop their anchor here. Those patrol boats were very busy during the day as there was a lot of sail boats going in and out or milling around in general. Continue reading

This country; which main island is Trinidad stands with one foot in the Caribbean and with one foot in South America. At the same time it is a real melting pot of different nationalities and races resulting in a country that is totally different than its neighbors. This call was also our most southern point of the cruise, after departure we are heading north again. Heading south would not be so easy anyway as Port of Spain is located on the west side of Trinidad facing the Gulf de Paria, which is large but shallow and its main entrance is located on the North West side of Trinidad. This is where we entered in the early morning and then turned east towards the pilot station. As the whole gulf is shallow, Port of Spain can only be reached through a dredged channel of about 4 miles long. For deep drafted ships it means following the whole channel but a ship as the Prinsendam with only 22 feet of draft can enter about halfway at buoy 11, before it becomes really shallow. We had a boarding time of 06.00 hrs. although we were not due in until 08.00 for our full day call. However the past has taught me that things never go completely normal here, so I like to be early. Continue reading

Arriving bright and early in a port has the advantage that there aren’t any yachts milling around……….and getting in the way……….. and the fishermen are just gearing up to go out and are not in the way either. Therefore the sea was empty of all traffic except for the larger commercial vessels and of those we know what they are doing. Most of them were cruise ships and they were converging on the pilot station of Bridgetown. Looking at the Radar and the AIS display of each ship we could see that everybody was adhering to the schedule laid out by the Harbourmaster. Thus no traffic jam at the pilot station but nice arrivals in sequence and evenly spaced out. The one thing about approaching the port is that the entry course is perpendicular on the port itself. That gives a nice sheltered port but it means that when approaching you have the current full on the beam and you are either being set to the North or to the South. What way you are being set, you will only find out when you make the approach. Continue reading

Although the wind had nicely dissipated while sailing away from Antigua the long ocean swell was still there. That is not good for tendering of course and thus we needed a very good lee in the coming port as it was an anchor port. Terre de Haut in the Iles de Saintes was a new port for me and thus I had to rely on the pilot who advised very strongly that everything was going to be beautiful (pronounced with a very French accent). There is no pilot for this island itself, you have to pick up a Guadeloupe pilot. Each one of them pilots all ports that belong to greater Guadeloupe. Thus we headed to Basse Terre on the SW side of Guadeloupe and embarked the pilot at 06.15. From there it is about 10 miles to the entrance bay of Terre de Haut. It is located in a very sheltered bay and according to the pilot when anchoring close enough to the beach; the ship is completely out of the swell. That meant using two anchors as the anchorage is not large enough to swing around in. Continue reading

It turned out that the predicted wind was the least of my worries. It was the millionaires who were bothering me this time. Unbeknown to the poor paupers of this world, which includes of course a poor cruise ship captain; St Barts is a special gathering place for the Rich and Famous on Boxing Day. As a result all their Mega yachts congregated at the anchorage and the biggest one, the Eclipse, parked itself at my anchorage. Thus I had to stay further out and thus the challenge started. A challenge that turned quite quickly into an un-manageable problem. The swell that made the ship surge in St. Maarten had not diminished overnight and now “attacked” the anchorage of Gustavia in a most peculiar way. The swell curved around the North West point of the island and around the South East point of the island and met in the middle, exactly where my new anchorage was located. Not something to be very happy about but something to focus on deeply and evaluate very carefully. Continue reading

We had our Christmas Carol concert and it went down very well. I am now in the cruise business for nearly 30 years with approx. 15 or more Christmases at sea and this was one of the very good ones. Whether it is because the show lounge is ideal for this or whether the Prinsendam crew is so special or was it the organization with Senior Management in the lead; I do not know but it flowed without hiccups, it sounded very good and the guests all thought it was wonderful. Afterwards all the participants had a knee’s up in the forward dining room so a good time was had by all. By 1am everybody was in bed again, as this morning was a sea day and then by 11 am the approach to St. Maarten started. The wind was still blowing strongly and the North Atlantic swell was increasing by the time that we entered the Anegada passage (West of St. Maarten and Anguilla) and that me made glad that I selected a port on the South side of an island in the lee of the wind and now also the swell. The sun was shining and all was going to be well in the world. Continue reading