I have never been to Piraeus without something happening, something happening that made our schedule not work out as planned. This time it was no different. It seems that with whatever they organize, the Greeks need to create it from chaos (which is a Greek word to start with) first and then take it from there. I have now been coming with the ships to Piraeus since 1987 and every time something occurred that livened up the day. The good news was that it was a beautiful day; hardly any wind, temperatures in the mid seventies and we were docking at the pier location 3 West which is the official passenger terminal. That is the easiest one to get outside the dock area from. If you are at one of the other docks then there is bus shuttle to take you to and from the ship. That works well, but it takes time. Continue reading

Sometimes the best is saved for last and this was certainly the case this time. With the cruise slowly coming to an end, the transits of today were a big highlight of the cruise. We had sun shine all day and the thus all the sights were clearly visible, as the cruise schedule had been planned in such a way that both transits would be made during day light. For somebody who would follow the ship from a distance it would look rather strange. On departure from Sevastopol we went full ahead crossing the Black Sea. Then for the transit of the Bosporus we went slow with an average speed of 14 knots and then we cranked the Prinsendam up again to full ahead for the crossing of the Sea of Marmara; and then we went down again to 14 knots for the Dardanelles. Once clear of the strait we continued with a speed with 18 knots for an early arrival in Piraeus. To a cargo ship captain this would never make sense. Continue reading

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. Continue reading

Sinop is a small resort like town, with a promenade and little café’s tucked away behind a small peninsula. This Peninsula is basically a hill sticking out of the water and it provides shelter from Northerly winds. Those blow quite often in the summer hence the reason why the town is built on the south side and not on the north side of the hill although there is a nice bay as well. They must have built a two finger pier there in the recent past as it looked fairly new; with the North finger being reserved for larger ships, mainly ferries and the longer South finger for use by fishermen and other small craft. That pier also acts as a breakwater so at the inside a sort of Marina was created. Apart from a Harbor masters office there is no port infrastructure what so ever, so we just did our thing and kept approaching until somebody started squawking on the VHF. Continue reading

This was an interesting experience. I had been advised that the pier was 300 meters long and I knew that I had to be careful because of cranes on the dock. Cranes that could not moved away and were extending over the edge of the dock as well. So with an extra officer near the lifeboats (as they stick out from the side of the ship, I thought that everything had been taken care of. Wrong. When the pilot came onboard, he happily told me that there were ferries at the North end of the dock and that there was a coal ship at the south end of the dock. But, the good news was also that there was 240 meters reserved for us so we fitted in. The Prinsendam is 204 meters long and yes that is sufficiently space but it was calculated without taking into account that the width of the coal ship would take another 20 meters away from the 240 during the swing. The 240 meters was only there, when the stern would be past the coal ship. Oi, and also he forgot to mention that the ferry ahead of us had its lines running from the bow over the water to the dock, taking another 10 meters away. Continue reading

After our midnight exit from the Bosporus we entered the Black Sea on an easterly course. We hugged the Turkish coast for the whole day as our next port of call Trabzon is located in Turkey in the South East corner of the black sea. Thus we followed the coast in a more or less straight line and depending on the contours of the coast it was sometimes closer and some times further away. It also gave us the chance to find out if the Black Sea was really black. Well it is not, it is more brownish. However the people who named it found the waters black so they called it the Black Sea. The Romans spoke about the friendly sea because of its fertile waters. Continue reading