We had the pilot exchange shortly after midnight and then we sped up again for a timely arrival in Manaus. Sailing this part of the Amazon was a little bit easier. The river has less shallow patches and as long as the pilot stayed with the ship where most of the current flows; we knew that we were in deep water. Again we had the peculiar situation that for about an hour we sailed over land, as in one particular turn the river is churning away the land on the south bank and adding land on the north shore. Thus the river is slowly moving to the south and the hydrographical services of Brazil have not been able to keep up with it. However we made good speed and I could keep my promise to the guests, we were docked one hour ahead of schedule. Continue reading

From Santarem to Boca de Valeria it is 140 miles on the river but with 3 knots against us that is closer to 170 miles for the distance that the ships engines have to produce power for. Thus after leaving Santarem we cranked the Veendam up to warp speed as I wanted to arrive a little bit ahead of schedule. Boca is an Indian village with a tidal plane in front of it and that can result in some interesting logistical problems when you arrive. Continue reading

Well, the pilot was right. There was a lot of current in the river. 3 knots on average with sometimes even more in the narrower passages. Thus little chance of catching up some lost time. In the end we docked four hours late in Santarem because of the late clearance of yesterday. Luckily we could move all the tours around so nobody had to miss anything. The weather was sunny with hardly a cloud in the skies and as we arrived later the midday heat was already getting less. Thus maybe a later arrival was not such a bad thing after all; as the noon time temperatures can easily reach 90oF or more, with a very high humidity. Continue reading

Entering the river turned out to be more of a challenge than we had expected and had bargained for. I had hoped to be early at the bar, so I could ride the high tide in, but the strong adverse Guyana current that we had battled for the last two days in the North Atlantic Ocean put a stop to that. The ship just made it to the bar when it was supposed to be high tide. However Mother Nature had decided that the Amazon outflow was stronger than the regular balance and by the time we reached the bar, ebbing had set in. Continue reading

Today was a beautiful sunny and almost windless day. It was still blowing over the deck, but that was wind caused by the ships speed, the regular wind was almost nothing. Thus it was a warm day, a very warm day but a good day to welcome King Neptune on board with his court to oversee the proper induction of those, pollywogs, who had not crossed the equator yet. Continue reading

Late last evening we entered the North Atlantic Ocean and we are now traveling South East towards the Amazon River estuary. The course is basically one straight line, as the land, the South American continent, curves inwards from the most eastern point of Brazil towards the Caribbean Sea. We will reach that most Eastern point tomorrow around noon time and then we will follow the coast inwards towards the estuary. Continue reading

It is good to be back on board after a nice vacation in which I celebrated and survived my 50th birthday. According to some of my (much younger) crewmembers, I am now officially an old fart. Whether that is an achievement to be proud about or not remains to be seen. Continue reading

Good morning,

It was not my intention to write blog pages during my leave; the idea was to only add maybe a few more Avid Cruiser articles and some more photos to the photo gallery.

However I have just received my schedule for 2009 and as a few of you were inquiring about whether I would be on the Veendam in 2009 or not, here is the schedule and it has a twist to it.

Veendam:
14 October 2008 to 4 Jan 2009

Prinsendam:
30 April 2009 – 23 Aug. 2009
18 Oct. 2009 – 10 Jan. 2010

That means that after 4 years on the Veendam I will be transferring to the Prinsendam in April 2009. This is a smaller ship and not a single cruise will be the same as the last one. I loved sailing on the Veendam and I will happily return to her for one more contract but the Prinsendam is going to be a challenge that I welcome very much. The Prinsendam does do a lot of longer cruises and goes to places where the larger ships cannot go to. She would be the one to go to Timboektoe, if there was a Canal that could take her there.

It will certainly make my daily blogging different from day to day, so I hope you will enjoy reading about ports that are normally not featured on the regular cruise calenders.

I will upload her history in the coming period and it is quite an extensive one. She came to Holland America through the Carnival Family from Seabourn as she used to sail as the Seabourn Sun. Before that she was the Royal Viking Sun being built in 1986. Holland America has been investing heavily in her in the last few years, to bring her up to date and now she sails for us as the “Elegant Explorer”. She is the smallest ship in the Holland America Line fleet and can thus go to places where the bigger ones would have an issue getting into.

Nice weather in the Inside Passage often means fog but as the temperatures were not that high yesterday, we were lucky. I woke up this morning to a sunny Queen Charlotte Sound with nearly wind still weather and whales playing all over the place. I hope that at least some guests saw them. The last sea morning is normally very quiet as most guests recuperate from their shopping and sightseeing expeditions in Ketchikan. Continue reading

Ketchikan was indeed a dry day and had even sunny periods. Thus I saw, what I seldom see when arriving at Ketchikan lots of people on the forward deck enjoying the scenery while we sailed through the Tongass Narrows. With just a little bit of following wind it was indeed very pleasant on the outside decks and there was enough to be seen as well to keep everybody happily occupied. Continue reading