St. Petersburg means is a very early arrival to facilitate the full day tours. Such an early arrival is possible because the sun rises quite early in this area making it easy to sail through the narrow approach channels. This early morning saw little wind and little wind is a blessing because the channel is really narrow. Marked out and dredged in the days when ships were no wider than 15 meters / 45 feet and that left ample space for opposing ships to safely pass by. Now the cruise ships are 32 meters wide or even wider and thus the channel is suddenly very narrow. When big ships are coming in, the port authority establishes one way traffic and thus only opposing traffic can continue which can sail outside the buoyed route. For a large ship those buoys which marks both side of the channel are very close together and get even closer when the wind blows.

The more the wind is on the beam and the stronger that wind blows, the more the ship will drift in the channel (Courtesy diagram www.captainjonathan.com)

If the wind is on the beam, it pushes the ship over and to stay then in the middle of the channel a ship has to steer against the wind. Steer a drift course. The slower the ship goes, the wider the drift angle becomes and the more sideways the ship goes through this channel. The “path wide” as we call it becomes wider. And with our floating apartment buildings, we can catch a lot of wind. The faster we travel the less wide the path width is, as the increased speed force and the wind force combine into a final direction which will become closer to the course line in the center of the channel, the faster the speed is. Logic would thus be to race through the channel at maximum speed. But that is not possible as the depth of the water is too shallow. There is squat. = The sinking in of the ship which increases with the speed. (Just look at a speed boat. The bow comes out, the stern goes in because the propeller digs into the water and that is called squat. An extreme form of squat but the principle is the same for large ships)

Squat: the sinking in of a ship by the stern due to speed. (Diagram courtesy www.globalspec.com)

When the ship sinks in, it increases the draft considerably; an extra 40% during full speed is not un-common and if the water is very shallow then you bump the ground. Even when this does not happen, it reduces the space between the sea bottom and the keel so much that it gets harder for the sea water to flow away. This increases resistance, which slows down the ship. Thus even if we were allowed to go full speed in the St. Petersburg channel which only has a depth of 35 feet, with a 23 feet draft and a bit of squat there would not be much left and the ships speed would reduce drastically. As the engines would still try to churn out the maximum- Sea – speed power asked for, this power would force the ship against this reduction of water flow. The flow is reduced, the propellers push, and the result is that the force has to go somewhere else and does it by letting the ship shake. And that shaking can be considerable. Every captain knows that if his ship starts to vibrate and there is nothing wrong with the engine and he is in shallower water, then it must be squad and he will reduce speed until the shaking stops. We call that “Honeymoon Speed and After…………………

The Marine Facade which can handle 7 cruise ships. We are docked in the far corner where the blue ship is (Photo courtesy www.portnews.ru

The Zuiderdam had to be early this morning to be in time for the one way convoy and to be able to travel with a sedate speed of 10 knots for 2 hours through the channels. Plural as in channels, as there are more than one. When coming closer to the city, a large cruise ship makes a turn to the North to go to the new cruise terminal called the Marine Façade. This has been purposely built and has 7 cruise terminals. Very small ships, up to 16,000 tons or 500 feet can go up the channel further in and dock at the Lieutenant Schmidt embankment, quite deep in the city.

We were today in port with the ms Marco Polo of CMV cruises. Built in 1968 as a Russian North Atlantic Liner it must now be one of the oldest cruise ships still in service. Cruise and Maritime Voyages is an English company which operates Three Star cruises for the British Market. The ship is manned by Ukrainian Officers so I would not have minded to have been on the bridge there this morning to see the interchange between a Russian Pilot and a Ukrainian Captain, given that the two countries are having issues with each other at the moment.

We are staying here over night for a 2^nd day tomorrow. Then a little story about why St. Petersburg pilots speak Dutch. (Sort of)

We approached Tallinn this morning with a Gulf of Finland that was completely flat and with the sun shining brightly. That always scares us as it gives a good chance for –very low hanging clouds- but it is still too chilly.  So we had a grand approach and an even grander day.

Approaching Tallinn with a ball in the air.

Tallinn has a nice sky line with walls and turrets which can be seen from quite far away as the city is sitting on a sort of hill. To the west are the leftovers from the Russian days with several grim looking buildings and an area which is now part of the navy museum. There is another mercantile museum in one of the old towers in the town. Very worthwhile visiting and it has a great bookshop.

The Tallinn Balloon.

Since about five years ago the city has two long cruise piers located outside the old harbor. Here we used to dock at that time but there are only three berths available and only for not too big a cruise ship. The rest of the docks are given over to the Ferries which sail with great frequency to Finland.  Estonia, although on the other side of the Gulf of Finland is much more related to the Finnish culture than to the Russian one which surrounds the country on three sides. For the Finnish people it is considered a short holiday if they hop to and from Estonia and at the same time they can pick up some duty free; as prices for alcohol are very high in Finland. To ensure ferry captains and cruise ship captains do not scream at each other all the time, and to get the mega liners in, there are now two big docks.

That is what can get a ships captain really excited. Long pier, good fenders, plenty of bollards to put the ropes on and friendly linesmen. Thank you Tallinn.

When we approached the dock we saw something we had not seen before. The Tallinn Balloon. First we thought it was a blimp hanging over the city but then we found out it was for sightseeing as it went up and down every five minutes. Under it hangs a Gondola and it must give an amazing view of the old city and the port when being up in the air. Some of the crew was going to try to visit it this afternoon, so hopefully I can get a photo. I was not able to get off the ship as I was creating mayhem today with organizing and assessing an un-expected Emergency Response Drill. (Read = complicated fire drill) We have to do these on a regular basis to avoid the crew getting into too much of a routine and un-expected means it might be real and that will get the adrenaline going. It is then up to the captain to have the crew running but at the same time not upset/scare the guests by making the scenario too realistic. But that can be managed by announcements and a good explanation.

Another challenge we face is when we do these drills in port. Crew is also entitled to time off and that means we do not always have everybody on board and that includes not having complete fire teams. For that we have a procedure which is called “In port manning”. The crew has to take turns in staying on board. For the officers this is 50%, so we always have two fire teams available and every key position can be manned. Not only for Deck and Engine, but also for Hotel. If the Hotel Director goes ashore, the Culinary Operations manager has to stay on board.  For other hotel crew it goes in percentages and these are based on what functions we need. Thus we always have enough crew onboard to lower all the lifeboats which are at the water side and we have enough Stairway Guides to direct people in the staircases. Either to the lifeboats, or ashore, or back to the cabin; whatever the emergency might call for.  Our crew is not always happy with that, especially if you lose out on a nice port like today, but such is life. You do not have to be a sailor but if you want to be one, then you have to embrace the safety part of your job as well.

We stayed from 10am to 5pm in Tallinn which is really too short but the choice is either two days Tallinn or two days St. Petersburg and I am not going to say what is better.

Sailing to St. Petersburg is also an interesting affair as the city is located behind a very shallow river delta. Hence we have to sail quite a distance through a Canal before we can come to the dock. We will be docking at the new cruise terminal area as only the very small cruise ships can go up the embankment and into the city.

We are expecting another beautiful and sunny day with temperatures around 68oF. / 20oF which is very good weather for sightseeing. Although for St. Petersburg I prefer a bit more cloudiness to take the glare away.

Warnemunde is a port where we stay a little bit longer to make the tour to Berlin possible. At the same time it gives the Cruise Director the chance to get local entertainment on board. THis means a local Brass band, which we call in Holland an Oompa – Oompa Band, due to the constant underlying sound of the Bass-Tuba. Thus we had a group of about 8 gentlemen sitting in the Lido playing local dance and drinking music (with the emphasis on the last part) and with one gentleman singing the local tunes. Guests were encouraged to buy the local beer and that suggestion was followed up upon quite enthusiastically. A few gentlemen remembered their army days in Germany (And made their wives wonder what they had been getting up to, while being there in the army…………….) This Band probably had to drive home as their personal beer consumption was quite slow.

The local music band. The Gentleman standing in the back was the singer.

I once had a band on board the Prinsendam for the sailing through the Kieler Canal and they managed one glass of beer for every tune they played. I am sure they did not drive home, unless it was by coach. 

Sometimes I have to laugh about what the company dreams up for show displays and what we do to generate the focus and interest of the guests and thus we could see the Bar stewards walking around with Foam hats styled as Glasses of Beer. There are moments in life when I am quite happy to have decided to become a navigator…….

If you want to sell a lot of beer, put on a silly hat and the rest goes by itself.

Navigating came later when the Zuiderdam departed from Warnemunde. Heading East to Tallin means crossing most of the Baltic Sea and that is done as much as possible in a straight line. However Mother Nature seldom makes a sea’s square or oblong, or does not put an island in or reefs in it, or anything else which requires the attention of a navigator. Thus the Baltic is quite a complicated area. On our cruise we (try to) stay on the South side when going East until we reach St. Petersburg, which is also the end of the Baltic. From there we stay on the North side while heading west while visiting Helsinki and Stockholm. Then we come south again to go to Kiel and by the time we have done that we have also made a full circle of the Baltic Sea.

The Zuiderdam route through the Baltic and into the Gulf of Finland

The real problem with the Baltic Sea is it is very shallow along the coast line and thus you have to go fairly high up towards the center of the Sea and to make it interesting there are a few islands right in the middle. Also what we call the Baltic really consists of three parts, the Baltic Sea itself, the Gulf of Finland (the area between Tallinn and St. Petersburg) and the Gulf of Bothnia, which is the area which separates Sweden from Finland. It is only in the Gulf of Finland where we really can stay on the South or on the North side.

The first island of interest after leaving the German coast behind is the Island of Bornholm. It is fairly close to the Scandinavian coast and a place of interest to the seafarer in the old days. If the weather was too bad to continue sailing, ships would seek shelter or refuge behind the island, the side depending on where the wind was coming from. In nautical language “laying behind Bornholm” became a general saying to indicate that a ship was waiting better weather in a safe area.  Even in the modern age, smaller ships still do so, as it is much safer than to charge against the heavy waves which a storm in the Baltic can generate. Today we had beautiful weather and thus we were keeping as much to a straight line as possible and sailed between Bornholm and the Swedish coast.

The next island is Gotland with as main town the port of Visby. Here the Baltic Sea is getting much wider as the mainland with Latvia and Lithuania veers away from the Scandinavian Peninsula. Visby is also a well-known tourist destination and many cruise ships call there. The small ships can dock but the large ones have to anchor as the main docks are for the local ferries. However they are now in the process of constructing a large dock and that will make it possible for the larger ships to come alongside and not having to rely on tender service. This island we can keep on our port side and from there we follow the south coast and head for Tallinn.

We expect to be docked there at 10.00 hrs. We will be together with one smaller ship, the cruise ship Minerva which is known to offer really in-depth cultural cruises. They say of that ship that the library is larger than the show lounge. Weather: another sunny day with temperatures around 68oF or 20oC.

Warnemunde is lovely for the Guests, it is lovely for the crew to go ashore but it is a hard work port for the Captain and his team. Due to the full day trip to Berlin arrival is extremely early but it is not early enough to have a good excuse to go back to Bed again. And that means it turns into a long working day. Sailing into Warnemunde is a pretty straight forward affair with only two challenges. One we did not have today: Wind. The entrance channel is fully exposed to any sort of wind and with the multi deck & multi balcony cruise ships of nowadays a Warnemunde approach can be a real challenge. The channel is not so wide for it to be possible to let the ship drift and thus a lot of horse power comes into play to stay in the middle when slowing down near the berth. But today there was hardly any wind at all.

There is not much space with ferries around hence they want the cruise ships out of the way. This is a stock photo from the internet with the Rotterdam alongside. Today the Zuiderdam was at Berth 2, where the two little cruise ships are in the photo.

The second challenge is always there: Traffic. In the early mornings we have all the ferries which go in and out. Ferries run on time and thus have preference. If they are running late, they claim even more preference to get back on time again. Some of these ferries are train ferries and they cannot afford to be late at all as the German Railroad runs on time and likes to keep their efficiency record as high as possible. A disturbance by a ship, whether it is a Holland America cruise ship or not, is not appreciated. Thus we try to get into port before the ferries turn up. Port Control and the pilots are very good in helping with this as it is in their interest as well to keep the flow moving in port. Hence there is a focused effort from everybody to get the ship in without delay and that works the best if you are early.

View from the bridge. This is as much as I saw from the town today. In the front the rail road to Berlin. Takes about 2 hours to get there.

The port of Warnemunde has really developed in the last 10 years that I have been coming here. With direct access to Berlin and the proximity of Rostock (where smaller cruise ships can call at directly) the little town and the area around it has a lot to offer. Through the years the main dock has been spruced up, two new guest terminals built and all of it right on top of the Rail road station and on top of downtown. It really cannot be better. The town was always a sea side resort for the Germans to start with and therefore the infrastructure to make it interesting to stroll into town was already in place. A quick walk long the pier, pass under the railroad bridge, and the town is there.

Today the Aida Diva was with us in town. Aida is a company which also belongs to Carnival Corporation but is part of the Costa Group of ships, in the same way as Holland America is part of the HAL group which also includes Princess, Seabourn and P&O Australia. Aida caters almost exclusively for the German market and thus a certain amount of German language is needed to have a good time on board. And that you can as some of the Aida ships have a complete brewery on board where they produce their own AIDA beer. For a lot of Germans a very important item and hence the “Braumeister” or Brew master is after the captain the most cherished person on board.

Another safe working item. Working on the Davit. Is the scaffolding safe? Wearing a secured safety harnass ?. …..and on a sunny day like this is the sailor wearing safety/sun glasses ?

My day was filled with helping out with drills and diving into workplace safety. This something I have not much blogged about, but it is a part of the services I offer to the Master of the Vessel. I am a handy person for this as I come on board with a pair of fresh eyes to look around. As with every job, routine sets in when you are on board a ship for a long time. Routine is good as it helps people to perfect their job, but the danger is complacency as you do not see hidden dangers anymore. If a box has been standing somewhere for a long time, then people forget why it is there and nobody questions it anymore if it SHOULD be there. So when I step on board, my first question is: what is in the box? (It helps when you are nosey and that is a qualification I certainly have). And then we look if the box should be where it is now?

Is it in a safe location?  (Think bad weather)

Are the contents still in good order and allowed to be where it is? (Think chemicals)

Who is in charge and is this person qualified to handle this box and its contents ? (Think training)

And if there is anything not in order, what are we going to do about it and when and how ?. (Think corrective action)

And thus I made rounds, deck by deck to check for anything that might be amiss. The captain is making such rounds as well but with the Baltic sailing season, it cannot be one of his priorities and thus I step in.

Tomorrow we have a day at sea, when we head East in the direction of Tallinn. Again a beautiful port to visit. But first we will sail the middle part of the Baltic Sea towards Estonia. The weather should be good, with a gentle breeze, partly cloudy skies and pleasant temperatures.

I had not expected to be back again on the fleet so fast but things do happen and here I am on the Zuiderdam for 10 days to help out. The Zuiderdam has just come from the crossing and with facing a large crew change over, yours truly was asked to hop on board for a few days to support the officers with getting through it and keeping the ship completely up-to-date with all requirements. On a crossing there are hardly any ports to drill the crew and to verify operation and thus we have the action plan to do it now on this first Baltic cruise. So I will be training, auditing and nosing around while the bridge team can concentrate on their first Europe cruise of the season.  My lord and Master is not completely happy about it but I will just extend my leave a bit in June to make up for it.

And thus I flew from good old England to Copenhagen yesterday and joined the ship this morning during a beautiful summer’s day. Flying out for the company at short notice has always its interesting moments. First of all I flew on May 4^th. which is Remembrance Day in Holland and while I was sitting in the business class lounge at Schiphol, the clock struck 8 pm. and two minutes silence was observed. It was very impressive and moving to see the whole of the airport come to a grinding halt and everything falling silent except the air conditioning.  Apart from a few confused Chinese all travelers joined in with showing their respect even when it was not their remembrance day.   The Netherlands has taken the 4^th, of May as the date to remember those who gave their lives for their country and those who were the victims of the Second World War and then the 5^th. of May is the day of celebration for regaining our liberty in 1945. Although we now also remember those who fell in Korea and during all the peace keeping missions the Dutch were involved in. Military as well as civil. We do not have the tradition of 11 November as observed in a lot of other countries, and this for the simple reason that the Kingdom of the Netherlands was not involved in the First World War but remained neutral and quite successfully managed to keep the German Emperor outside the door.

It does not look very Danish to me but it slept well.

The company uses standard hotels in the various change over ports but if you are a last minute happening then you can end up anywhere. Quite often in a Boutique Hotel off the beaten track. Boutique hotels are built around a philosophy and the guest has to buy into that.  This particular one was modeled around an Eco –sustainable setup with a Mexican twist. That is the only way I can describe it as my stay was too short to figure out in more detail what it was all about.  So I slept in a four poster bed with Danish Duve’s, Mexican top coverings, organic bathroom amenities and the mini bar was generated by eco minded companies as well.   Who says travelling is boring.

The good ship ms Zuiderdam is under the command of Captain Wouter van Hoogdalem with whom I sailed for the last time when he was a 3^rd officer on my ship somewhere in the grey mists of time, long, long ago. Staff Captain is Bart Vaartjes who is currently the fill in captain in the fleet and who will after this contract as Staff Captain return as Master to one of the other ships.  The ship is making a 12 day cruise from Copenhagen to the Baltic States and Russia. I will remain on board until August 14 when the ship is in Kiel and then go home again for a few more days of leave, followed by training courses in Holland, to keep my Master license up-to-date.

This is a big improvement of the downtown – make do – happening and even the larger terminal they had on the West side. Built on reclaimed land and only just coming into operation.

The Zuiderdam docked today at one of the three new cruise terminals which are currently constructed just outside the port of Copenhagen. Cruise ships always like to dock at the Lange Linjen which is just off downtown but for embarkation day, this is much better. For the Back to Back guests (Collector Voyages Guests) there was a shuttle service but new boarding Guests could check in, in a nice new terminal instead of a marquee tent on the cobble stones as we had to do in the past.

Tomorrow we will be in Warnemunde, which is a real favorite of mine, not in the least because the locals are so very much sea and ship minded so you really feel welcome when you come into the port with the ship, as well as when leaving.

Weather for tomorrow: 68oF / 20oC. With partly cloudy skies and a gentle breeze. Most of our guests will be going by train to Berlin and this is near perfect sightseeing weather.

It was a windy passage through the Straits of Messina last night but it had one great advantage, there was not a fishing boat to be seen. They were all happily tucked away at home. Although I really would not know if they had been out there anyway as it was a National Holiday yesterday in Italy. The country then has a tendency to come to a complete standstill. Not always easy for a ship which needs answers and arrangements from the shore side. Therefore, you have to keep an eye on those days and ensure all the required information is in, or out and received before “Italy closes the computer and stops reading emails”.

I needed information from Naples and the Captain was sending an email accordingly but of course we did not get any answer back….it was a holiday. I was planning to throw a fire drill with the option to really spray a lot of water with hose handling. Water, which would then drain away over the side back into the port. In principle, it should not be a problem as it is port water we pump up with the Fire pumps and thus it is only a sort of loop where the water comes from and where it goes back. Still you never know how the local authorities react when they see water coming out of a ship and thus we verify. When Italy returned from their long weekend we found out it was indeed not a problem.

Nevertheless, it can be. About 15 years ago, Turkey decided to clean up the Sea of Marmara and their part of the Bosporus. To really get this going they instigated a fine of $ 40,000 per water spillage from a ship and $ 5000 for any other environmental violation. (This included if your hat blew off and into the water)People who observed and reported got a commission and thus there were many people suddenly “supporting the environment” by keeping a close eye on the ships. Quite a few ships got caught and in the end the reporting became so irritating for false alarms that our ships did not even load any fresh water anymore until reason returned a little bit.

Still it helped. Last call Istanbul we had small dolphins escorting us in to the dock so things are improving there. The Sea of Marmara which was more or less dead now life slowly coming back.

A foggy day in the Officers Bar. Stage Smoke in use to create an area on fire. By the time the teams entered visibility was zero.

This is my last day on the Koningsdam and I thought I would say farewell with a large fire drill. On the bow we have the bubble, the area under the Jacuzzi on the bow which you can see if you look at a photo of the Koningsdam. In that bubble is the Officers Bar, The Crew Training room, the Deck office, a Smokers lounge, toilets and a lot of small lockers and AC stations. A true maze. All of it is away from guest areas and thus one can create havoc to one’s hearts content. You can use real water outside when cooling down the superstructure and inside the maze everybody can mess about with hoses as much as it needed. So I put the smoke machine in, closed some doors, switched off the lights and let “nature run its course”. Four fire teams were needed to secure the area, stop the fire from re-occurring and find a casualty, which had collapsed in an escape. I saw some very good things and we learned some things which we will use for the next drill as a constant learning process for improvement.

Staying low to wait for the smoke to clear. A smoke path was created after the source of the fire was found. In the back a second team is verifying if a locker is clear.

The Koningsdam will be in Civitavecchia tomorrow and will then start a West Mediterranean cruise, which returns one more time to Civitavecchia. Then it will be westbound ending up in Rotterdam for the christening by Queen Maxima.

I will be leaving the ship and fly home to focus on the maintenance of my apartment building. This year it is phase 2 of the roof maintenance so I will be up and down scaffolding. The plan is now to join the Eurodam on June 23^th. as the company is planning another school class with new navigators. Afterwards everything is still open. Maybe to the Alaska ships, maybe another visit on the Koningsdam. As soon as my schedule finalizes, it will appear on the blog.

Scaffolding going up at home. this is the back of the northside of the building which is U shaped around a courtyard.

I would like to give a special thank you to all those blog readers who I met during the last few cruises. Thank you for your compliments, much appreciated. The Koningsdam is a beautiful ship and it was a pleasure to write about it. I will be back on the blog in about six weeks. Until then……..…;

…………………………and safe sailing if you are going to make a cruise.

Today we have a quiet day at sea while we travel towards the Strait of Messina. We will go through in mid evening. Most of the day it has been sunny but very windy. At the moment there is a force 7 to 8 blowing from the west and we go force 4 against. Hurricane winds on the Bow. But as the wind is on the bow, it is easy enough to find a spot out of the wind somewhere further aft.  Although there is a lot of wind and the sea is quite boisterous the ship is riding very nicely which bodes well for the future in general and Trans-Atlantic crossings in particular.

For the whole day we are in the wide open area between Greece, Italy and Africa and there is not much traffic to be seen. Except what is there is roughly on the same track line as we are, as this route is the most direct route to Israel and the surrounding areas. Around 18.00 we will merge with the course we sailed going Eastbound in the beginning of our cruise and then we will follow the regular ”railroad” for approaching the Strait of Messina. Although the sea is wide and large, shipping mostly sticks to the same courses in the same part of the sea and thus it looks if we are all using the same railroad to go from A to B.

New Style uniforms. Bar stewards to the left. And a mixture of Front Office and Event Staff to the right.

I still have a few promises to fulfill and one of them is in regards to uniforms. The Koningsdam is the first ship where the new house style is being rolled out and this house style does not only apply to the company’s crew but also to the Concessionaires which until now had their own corporate style. We have of course a number of concessions on board, Photographers, Casino, Shops, Microsoft, Florist, and Port Shopping Ambassador etc. etc. The most obvious ones are the Shops on board who are now adhering to our new house style which shows different colors but all accentuated with orange. Orange is the national color of the Netherlands and thus a nice link to have on the uniforms.

Some of the Shop Staff on board looking very spiffy with the Orange ties.

Similar but still slightly different are the uniforms for the Entertainment department and the Front Office. While the Front Office is always in grey, the Entertainment department has brown when on day work, same color as housekeeping, and grey style as with the Front Office in the evening when in the ship.

This the staff of the Culinary Arts Center.

With the Art on board I keep finding the odd piece in an area which there was not one before. Some art was only installed once the ship arrived in Civitavecchia and since then I have not been patrolling the decks to see what is /was going on. Thus I end my blog with a small piece which is located in the Starboard side of the Crows nest and I have to admit I have no idea what it is. Apart from the fact it is very nice.

Something very beautiful in Glass graces the starboard entrance to the Crows nest.

Tomorrow we are in Naples where the weather is going to be a mixed bag. Partly cloudy, partly sunny and scattered showers with temperatures of 17oF or 63oF. On the schedule for a day visit is apart from us the Norwegian Epic.

Today we were in Iraklion and blessed with sunshine and not too much wind, which made the docking of the Koningsdam a pleasure. The captain wisely decided to swing around in the port while the “going was good” = very little wind, and thus to be able to sail straight out at departure. If there is no wind in the morning, it still tends to pick up later in the day, so why not prevent yourself from getting a headache. One other cruise ship was in port with us, the Celestial Olympia which we also saw in Kusadasi. Due to our size we were docked at the container pier but the port authority provided a free shuttle bus to the port entrance. From there it is still a distance to the town itself but there are all sorts of local transport available. The Olympia left at noon, it is making very shorts stops in all its ports of call, and this time the Koningsdam did not stay very long either as we pulled out at 15.00 hrs. It is quite a long way to our next port of call Naples which includes going again through the Straits of Messina.

This must be heaven for a whisky drinker. Top of the Range but also for your Credit Card. I believe on 40 bottles exist, hence the price.

I still have a few loose ends to clear up here and there and as I have not much to tell about Iraklion in this case, we might as well do it now.  There was a question some time ago, what the most expensive Whisky was we sold in NOTES in the Music Walk. Well they just labeled all the bottles and now we know. The Whisky is called Royal Lochnagar 36 years old and sells for $ 299, — a shot. I leave it up to the connoisseurs among the readers to say if this is worth the price. Next best is The Glenrothes 1978 which goes for $ 109, — Cheapest one is a 12 year old Aberlour which sets you back $ 9,–.

2nd best but with the added bonus of a wooden display box.

I might be tempted to buy one if we had a NOTES that sold ports but Whisky’s are lost on me. NOTES is working as the guests are buying and the Lochnagar did attract one customer a few days ago. The bestselling ones are in the region of $ 15 to $ 25 which are also the best known whiskies. But if you decide to buy one or more shots, there is a whole ritual, including a tablet, to steer you the right way and advice by the bar staff present during the sampling.

My dad was a gardener and he would have loved this. Working with plants and not having to go out when it rains.

Another loose end. Not yet ready when the ship sailed, the Herb Center in the Culinary Arts Centre. As part of the Farm to Table concept, the idea is for the Chef in the kitchen, to use our own cultivated herbs in the preparation. Due to lack of a vegetable garden, hard to do due to the salt air, we have an artificial one, it is a short of walk in with the emphasis on the right lighting. Herbs have now arrived and are being cultivated and are starting to grow. In due course the harvest will be used in the preparation of the meals.

Nicely growing herbs in a variation of sorts.

From Crete we are basically travelling in a North Westerly direction sailing through the Ionian Sea which is the continuation of the Adriatic Sea and it is all part of the Mediterranean Sea. In this area we have the deepest part of the whole Med, the Calypso Deep which at last measurement went down for 5,267 meters or 17, 280 ft. which is a deep hole taking into consideration that the average depth of the Mediterranean Sea is 1500 meters.

With a thank you to Wikipedia on line.

While sailing towards Messina we will be staying just south of this deepest part but that does not mean the rest is shallow. So the chance or running aground here is fairly remote, unless of course a new volcano is building up and that is not unlikely because the Calypso Deep has everything to do with it. The Calypso Deep is part of the Hellenic Trench where the African Plate slides under the Aegean Sea Plate. And were plates go down there is normally volcanic activity. (Just remember the explosion of Santorini). But Volcanos normally do not grow that fast and thus we will should be ok here.

Crossing the Aegean Sea tonight and all day tomorrow.

We are expecting to arrive for the transfer through Messina Strait around 21.00 hrs. tomorrow evening. The weather is holding for the remainder of the day but tomorrow it will be becoming more and more overcast with a chance of showers the closer we come to Sicily. And yes there should be about 20 knots of wind and we are going against it with 18 knots. Makes for a windy day on the bow with a combined wind force of 36 knots.

Thus we arrived this morning at Rhodes to witness a strange phenomenon; the wind was not from the North but from the South West and not much more than a Gentle Breeze. Although the harbor is of a decent size, the Koningsdam is close to being the biggest size it can handle and today it dominated the sky line of Rhodes.

The Koningsdam docked against the outer wall of the old port.

No chance to get lost, just try to get to a place where you can look over the houses and you would see the ship. We were joined here by the Aegean Odyssey which we had also seen in Piraeus and which is a small Greek cruise ship that specializes in really in depth antiquity cruises. There then was the Golden Iris from Mano Cruises which is an Israel oriented company and that makes short cruises in the East Med. All were docked in what is called the old port; then further East is the new port where you can park quite a few more cruise ships. Between the city walls and the old port you then have the Fisherman’s port and the Visitor’s Marina.

The Fortress of the port which is only a small part of all the fortifications and the City Walls.

Rhodes is a World Heritage site and it calls itself the City of the Knights. The Knights Templar had one of their major strong posts here. Another important one was Malta as both islands were strategic for controlling the Sea routes to the East Mediterannean and the Holy Land. As a result Rhodes still has some strong fortifications which draw a lot of tourism, apart from the beaches of course.  With the emphasis on the  words A LOT. I stepped ashore for a walkabout in the early afternoon after a whole morning of training and with the intention of hopping on the Big Yellow Bus, instead of the Big Red Bus which gives you hop on hop off for a whole day or an hours sightseeing tour for 12 euro’s. However there are more clever clogs than just me and when the bus stopped it was so full of “12 euro – tourists” that I gave up and walked into the town.

This appealed to my of  sense of humor. I am used to Duty Free shops. This is the first shop I see which calls itself a Duty included shop…… It is located in the City Walls, which might be appropriate as the Knights Templar where known to be good drinkers. In the Dutch language we still have the saying “as drunk as a Templar”.

The main (tourist) street in Rhodes runs from the main port gate towards the Fortress and then splits up a little bit at the square where most tavernas and restaurants are located. Every tourist marches up and down this main street and the funny thing is, there is a parallel street about 50 feet behind it, right under the city walls and nobody goes there.

This is the back street of the main tourist street and only 30 feet away behind the rows of shops.

It is where the regular people still live and who by the noise were having lunch. So I went there and looked at the old architecture without having to look at “souvenirs – cheap price” signs.  I even found a book shop with 2^nd hand books although nothing related to ocean shipping. The owner was still one of a dying breed of old book dealers, orginal, peculiar and cantankerous if you do not hit the right nerve with them. This one displayed the all the traits and only melted a bit after we decided on speaking in German, “because they always want me to speak English……what is wrong with French & Greek ??”.  Once we had agreed that the world was coming to an end because nobody spoke any other languages anymore, I found out he was related to a family who produces nautical books in Athens and which is a shop I like to visit when in Pireaus. Far away related but he was.  It is a small world sometimes.

The sailing yacht the Mikhail S. Vorontsov. I would not be amazed if the cost price was close to a 100 million.

In port also a large sailing yacht, privately owned. It is for charter and sets you back about $ 260.000 dollars a week but it sleeps 12, so I suppose it is not so bad a price then. I do not know much about sailing yachts so I had to look this one up. It was built in Holland in 2013 and then laid up as the owner did not pay. In September 2015, the shipyard forced a court sale to recoup their costs but the day before the judge would decide, the matter was settled out of court. Now she lays in Rhodes, empty, and waiting for a charter, or the owner I suppose. All built from wood, including the hull and very beautiful to look at.

Tomorrow we are in Heraklion (Dutch spelling) or Iraklion (Greek spelling) and we are expecting a sunny day with temperatures of 58oF or 14oC.  Winds should around 10 knots and from the south and that is good because we are planning to send all the lifeboats down. And empty lifeboats tend to get blown away so the least wind the better.

Today we are at sea, as we have to cover the long distance between Istanbul and Rhodes. After departure yesterday at 17.00 hrs. we sailed through the Sea of Marmara and then through the Dardanelles again between 02.00 and 05.00 hrs. Now we are in the Aegean Sea heading almost due south until we will clear the SW point of Turkey and then turn slightly more to the South East. All the islands which we pass, even almost on top of Turkey, are part of Greece. The North part of the Aegean Sea is quite open and land is far away but late this morning we came to the more southern part and here more and more islands are scattered around. These are called the Cyclades and it is in this area were Odysseus had a number of his adventures.

Our route from Istanbul through the Dardanelles and the Aegean Sea to Rhodes.

We have the Etesian wind blowing again, wind force 5 to 6 but as it is a northerly wind it is following us. With our ships speed the relative wind is about half and that gives a very pleasant day to day on the outside decks. One of those dangerous days when you do not feel the warmth of the sun, due to the cool wind, and suddenly you realize you have turned red as a lobster.

The Watertight door layout of the ship. Doors which do not have to be open for work are always closed. (Green) Doors were work is going on such as the Engine room or the aft store rooms are open. (Red). Red and Green indicates large doors, which we keep half closed so in case of an emergency they will close in the same time as the smaller doors.

I did not see much of it as I was busy all day teaching the Engineers a deeper understanding  why our watertight door system is laid out in the way it us. Corporation – Fleet – Wide there is now a requirement for everybody, who has to operate a watertight door, to receive training and to understand the larger picture and also understand why accidents and incidents still happen. Holland America has been lucky in that we never had any, or maybe not lucky but well trained, but other companies have had issues. And with a watertight door, an incident is quite often fatal.

This is such a big/half open door in the Provision area. When in port the bridge will open the rest of the door and pallet jacks and big boxes can go through. At sea the half door still allows for quick passage by crew and quick closing if needed.

Apart from safe handling, the watertight doors are there to keep the ship afloat by stopping water going from one compartment to another.  If needed we can close everything quickly from the bridge but we try while sailing to keep most doors closed. Not always handy for the engineers and thus they have to open them as most doors are in the engine spaces in the depths of the ship.

We are going at at fairly low speed as this is one of those distances where you cannot do it in one night and if you would go full ahead we would arrive in Rhodes late evening when everybody is already in bed. Thus we trundle along with the sedate speed of 12 knots and give everybody the chance to recover from the hard work of being a tourist in Istanbul. Some guests really went for it and one couple came back with a complete Turkish carpet. As they live in Holland and will disembark there, it is not so difficult to take it home. I hope they have their paper work in order as Turkey is not in the E.C yet and Dutch Customs is really good in charging import duties and this size carpet you cannot hide in your suitcase.

Rhodes town is located at the top of the island.

The city of Rhodes is located at the north point of the island and the original town located there was to support the local fortress which protects the island from attacks from the north. As it is also the closest distance to the Greek Mainland the ferry port is located here was well. Convenient for reducing the sailing time between the islands and the mainland but not so exciting for the sailor. This Etesian North wind blows straight in and tugboats here are quite often needed to keep the ships in position even if those ships are very powerful. It will be interesting to see what wind we will have tomorrow although the weather forecast predicts the winds will be less than today.