02 April 2011; Casablanca Morocco.

The economy must be booming in Casablanca and surrounding area as I had never seen the anchorage area so full of waiting ships. They were not in lay up; they were all indeed waiting for a docking space and their shippers to have the cargo available. Thus the air was full of voices of the most exotic accents, all trying to convey their needs and queries to Port Control and the Pilot station. Some voices clearly affected by too many cigarettes and then some voices trying to grapple with the unusual consonants of the English language and then trying to speak it with their own language syntax. Especially Koreans, Chinese and Indians are very creative in producing conversational English that is wonderful to hear but at the same time mind boggling to understand. Still port control spoke excellent English and dealt with all the questioning, pleading, moaning, groaning and lack of understanding in a very patient way. Every captain thinks his ship is the most important floating object in the world and acts accordingly when approaching a port. To their utter dismay, cruise ships normally get preference, as they are under time constraints for the tours.

Today was no exemption for the Prinsendam. There was indeed no wind and the sea did not even have a ripple on it. Only a languid long rolling swell was visible but even that did not have any force in it and we could proceed to the pilot station without any worries or hindrance. Pilotage is compulsory in Casablanca but the pilots are quite happy to let cruise ship captains get on with it as they know their ships and have as much experience with going in and out of ports as the pilot himself. So after verifying that I knew to which dock I had to go, he left me to it.  30 minutes later we were nicely docked at a cargo terminal as also Casablanca does not have a dedicated cruise terminal. There was just a little bit of wind blowing to the north and that was our saving grace, so that we did not get the dust & smell of the tapioca loading terminal over the ship. My 20 meter long gangway was waiting and we were in business.

Morocco has a very long coast line, especially as it has incorporated the Spanish Sahara into their territory. Thus the Atlantic coastline runs all the way down from the Strait of Gibraltar to Mauretania and that is almost on top of Dakar. Then there is the part in the Mediterranean side that encompasses Spanish Morocco with Ceuta as its main location.  As a result the country has a lot of coastal navy craft. In Agadir I counted about 15 and today there were about another 25 in various shapes and sizes. Also in port was the royal yacht, docked next to the Harbour masters office. It had an oil boom around it and I wonder whether it was to keep the Royal oil from leaking into the port or to keep the dirty port water from dirtying the Royal hull.

The tapioca terminal with a red bulk carrier in front of it. with North Westerly wind the whole ports “enjoys” it’s presence.

Yesterday we landed the overland tour to Marrakech and today they returned just before departure. The Hotelmanager had his troops lined up outside by the gangway ready with “welcome home” champagne. Everybody made it back safely and the gentle breeze had kept the Tapioca  smell away, so we could consider this a successful call, just for those two reasons.

Sailing out of port was a 30 minute affair and then we sailed through all the ships at anchor out to open sea. I am staying quite far from the land tonight, again due to the fishermen which we are expecting in abundance when coming closer to the Straits of Gibraltar. Normally when I keep the ship out of the 200 meter line, we do not have to deal with them and only encounter the occasional stay on. We will start going through the strait by 07.30 and be abeam of the Gib around 09.00  I hope that we will see something, as it is supposed to be calm of wind there, and that means that all the sand in the air, will simply hang there and cause a yellow haziness over the water. It will restrict the visibility considerably.