03 March 2018, Sailing Around Cuba.

Just after 01.30 last night the good ship Veendam pulled out of Havana and returned to open sea. Most guests I spoke to found it a most interesting experience and the common remark was that Cuba was far from being in the bad state as some politicians said it was. The old American cars are becoming rapidly a status symbol and more and more new cars are appearing on the road. Because Cienfuegos is all the way at the other side of Cuba, we spent the day going around the island. It is a distance of 301 miles from sea buoy to sea buoy and with our planned arrival time of 06.15 hrs. at the pilot station, we have to maintain an average speed of just over 16 knots to make it work.  The port is located deep inland in an inland bay and from the pilot station it takes another another hour to get to the anchorage.

The ms Veendam rounding the West Point of Cuba, Cabo San Antonio at 12.23. hrs. in the morning.

But I promised a blog about HAL and Cuba. Holland America started out on the North Atlantic run with ships sailing between Rotterdam and New York. The first ships were passenger ships with a large cargo capacity and they could deal with both human and non-human cargo at the same time. But the emigrant trade to New York brought in a lot of money and in 1909 HAL bought a company called the Neptune Line and that gave it access to ports away from New York. Nowadays we would call that diversification. Those ports were to the North of New York, Boston and further up towards Chesapeake Bay. The next logical thought was what we can do in the north, we can also do in the south with ports along the South East Coast and around the Gulf (including Mexico) and this gave rise to the “Gulf Service”.

The ss Andijk (I) seen here in an East Coast port.

When sailing from Rotterdam to those ports, it is impossible not to sail past Cuba and thus did Havana appear on the horizon. On 26 November the ss Andijk arrived in Havana and stayed there for 5 days.  No doubt much appreciated by the crew. It loaded sugar and rum to take back to Europe and from there it continued its round trip to Vera Cruz, Tampico – Puerto Mexico and New Orleans and then headed back to Rotterdam. Apart from the maiden HAL call at Havana it was also the first voyage of this new service.

An old postcard of the ss Maasdam for the Spanish market. She was a sister ship to the Edam.

With the First World War going on, things slowed down considerable. There was the U boat danger and some ships had been confiscated by the USA when it entered the war in 1917. But once the war was over the cargo service resumed. Then the USA started to reduce the emigrate inflow which cost Holland America a lot of money as the large passenger ships were not sailing full anymore. So the idea was born to start a passenger service to Mexico from Rotterdam calling at Spain and Portugal on the way. The idea was to cash in on the part-time labor trade when men from Portugal and Spain went to Cuba for the sugar cane harvest and back. This new service was inaugurated by the ss Edam (IV) in 1922.

The Veendam II at full speed at sea. Only one funnel was real so only one funnel smoked.

Then the company decided to get involved more extensively in cruises to the West Indies and the Veendam (II) was assigned for this work. On 18 March 1926 the ship left New York and called at Havana and then continued to Kingston – Colon – Cartagena – San Juan – Hamilton and then back to New York. So the Veendam (II) was the ship that made the first company cruise to Cuba. From then on, various ships of the company called at Havana and it continued after the war until the revolution started followed by the embargo.

The ss Arkeldyk was one of a series of Victory cargo ships purchased after the end of the war.

The last HAL ship to call at Havana was the cargo ship ss Arkeldyk which had left Rotterdam on the 18^th. of Feb. 1962 and she called at Havana – Houston – Corpus Christi – Brownsville – Galveston – Houston – Le Havre – Antwerp and then returned to  Rotterdam. Then things got political and nothing happened until 1980.

The Grand Dame of the Seas, the ss Rotterdam V made world cruises from 1959 to 1997.

Then to everybody’s amazement Holland America obtained an exemption to call at Havana as the final port of the world cruise of 1980. The ship had left New York on 09 January and after going westwards around the world arrived in Havana on the 15^th. of April where it stayed from 0700 hrs. in the morning until 18.11 hrs. in the evening. From there it sailed to Fort Lauderdale and New York to end the world cruise.

The ms Veendam IV docked at Havana yesterday. Continuing the HAL tradition.

And now we are back and the Veendam (IV) is making regular cruises to Havana from American ports. In my personal opinion, a communist is a capitalist without money, so the more we call here; the better it is for the country and its future. And we are already doing that by going to Cienfuegos tomorrow.

The weather is supposed to be similar again 80oF and 27oC with sunny skies. The sun block 30 advice remains in place.