04 April 2011; Cartagena, Spain.

For me Cartagena is one of the most unspoilt–touristy cities- on the coast of Spain.  That is of course a contradiction in terms but I mean by that, that not everything is geared towards tourism and T-shirt shops. That has as a result  some of our guests complain about the lack of easy-tourism infrastructure and  some are just very happy that it is still not the case. I belong to the latter group and therefore always enjoy calling at this ancient city. I came here with the Noordam in 2001 to make the Company maiden call and since then the company ships have been calling here on occasion through the years. Cartagena has been working hard to create more facilities for main stream tourism and the major benefit that I am reaping from it is, that I now have a very nice pier to call at.  They are still working on it and it is getting longer and longer. There are some tentative plans for a cruise terminal as Cartagena would not be a bad change over port either but it seems that the funding needed is still being allocated to other projects. Taking into account the current state of Spain’s economy that is not so difficult to understand.

Cartagena harbor as seen on the electronic chart. this is a screen shot from a previous visit, but it shows clearly the ZIG and the ZAG.

Still, the good ship Prinsendam approached the port of Cartagena at 06.00 in the morning to duly pick up the pilot and proceed to the berth. The port is well sheltered from all sides except the South East and has therefore been an important port since Carthegian times. It is one of the major Spanish navy ports and on a regular basis we have a navy ship in our way when we want to get in or out. This morning it was quiet and with the pilot onboard, I zigzagged through the breakwater and was docked half an hour later. In the same way as in Casablanca, also here the pilots prefer to let the captain do his thing and just assist when needed. Entering the port starts with a  NW course, then after passing the first breakwater to the West, you have to turn 90o within in a ships length and you have to repeat that again 2 minutes later, with another NE course to get around the Eastern breakwater to turn into the port basin.  Zig zag, around two overlapping breakwaters which were constructed there to keep the South Easterly swell out which is from where the only dangerous swell can come, as the rest of the port is surrounded by land.

Together with us in port was the Costa Marina, which is a converted container ship. Built in 1969 she was converted in 1985 with her sister into a passenger ship and as the cruise line doing it went bankrupt, Costa bought both ships and has been successfully operating them ever since.  That ship was calling even shorter at this port then us as she was scheduled to depart at 1 pm. We were to follow an hour later, as the schedule to our next port of call Mahon on Menorca is quite tight. Thus an early afternoon departure and the need for me to get away on time.

Unfortunately that was not going to be the case.  A truck with spare parts had been caught in “paper traffic” inside a Spanish customs office and arrived 2.5 hours late at the ship. Although the ship had all manpower available lined up, to deal with it, we still left 40 minutes late. That time I could absorb and still make it to the entry window into Mahon. The problem is the opposing wind, that was blowing outside, will show us down about a mile an hour, and that could account for another 40 minutes. Between 7 and 8 ferry’s are expected and they have preference as they are on an even tighter sailing schedule than we are.  So if I miss my time slot, then I will have to wait until 8 am. They call that port congestion with a nice word.

 I am not unduly worried as I can always delay our sailing time out of Mahon as I have some time up my sleeve for making it to La Spezia three days from now.

So we will see what happens. As soon as we came out of the port, (and successfully evaded a Spanish warship that was just coming in) the white caps started to roll in. When we turned to the North West an hour later, we had the wind full on the bow. As expected. not good for my average speed, even when going warp speed.