04 April 2018; San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Today the good weather held and it was a nice and sunny arrival. And it remained sunny until around 5 pm. when dark clouds started to gather above the Tropical Rain Forest on the south side of the Harbor. It was again a quiet day in port with only the Carnival Glory and Silversea Muse to keep us company. The Glory was docked at the east side of Pier 4 and we were at the west side. 14 days ago we had the same situation but then for reasons unknown we were split up and docked at two different docks.

The ms Eurodam docked at Pier 4 together with the Carnival Glory, as seen from the ships tender. The white spot on the hull in the middle of the ship is the tender platform used for the assessments.

My last day here on the Eurodam was taken up with Tender assessments. This is a yearly test for all the deck ratings (Bo ‘sun, Asst. Bo ‘sun, Quartermasters, Able Bodied Sailors, etc.) who hold a tender driver certificate. In the archives of this blog you find some stories from me about giving these training’s if the numbers on board were getting low. Since this year we do not have to do that anymore as the company has now added two real ships tenders to the training center in Manilla where a week long course is given.

So now on the ships we are limiting ourselves to the yearly assessment of the skills. You might say, is this needed, and the answer is yes. Not every ship calls at anchor ports on a regular basis and thus a sailor might not drive a tender for his whole period on board. Coming summer the Eurodam will dock everywhere in Alaska and will only need the ships tenders when it returns to Half Moon Cay and only then when the shore tender capacity is not sufficient. Thus we do an assessment to see if all the basic skills are still there and if they can still dig up all the other knowledge from past learning when the question comes up. …………………………….What do you do when…………….

We like to use ports such as San Juan and Charlotte Amalie for these activities as there is no passing traffic that pulls large wakes. We see that in some other ports where local traffic seems to be totally oblivious of how dangerous it is to have a tender riding up and down along the dock while Grand Mother is trying to embark. Not to mention Mr. Jones who is not willing to hand over the sombrero and camera he is holding in his hand while entering the lurching tender.

For this assessment we rig up the tender platform and the tender driver has to dock portside alongside, starboard side alongside, dock with one engine, dock with one engine on fire etc. At the same time the tender driver should not forget to play the right arrival or departure announcement and also should keep an eye on the Tender helper who has to take care of the guests in the tender while the driver sails the tender. Then they have to be proficient in using Checklists; for preparing the tender, for collisions, for grounding, for a Person over Board and for sinking. If such an emergency occurs they should be able to take all the appropriate actions at once and then verify it with these checklists to see if nothing has been forgotten.

This afternoon we had the extra challenge of a strong wind gusting around the bow of the Eurodam which meant that the tender drivers had to remember: “Use the wind as your friend and not as your enemy) With other words, if you can use the wind to help you dock, do so, and if you can’t then overshoot a little bit and then let the wind help you drift back to the dock. That is quite a challenge for sailors who are often better with their hands than their minds. But as every time happens, the moment you put them in front of a challenge, all the wise training lessons from the past drifts up again to the “operations center” and they know what to do. Today everybody was capable enough to get my seal of approval and they are all good again for a year.

This evening the Eurodam will sail at 8 pm. and then head for St.Maarten where we will arrive around 08.00 hrs. There will be quite a few ships in port so it will be busy in downtown. I will be leaving the ms Eurodam here and fly to Tampa, to pick up the ms Rotterdam on Sunday. So for the coming days there will be no blog as I feel somewhat limited in telling stories about planes and hotel rooms. Although I am scheduled to visit a Chinese Biergarten in Tampa and I have no idea what that is supposed to be.  Sauerkraut with Chopsticks??? That might be a good story for the blog.

A last look at the Eurodam from the Radar mast, while in port today. In the front are the private Cabana’s and above the magrodome of the pool, and the Tamarind Restaurant, which makes the Signature Class (Eurodam / Nieuw Amsterdam) different from the Vista Class. (Zuiderdam etc.)