04 May 2013; At Sea & Victoria, Canada.

The wind followed the weather forecast this time and by 2 am. The wind and seas started to abate.  Abate to such an extent that by 10 am. it was almost windstill. The California current fell away as well, as it curves from the Gulf of Alaska to the South East and does not touch the corner we are heading for now. Strait San Juan de Fuca.  That did not mean that I was home and dry, not at all. There would be a strong ebb current running out of the Strait when we would get there, made even worse by a strong wind from the East, in the same direction. So after playing with my calculator for a while, I estimated that we would be 30 to 45 minutes late. 30 minutes due to the bad weather and the adverse current in Strait Juan de Fuca and maybe 15 minutes on top for docking.  Not bad taking into consideration the nasty 24 hours we just went through. Luckily as both the wind and the swell were on the bow, the guests on board did not realize that we were in a bad storm but the peak wind sustained was 43 knots in the afternoon and that is a force 9 on the beaufort scale. If we had had that on the side, with the swell, then a lot of people would have sought comfort with their pillow or worse.

But the sun shone and the wind was not so strong, so we could let the twitchers go on the bow again where most of them setup up shop for the last day. On the bridge we see birds and whales, they see details. I received a thank you note from one of the birders, thanking us for the good service and advising me that birding on cruise ships is really starting to take off.  –Maybe when we build another new ship, we should have a birding hut somewhere above the bridge– She mentioned in her letter that they had seen: Parakeet Auklets, Murphy’s Petrels and Hawaiian and Motted Petrels. The last two seem to be rather special to see as they are not normally seen on the coast here. So everybody was happy.

Upon approaching Victoria we all got confused as there was a ship sitting at the berth. The Celebrity Century. I knew that she was going to be in today but she should have left at 1700 hrs. Hence the port authorities could schedule two ships at the same berth. But for some reason she had been delayed and thus, if I had been earlier I still would not have been able to dock. Talk about a coincidence. So while I put the brakes on to stop at Victoria Pilot station, she was just coming off the berth and moving out. After that it was a matter of bending around the dock and stopping on time.

Next to us was the Zaandam, who had a scheduled arrival time of 12.00. hrs. She came from Hawaii and she will be with us for most of our coming cruise, as we are both doing 7 day cruises first, until we can start on the Seward service. The interior is not fully open yet; I think they are still shoveling snow in some places and so we have been planned for the Vancouver-Juneau-Skagway-Glacier Bay –Ketchikan route. We are doing Glacier Bay and the Zaandam is doing Tracy arm.

The Oosterdam dropping off the BC pilot and then moving on the Port Angeles to embark the Pudget Sound Pilot.

I read in the comments about how nice it would be if we would have Oosterdam, Zaandam and Statendam together. Well I am always trying to please; so see here, the three ships together. A photo shot from the Statendam, through the string lights of the Zaandam seeing the Oosterdam sailing by on the way to Seattle. This was 11 pm in the evening and the Oosterdam was on the way for a 05.30 docking in Seattle.

We pulled out at 11.45 pm, followed by the Zaandam. During the night she will overtake us and then the line up into Vancouver will be; the  Celebrity Century first, going to Canada Place East, the Zaandam to Canada Place West, followed by us going to Canada place North. The sun will shine and the noon temperature should reach 80oF / 27oC. Not a bad start for the season.