06 July 2009, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England.

With the slow speed that we had to make to get here, it will come as no surprise that we were on time at the pilot station, exactly on time. We had aimed for 0600 pilot and at 0600 the pilot stepped onto the pilot ladder. Newcastle is a very straight forward port; all the docks and wharves are located around and on the river itself. No branching off, or difficult canals, just sail in and you will pass by where you need to go to. It is not really Newcastle at all where we docked. The area with this name is located more to the West but we cannot get there as the river is too shallow and there are fixed bridges over it. So we dock more to the East, where a number of once small hamlets have expanded and are now glued together in what they call Newcastle Metro. Two of these are called North Shields and South Shields. They are separated by the river and we docked at the North Shields side.

With such a low speed to make yesterday, I could afford to be early and thus I had decided to swing on arrival and so saving time on departure when I needed a higher speed to get to the next port on time. The pilot had a few objections as it made more sense to him to swing on departure when the current was different. However after I made a comparison with the currents on the Amazon and in Alaska; and docking there, he did understand that the current in the river Tyne was not that much of an issue. So we happily sailed into the port. Most of the old port facilities are gone now only some derelict dry docks are still there, reminders of a once great shipbuilding past. I suppose they have been left in the hope that some developers might make something nice out of them. Numerous apartment buildings have taken over where once bustling commerce took place and many ships were built.

Although the river is quite wide we had to sail by the dock to go further upstream to a turning basin where we had enough room for our length to swing around. That did not take very long and then we slowly approached the dock. Right behind us was the ferry dock from where there are regular departures to IJmuiden (for Amsterdam) and to Stavanger in Norway. Just abeam of the Marina a new dock had been constructed especially for cruise ship calls. Who ever had been designing it gets my compliments as he or she did know what was needed. Plenty of bollards at regular distances, nice strong fenders, and a good long shore gangway to take care of the tidal differences. Even the Chief Engineer was happy as there was a connection for potable water loading.

The cruise dock in New Castle

The only thing that did not work out was the weather; it kept raining for most of the day. Although it did not make our guests very happy, this was real English weather that forms part of the British scenery. However when you are on a cruise, you want dry weather to explore. Well we did not get it today. As usual the only person happy with the rain was the chief officer, as it rained the salt away from the superstructure of the Prinsendam. Newcastle has some traffic issues due to the fact that it has expanded vigorously in the past without the road network being able to keep up. Since it has absorbed all these towns around it into Newcastle Metro, it is even worse. Thus we lost a bus in traffic and had to wait for half hour until the bus got out of traffic. Because the bus was late, we then had to wait for departing ships and as a result we pulled away 40 minutes later than I had planned. We will still be in Leith on time but I will have to sail faster than I had hoped for.

Dark clouds gathering over the Marina opposite the dock

Tomorrow will be an early day, as we have to make the end of the flood tide to get into the lock at Leith harbour. The maneuvering area inside the lock is very tight, so it will take us over three hours from the sea buoy to all fast alongside. With the last hour spent solely on inching the ship from the lock chamber to the dock. At least there is no wind expected and that already makes my day.

Note: The wizards from the office are reporting that they have solved the problem with the Email connection. Please keep me posted if it works from now on