08 April 2011; Civitavecchia, Italy.

The sea was completely smooth and with no wind at all we approached the pilot station. We had been asked to be there early as the pilot wanted the traffic to be spaced out. That made it possible to have only one pilot on duty, for reasons explained yesterday. I always try to be early anyway to give shore excursion sufficient time to set up their buses and so it was not difficult to comply with the request. Still there was a ferry coming in on a different time then expected and we had to wait 15 minutes before it was our turn. Most of the berths were occupied and that indicates that things must be going fairly well with the economy here. The harbour master had requested for docking portside alongside as it would make it easier for the supplies trucks to park on the dock. And so we did. 30 minutes after the pilot was onboard, we had swung around and docked at the outer breakwater pier, which is being reconstructed into a major cruise ship terminal.

The breakwater pier had always served the cruise ships and the cargo ships with odd cargos but with the ever increasing demand of the cruise business, this pier is now almost exclusively occupied with cruise ships. With the size of cruise ships expanding it has also become too small.  So slowly but steadily the pier has been extended, the approach route dredged out and the dock facilities improved. As part of the latter, the pier is now being widened considerably. The intention is to build a complete cruise terminal, as is already common in regular turn around ports of Savona, Genoa and Naples.  It will be a two story building with luggage facilities on the ground floor and embarkation and disembarkation on the first floor. The terminal will be connected to the ships by long walk ways and each berth will have a sky bridge to connect to the ship. Same as is done with airplanes.  Cruise Company’s already use Civitavecchia as a turn around port but until now there was only a basic facility built in 2001. That worked reasonably well for one ship but it would leave a second ship, doing a turn around as well with just a bare parking area. It does rain in Rome and it is also hot in Rome, hence a dedicated terminal is a basic necessity to keep the cruise company’s happy.

The call at Civitavecchia is all about Rome of course. It is the entry port for the whole area and thus the reason for the cruise ship flocking towards it. That means that most of our tours are going to Rome. However not all of them, we also have a few tours that go to the surrounding area. We have a saying in the Dutch language that “All roads lead to Rome”. No doubt that was the case in the days of the Roman Empire and a few of these original roads are still left as is, and not covered over or widened. Here a photo taken of the most famous one, the Via Appia. (Taken by roving reporter Lesley Schoonderbeek during a touring to the Roman countryside and the catacombs)

The ship remained happily docked at its pier, while basking in a beautiful sunny day with just enough chill in the air that made sightseeing perfect. For the ships crew this is normally a very busy day. The longer you are in port, the more you can do. The engine room can work for prolonged periods on their engines, the Hotel department can get their supplies onboard and the deck department worked on the lifeboats. We are currently in the progress with the compulsory change of the lifeboat falls. Falls are the wires that lower and hoist the boats. They have to be changed on a 36 month cycle and we have just started that process. It is normally a six hour procedure and therefore we selected this port call to start with the first one. During the day it became apparent that the adjusting of the falls (so that the two davit arms come up in a synchronized fashion) took longer then expected and as a result we sailed an hour late.

Tomorrow we will be in Lipari and it is a tight schedule to get there on time. However a few days ago I already extended our stay by an hour and this hour will now come in handy. Lipari is a cute little town nestled in a curve of a volcanic ridge (dormant) and is fairly small, so an afternoon call is long enough to see it all.