10 May 2009, Lisbon, Portugal.

As mentioned yesterday we arrived with glorious sunshine but an hour later dark clouds started to gather on the horizon. That had not been planned at all in the forecast. However the weather does not always follow the predictions. The weather front that created the overcast weather before we arrived in Lisbon, stalled and tilted a little bit instead of moving north and deposited a rather large amount of rain over Lisbon in the course of the afternoon of the first day. Then it remained drizzly during our over overnight stay. Only today the weather started to improve with sunny periods.

Apart from the pilots being involved in getting the ship into port there is also the VTS or the vessel traffic systems. These are watched over by traffic control centres in the Lisbon area. This starts already quite far out in the open sea. Near Cabo San Vicente (South West point of Portugal and Europe) and in front of the Lisbon coast VTS systems have been put in place to regulate the traffic. When you look in the chart you see imaginary highways keeping Northbound and Southbound traffic apart. It reduces the chance of collisions between ships and it also reduces the change of environmental disasters as it keeps the tankers away from the coast.

When approaching Lisbon with its estuary of the Rio Tejo; we have to call in at certain points to let the control station (called ROC control here) know, who we are, what we are doing and where we are going. When we sail up the river we switch over the VHF to Lisbon Port Control which controls the whole river area and the port itself. The idea is that port control comes back with information that will help plan a safer passage up and down the river. In the weekend the port is not so busy and so it is relatively quiet with the information offered. During the week days port control normally has a lot to advise and also helps with calling other ships if there is an issue arising. Also they are normally aware when something is going to happen in the port, especially with navy exercises.

Port days are for me, good days to do ship inspections. Most guests are ashore and that means unhindered access to all public rooms and other area’s. So today we had a public room inspection that focuses on cleanliness, good repair and evaluating if the crews working schedules are being kept. Most things on the ship are being arranged with routine work cycles, so that we can ensure that the ship is maintained to the same high standard all the time. However new crew has to learn those cycles and so have their new supervisors and that means that the cycles have to be checked otherwise it might all fall apart. Apart from a necessity for product quality, it is also a requirement under the maritime law that the captain personally inspects his ship on a regular basis. In the old days it was called a ship inspection, now it is called a ships audit and with modern times we have plenty of those.

In the course of the day the dark skies moved away and we had outbreaks of sunshine at times and thus we left the dock almost in the same way as we had arrived. Tonight we will sail South along the coast of Portugal but away from it until we reach the VTS system that rounds Cabo San Vicente. This will be in the early morning hours and then we sail back to the coast for a Portimao pilot time of 06.30. Lisbon departure was a bit of a windy affair but the wind is supposed to die off during the night as the frontal system is starting to diffuse.