13 April 2015; Ashdod, Israel.

During the night we approached Israel and this kept the dog shift on the bridge fully occupied. Israel has a sort of layered security system which means you have to call in every step of the way and you might be called in between your compulsory calls as well. 100 miles (never works very well as it is too far for the VHF to reach) 25 miles, 12 miles and then again near the pilot station.   Then you see fast moving blips on the Radar screen which are torpedo boats or similar moving around without having any navigation or other lights visible. Occasionally you see even a submarine popping up although the dog shift did not see any this time.

So plenty of security around from the shore side and of course the ship did not stay behind. In principle, the flag state or the visiting state decides the level of security. This is called the MARSEC level. There are three levels. I = normal; where we only follow the regular requirements.  II = heightened. Now there are extra patrols on the ship, spot checks and restrictions on visitors. III = Maximize all security measures possible. This means no visitors, no loading of any kind, under water inspections etc. etc. basically now we do everything that can be done with whatever we have available on board. If a home port would ever go to level III than we could not call there to embark/disembark guests so raising a security level can have grave implications. Tunisia went to level III after the recent attacks on the museum and thus no cruise ship is calling there at the moment. Only when the MARSEC level is lowered again might the cruise companies be tempted to return. I did not see our Security Officer walking around with a helmet on this morning so I assume that HAL did not dictate that much of an increase. Israel is already doing more than enough.

Jaffa Old Town

The tour to Jaffa was partly by Bus and then on foot through the little old town. Jaffa turned out to be a delightful old town with little shops and artist’s studio’s…………… and a flying Orange Tree. In Europe Jaffa is very well known as a Brand under which oranges are sold.  Somehow as the oranges were exported from here, the name got stuck to it. Basically Jaffa’s prosperity is largely due to the orange. Otherwise it still might have been a sleepy fishing village. To commemorate this they have this “hovering in the air” Orange Tree. A pot / container hanging in the air. Suspended from three strong wires and in it is a real life Orange Tree which bears fruit as well. The significance of having the Orange Tree hanging in the air escapes me a little bit but it is certainly original.

To commemorate it they have this “hovering in the air” Orange Tree. A pot / container hanging in the air. Suspended from three strong wires and in it is a real life Orange Tree which bears fruit as well. The significance of having the Orange Tree hanging in the air escapes me a little bit but it is certainly original.

Flying Orange ???? Why Not

I stayed on board but had the chance to look at the Thomson Spirit, ex Nieuw Amsterdam, the first ship I was captain on in 1999. Then I sailed her out as Staff Captain after the Olympic Games in Sydney and stayed with her when she was sold to the American United States Lines as the Patriot.

Unfortunately that project did not work out and 9 months later I was back on board to prepare her for hand over to the Greeks from whom Thomson Cruises is now chartering the ship. She looked very good from the outside and I saw they had even added balcony’s to the Suites on deck 10 behind the Crows nest. Visiting was not really possible as port security was a real challenge to deal with.

The Prinsendam is staying until 23.00 hrs. Haifa is just around the corner at no distance away and as you never know if and how long the tours to Jerusalem and Bethlehem might be delayed in returning it is better to build in some extra time, just for the case of.

So tomorrow we are in Haifa and the weather is predicted to be sunny and warm with temperatures around 70F or 21 oC. This time I tend to agree with that prediction as the wind has been dying down during the course of the day and a frontal system with a band of rain is supposed to pass by this evening.  The weather today was more in less with the pessimistic option I offered yesterday. It remained very breezy during the day and that kept the temperatures down.