12 April 2015; At Sea.

During the night the strong winds slowly abated and by day time the Ionian Sea had reduced itself from being a Tempestuous to just a wobbly sea. Wind force 7 – 8 down to 5 on the Beaufort scale. It still feels breezy around the ship as it also making some wind by itself.

The route is taking us on a South Easterly course towards Ashdod our next port of call.  That means that around 5 pm we will be between Cyprus and Egypt, although closer to Egypt than to Crete. Then we will aim for a 0600 hrs. arrival at the pilot station for a 0700 docking. Our official arrival time is 0800 hrs. but the Captain has decided to arrive earlier to help out with the immigration procedures as the Israeli Authorities want to see everybody on board in person. Both Guests and Crew.

Due to the local situation the pre arrival procedures are very extensive and the administration department has been very busy the last few days to get all the paper work faxed and pre-approved. A process which started after Barcelona and then kept going on with guests coming and going in the ports since then and the same for crew of course. Then there are always questions about what is being submitted and how it is submitted, European date writing against American, and it all kept the paper work people of the Pursers department happily occupied, although happily  might not be the right word.  Luckily once the initial immigration hurdle has been passed, the other port visits are normally a little bit easier. Thus Haifa, for the day after tomorrow, should have less checks and easier going on and off procedures.

For Ashdod and Haifa we are really there for the various tours to the Biblical places. Shopping is not very high on the Agenda to put it gently. Apart from nearly all the guests going on tour (last year we only had 4 guests left on board during the Ashdod call) also as many crew as possible will get the chance to go to Jerusalem. We are running a Christian tour to the holy city and a Muslim tour. The funny thing is that there is not much of a difference between the two tours. Only when it comes to the Temple Mountain the Christian tour goes to the Wailing Wall side and the Muslim tour goes to the Mosque side.  So tomorrow the Christian buses will be full of Philippino’s and the Muslim buses will be full of Indonesians. But knowing them, they will all end up in the same restaurant for lunch, as both groups like the same  food and through the years we have found a restaurant which delivers to all tastes and religions..

As we now have the experience that in Ashdod not many guests remain on board, the Hotel Director is also quite comfortable with letting a greater number of cooks go out for the day. It is always hard for the kitchen department to get away for a whole day as the service must go on. But cooking for only a few can be done by a skeleton crew and if needed I can always help out. There is nobody more proficient on board when it comes to the professional operation of a microwave. I can even cook eggs in it, sunny side up. (As long as they have this special Tupperware gadget on board…………..)

So the whole ship is looking forward to Israel for the coming two days. Lots of history, lots of emotion and hopefully very little immigration fuss. Weather forecast for tomorrow is a bit of a guess. Looking positively at the weather forecast will mean it is going to be sunny with temperatures around the 70’s. (20oC)  if you see it negatively there might be early morning fog and a chilly day of 58o F or 14oC.

We will see, we are supposed to be in port together with the Thomson Spirit which is the old Nieuw Amsterdam of Holland America Line and my first ship as captain back in 1999. And that is something for me to look forward to.