12 Feb. 2015; Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala.

Due to the strange curvature of the countries in Middle America, Roatan is on the same level as Santo Tomas and thus it meant that the Ryndam sailed on an almost straight course to the West into the Bay that gives access to the harbor.

Is not far, it is just a long way in, as the ship has to almost double back on itself when going into the very shallow bay to the dock. The port we are docking in is the container port of Santo Tomas and it is fairly new.  Until the late 90’s the only dock there was, was a two ship pier located just outside Port Barrios. It could handle two ships of a maximum length of about 230 meters and it was closed off by a single gate from the town.

You could walk straight from the ship into the nearest Pub which was literally located under the bow. It gave everything a certain “color – de – locale” which a lot of travelers really enjoy. However these Pubs and restaurants also had a curtain leaning to the deeper parts of the establishments and there were very friendly ladies, who comforted very lonely visitors. A lot of them advertised their friendliness on the street and that was not exactly what cruise ship guests were looking for or expecting.

Puerto Barrios with a Chiquita Banana boat alongside.

So the decision was made to build a new port for containers and general cargo port at Santo Tomas. It would double up as a cruise ship terminal was well, and Holland America has been calling their ever since. The Barrios pier is now mainly used by Banana boats and they load containers full of Bananas and most of them go on a weekly service to Tampa.

For the new port a channel was dredged, using an existing River bed as guidance, and this channel leads the ships from the outer bay, to the inner bay Bahia de Amatique,  which is also the turning basin when arriving or when sailing out.  The Ryndam was early in arriving as the Tours for the Maya ruins leave very early. These are great excursions but there is quite a bit of driving involved and for the 9 hour long one, also nearly an hour of flying, so the ship has to be early to get it all in. For the less adventurous there is the flea market in the cruise terminal and for the very adventurous, Puerto Barrios is only a 10 minute Cab ride away.

The Ryndam at the cruise terminal in Santo Tomas. (Photo courtesy; somewhere from the Internet)

At the dock there was the Ryndam and three small size container ships, each with their own loading gear and that earmarked them as Feeder Ships.  The very large containerships do not have their own cargo gear as the container ports have the large cranes that can deal with containers very efficiently.  A lot of smaller ports do not have these very expensive cranes and they are serviced by cargo ships which have their own crane. Santo Tomas has one container crane, which also can be used for other cargo work and it can ride over the dock to the ship concerned.

The Staff Captain saw it as a good reason to dispatch the cadets so they could have a look on a cargo ship. Most important impression; the ship had open mooring decks so you could get wet during standby’s. Here on the cruise ships we have the luxury of having all our mooring decks covered over as there is accommodation above (Stern) or the Observation deck (Bow) this was not always the case. Only with the arrival of the Statendam in 1992, did we get a covered mooring station forward. Until then the Officer and Sailors forward where also exposed to the elements when on standby.

For the officers, me among them, standing forward was not always pleasant as the Staff Captain on the bridge could see exactly what was going on with the anchor or the ropes and was of course not restrained at all in giving his opinion about it.  No you were better off at the stern, which was covered over and so far away from the bridge that neither Captain nor staff Captain could see what was going on, so they had to take for granted whatever was done there.

Just after 5 pm  we pulled out and set sail for Costa Maya in Mexico. This is a resort, a T shaped pier which sticks out of the shore straight into the Caribbean. T-shaped means it can handle 3 ships, and three ships will be there tomorrow. The Ryndam, the Norwegian Dawn and the Thomson Dream, which is our old Westerdam (II). It will be nice to see her again as I sailed on her for about 4 years in total.

The weather looks good, a bit windy but partly cloudy so a nice resort day to enjoy, without the sun completely burning everything away.