12 September 2014; Bar Harbor, Maine, USA.

It was sunny and that was good for the guests as it brings out the best of Bar Harbor. It was very windy which did not please the Captain as it meant that the ship was yawning like a drunken sailor behind its anchor. It also caused for a wobbly tender ride to the shore. The yawning of the ship (that is when the ship is swinging wildly behind its anchor) can be mostly controlled by using the stern thruster.  It will stop the stern from swinging and it is then possible to create a bit of a lee alongside the tender platform by keeping the wind just off the nose. But it creates a lot of strain on the anchor chain and with it comes the danger of a dragging anchor. As the ship had been allocated the south anchorage, which is the best anchorage for having the shortest tender distance, it has to drop anchor in close proximity of large numbers of lobsterpots.  If the anchor would drag then the chain might sweep through those lobsterpots, creating a lot of damage and that would result in a lot of upset locals. So for the earlier part of the morning the bridge was on high alert and watched each little movement of the ship with close attention. Later on in the morning the wind eased off and the ship settled a little bit better. Also good for the guests, as the waves are created by the wind only here in the harbor, so the moment the wind started to ease off the waves also reduced in height, making it easier to run the tender service.

While this was going on, all the guests on board had to go through US immigration by the CBP.  The USA is one of the few countries in the world that still insist of seeing everybody face to face when they come into the USA for the first time, even if there was only one foreign port in between two USA ports.  Most other countries are happy with either a passport check or scrutinizing the passenger list which is normally sent 3 or 4 days ahead of the ships arrival. The USA does both. Luckily the authorities in Bar Harbor are very much trying to make the process as painless as possible. That is not always the case as it varies from port to port in the USA as it is up to the local supervisor to decide on the process.  Here either the supervisor had a good night’s sleep or it was just a very professional person. With making it easy I mean that once the guests were through the passport check they could go ashore directly. There are some ports were the supervisor insists that everybody stays on board until the very last person has been seen. That is sometimes a very long and drawn out affair as guests who are not planning to go ashore sometimes just bluntly refuse to go. Then it takes time to get them there.

Today all the guests showed up as requested, the CBP inspectors did their work efficiently and quickly and by 09.30 the ship was fully cleared. 90 minutes to get 1230 guests through (plus me) is not bad going.

In port as well was the Seabourn Quest. Since 2011 Seabourn is a sort of subsidiary/ sister company of Holland America although the product is totally different. We share office space in Seattle, there is some integration in the operational side, but for the rest the two companies are still very much on their own. Seabourn started out with three small ships but since it is part of the HAL group, three larger ships have been added and the three small ones sold on to Windstar Cruises. A company that for a long time was also part of Holland America. The Seabourn Odyssey, the Seabourn Sojourn and the Seabourn Quest are three sister ships, roughly the size of our Prinsendam. They also have currently one ship under construction as well.

The Seabourn Quest. The newest of the 3 Seabourn ships.

The Quest was anchored on the North Anchorage which is a much wider anchorage but the tender distance is much longer plus the tenders have to sail through a gap between islands and are for most of the journey out of site of the Bridge. So both anchorages have pro’s and con’s and can give rise to long discussions among the captains which anchorage is preferable.  As the decision of where the ships will anchor is made by the local authorities, it makes not much difference who wins the argument and why.

Tomorrow is the last day of the cruise and the ship will use Boston as a change over port. The change over port is an important day for me as well as it gives me the chance to call my wife and do my laundry.  I normally use the Guest Laundry as during the cruise I do not dare to go there as you are not certain of your life inside. I have seen something close to World War III erupting several times in these laundry’s over the right to have the laundry basket or the audacity of somebody having thrown somebody else laundry out.

It supposed to be partly sunny and a partly rainy day tomorrow but it will be a noisy day as the Black Falcon – now called Cruise Port Boston, terminal is located right under the flight path of Boston International airport.