It remained overcast for the whole day and that gave a very pleasant temperature for going out. Most crew, if not on Import Manning, took the chance to go ashore in the evening, as we stayed the whole night. We can only arrive and leave with high tide and that was 0800 in the morning. Import manning is a system that we have onboard to ensure that there is always sufficient crew staying onboard to respond to an emergency. Normally this is 25% while docked and 33% while at anchor. For key functions it is 50%. In my case, the chief officer can only go ashore if I am not going and if there is an issue expected such as inclement weather, then we both had have stay onboard. For larger departments, such as the dining room is not necessary that all 80 dining staff stay onboard, 20 or 30 are normally enough to cover the emergency functions. Then the supervisor makes a schedule and that is entered in the security computer. If a crew member wants to go ashore but he/she is on import manning, the ID card when presented at the gangway for scanning out is blocked and the security teams sends the crewmember back into the ship. Thus most crew arranges with their supervisor in which ports they want to go off and the schedule is made up accordingly. With an overnight stay it works out most of the time that everybody gets a chance to go ashore, either in the afternoon, early evening or late evening.

bordeaux bridge The bridge that blocks us from going further up river.

With the docking location of the ship, being in the centre of the city, it was not so difficult for everybody to find something of interest. Just down the river is a sort of Boulevard, with all sorts of café’s and restaurants within a 5 minute walk. To my amazement and a bit of disappointment, most Caucasian crew ended up in the Irish Pub. Here you are in the middle of the Bordeaux wine region and you go for a pint of Guinness. Nothing against Guinness, I drink it myself when on leave but somehow it did not seem right. Anyway according to the security staff on the gangway all had a good time as some needed comforting after Holland did not win the World cup. A real bummer, as it also deprived me of “Dressing overall” e.g. decking out the ship with all the Dutch flags possible and then some. “Dressing overall” or “Vlaggen van top” is a codified procedure normally limited for Royal birthdays but as the Royal family is of the house of Orange and that is also the national sports color, a little leeway is allowable I suppose. But it was not to be. No flags and also no free “orange champagne” for the guests (Champagne with Guava juice)

At 8 am it was high tide, and spring tide at that, so even in Bordeaux we had a tidal range of over 18 feet and as all that water had to go down the river again, we made good speed and were flushed down river with 17 to 18 knots of speed. As I had expected, the sun came out in the morning and shone from behind us over the vine yards and other estates along the river banks, so the guests had a real good scenic cruising experience. By 1 pm we left the Garonne estuary and disembarked the pilot. There was a heavy ground swell running with the ocean swell going against the ebb tide and even with slow speed, the Prinsendam slammed on occasion. So I stayed on slow speed until we were in deeper water, as shallow depths is what pushes the waves up. However it remained a bumpy ride for the remainder of the day, as there is quite a nasty weather front coming over the North Atlantic and that pushed some swell ahead of it. If that is coming in our direction then we are going to have some fun tomorrow. However I expect that will turn more to the North East and then we only have some swell to deal with. So for the moment it looks like that the weather will be reasonably good tonight and tomorrow, at least by local standards.

Most of the ships movement will come from the long North Atlantic swell coming in and going against the current that runs here from North to South and then to the West, following the Spanish coast. Wind & swell against current always give a sort of washing machine effect and that makes a ship jittery. It does not really pitch or roll, it just moves about.

Tomorrow we are in La Coruna or A Coruna, both names are used for the city, and it’s harbour is fairly well sheltered from the elements. Unless the swell is from the due north it is normally quiet in the port.