14 June 2009, Bordeaux, France.

The pilot boat was indeed out of operation and so the pilot did come by helicopter. On cargo ships it means that there will be one crewmember on standby, maybe with a single fire extinguisher, waiting on a clear cargo hatch for the pilot to be lowered down. On a cruise ship it is a different situation all together. A helicopter can fall out of the air and on deck and then burst into flames. A very, very unlikely occurrence, but it can happen and thus the Prinsendam went to battle stations. Four fire squads on standby, a security guard for crowd control and crew with a lifeboat ready, to retrieve victims etc. As it was still dark and early, it being 05.30, the guests were still in bed and that reduced the need for extra crewmembers for traffic control to keep the guests away. (And especially their camera’s with automatic flashes)

Thus the pilot landed and was totally surprised about the size of his welcoming committee, being mostly used to cargo ships. He looked a bit perturbed when he saw that most of the officers and crew present were not exactly happy with the fact that they had been called out of bed so early, just because his pilot boat had broken down. The helicopter pilot however was very happy about the arrangements; “C’est un Bateau Manifique et un bon equipage” came over the VHF when he flew away. Five minutes later the pilot was on the bridge and we were on the way up river. With the pilot on board at 6 am, we were catching the incoming tide which we need to be able to sail up river. The water level of the river itself is not high enough for ships like the Prinsendam which draws 7 meters. Thus with the flood running in at the same time as we were proceeding up river, we got 2 meters extra water under the keel and that flow carried us all the way to Bordeaux. The dock is 70 miles removed from the sea buoy and thus it is a fair distance to travel.

We cannot go up the river at full speed, due to the fact that every time we pass ships docked alongside the river, we have to slow down to avoid creating suction which could result in the mooring ropes breaking. With every passing I tried to convince the pilot that the Prinsendam does not create a lot of waves and suction, due to the way the hull has been constructed, while the pilot tried to convince me that we had to slow, way way down, because the Prinsendam was such a big ship for the river. Every time we found a happy speed medium. It was a beautiful morning with the sun shining over the land, which mainly consisted of farmland and vine yards. By 11 am we approached the dock by going under a cable span (clearing by 9 feet) and a bridge (clearing by 30 feet) all carefully calculated by the pilot to ensure that we fitted under it.

As far as it goes up river. From here only barges.
The last mile is going backwards up river, as the river is too narrow to swing off the dock. Thus you swing in a turning basin a bit before you reach the city itself. We docked right on time, just off the centre of Bordeaux.

We had a bit of rain in the afternoon but the picture looks more gloomier that it really w

As it was a Sunday, the locals were out in force, with a little market rigged up and a band playing that got a lot of people dancing in the street. Bordeaux is a city where you could stay much longer in than with our call of one day allowed. But as the arrival and departures are dictated by the tides we had to leave that same evening again.
Brochure time was 23.30 but as the tide did not run according to a brochure that was made up two years before, we had to leave at 22.00 hrs. to make the most of the high tide while going down the river. Luckily our guests were all back on board by 21.00 hrs so there was no inconvenience. Shipboard cooking once again prevailed over shore side restaurants, even if those were French.

Thus by 22.15 we were on our way again with a very scenic departure as the whole of Bordeaux was lit up against the horizon. We will not be at the sea buoy before 3 am. tomorrow morning, so the fire teams will like that even less for a wake up time than the one they had this morning at 5 am. But safety comes first and thus we have to do it. Luckily my hours are a lot worse than theirs, so they have very little to carp about as the captain really draws the short straw with these sort of early morning, late night trips for standby and bridge hours. I think that I will sleep in tomorrow after the pilot has been disembarked.