It is becoming boring I suppose but we had another beautiful sunny day. The arrival was quite windy, with a strong breeze setting us towards the dock. So we arrived “high” which means we kept a fair distance off the dock, while sailing in. Then I stopped the ship and let the wind blow the Veendam slowly towards the dock. The speed of the sideways movement I regulated with the thrusters and in that way we made an “egg-shell landing” as the pilot called it.

Because we are on a 10 day schedule we do not follow the 7 day cycle of other cruise ships and so miss most of the congestion that can mar some ports. Rhodes being a Monday call is just too far for the ships to make it in one day from the home ports and thus we had the whole port to ourselves and the dock closest to the old town.

I spent the morning doing ship inspections. Once a week there is a crew cabin inspection, a public room inspection, a Health inspection and then there is “captain’s walkabout”. The first three are compulsory under the law and form part of the captain’s obligation to keep the ship healthy, clean and in good order. The last one is simply me walking around looking at things. With three departments (Deck, engine and hotel) looking at their own issues, there are always things that are on the borderline of responsibilities and then can be overlooked or forgotten. That is where the captain steps in and decides what has to be done and who is going to do it.

At the moment I am on a locker crusade. Each department has storage lockers and these tend to get overstocked, wrongly used, or items get stored in there that should not be there at all. Also legislation has been tightened recently with not allowing certain lockers to be used at all anymore for anything else but one exclusively designated purpose.

All crew has a penchant to put things away “for the time being” in the most convenient storage place close to the job. What goes in there should not always be there and if we do not act, then this not correct location starts to be used as a matter of routine. Further on the crew tends to be very creative in their way of storing things and they do sometimes forget, that although we are a floating hotel, the Veendam is still a ship that can wobble in bad weather. So things should also be stored safely and shipshape.

The captain has an over riding master key and no door can withstand him, making it easy during my rounds to “poke my nose in”. As lockers tend to be “locked” and only the holder of the key goes in there upkeep and maintenance can also be overlooked. Currently the project is to evaluate the contents of each locker and get it sorted out and cleaned up. Then the carpenters are called for repairs if necessary and finally the sailors move in to paint the floors.

I use a little Dictaphone to log all the observations and later type them out and forward them to the Hotel manager, Chief Engineer, Chief Officer and Environmental Officer for follow up. Because I am not involved in the daily running of departmental details, I can have a fresh look at each situation and also decide who is going to do what if an issue is at the borderline of the responsibilities of the departments. A good manager can always find a lot of “borderlines” to delegate to another department and thus I come across quite a few issues that need to be addressed. Mostly minor issues but a lot of minor issues can give an un-organized impression. I like my ship to look good and organized and thus I have “captain’s walkabouts”.