17 June 2018; At Sea.

Today we are en route from Amsterdam to Alesund in Norway where we are scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning just before 08.00 hrs. Apart from a slight swell running we are having a real sunny day so all is well in the world. Today we followed an almost straight course north as Amsterdam is sort of on one line with the west point of Norway. Once we are there which will be early evening then we following the coast until we come to the entrance of the Fjord where Alesund is hiding. Although the town is well sheltered it is not too far inland and from pilot station to the dock is not more than an hour.

The North Sea, East of Scotland. Every mark in the chart is some sort of obstruction. We are following the red dotted path which clears all that might be in the way.

By going north in this area we have an excellent view of the source of our petrol and gasoline as we sail past vast areas of oil rigs and processing units. Some small, some large, some occupied, some automatic. Most are well away from the regular shipping lanes but some are quite close and to avoid having ships bumping into them, they have patrol or guard ships on station which come out to and/or call straying merchant navy ships to advise them to go back to the correct dotted line in the chart.  Occasionally we hear conversations on the VHF, most of them polite with a thank you from the straying party, but sometimes there are heated discussions as well. Those are quite often with fishermen, who are already not happy about all these oil rigs in “their” territory and who are convinced that the fish is swimming or hiding as close to the rigs as they can do. I would if I was a fish….. but I do not know if that works in reality. How clever is a fish. The Guard ships have no official “policing power” but as they are instrumental in preventing ecological disasters, they have the Coast Guard of various countries very much on their side.

The windmill plan for the North sea and already in full progress. Pink has been approved. Yellow is on application and the black stars/ wind mill vanes are already there.

When looking around at sea, it looks as if there are not that many of them. But when having a look at the Radar screen one can see that the whole area is full of them and quite densely. And these are not the only things sticking out of the water. With the oil diminishing, windmill parks are coming up and already large numbers have been installed (or planted??, as they look like forests). Causing more upset for the fishermen who see even more open water disappearing and also creating challenges for other deep sea traffic. In dense traffic areas we have the VTS, Vessel Traffic Systems, which are a sort of highways at sea, but in more open sea area’s ships could always set their own course and take the closest route to their next destination. That is now also disappearing  and there are currently a lot of committee’s and pressure groups out there who try to influence the various governments about what is feasible and what layout should be chosen to make it possible for everybody to  keep  doing their job.

When I am on board for my work, and when hopping from ship to ship, I always grab the chance to document a ship from top to bottom and take photos of everything. While doing so, you meet all the crew on board, and the Prinsendam is blessed with a lot of dedicated HAL crew with many years of experience.  And so I bump into many crew members from years gone by and who sailed with me from their very first days. Yesterday when documenting the inside of the Suite rooms on board (each suite here has a name and the decoration / art relates to the name of the Suite. So the Columbus Suite has drawing pertaining to his explorations.) I met the cabin steward from Deck 11 starboard side who had been my Captain Steward back in 2007 on the Veendam. I had the camera in my hand so I only had to push the button to document his reaction. That reaction might have been partly due to the fact that he saw me but it also has to do with the fact that the crew is genuinely happy here and so was he. It is not on every ship that I hear singing in the Main Galley or in the Lido Buffet or in the crew staircases.

Happy Greetings from the crew of the ms Prinsendam.

We are still keeping a close eye on the weather. It will remain good, maybe rainy, for the next 24 hrs. Then the frontal system, that we are concerned about, will be clearing the Orkneys and approach the Norwegian Coast. In front of it it pushes rain and if it does not rain out against the mountains then we could have a rainy day in Alesund. The weather gurus are forecasting 40 to 50 % by lunch time. Which basically means it either rains or it does not rain……………….50% chance. What happens then is a question we really cannot answer yet. The previous frontal system fell apart here and just dissipated. The forecast model does not do this for this system and the swell it generates might make things a bit a bit un-easy if it does not dissipate. We will know tomorrow evening.