Today was our last day in Capetown and it was really only half a day. Departure was set for 1700 hrs. but in reality everybody had to be back around lunch time as the whole ship had to go through immigration. So this was my 3rd appearance in 3 days. The South African Authorities require a face to face inspection before the ship is cleared for departure; all have to personally attend. That process started at 11.30am with the crew and as there are 600 of them, a steady flow went ashore and came back on board during the next hour. Luckily Immigration had at least 10 Inspectors assigned and thus it went very fast. The completion for the guests took much longer as some were not onboard yet, coming back from tours or shopping, and others had to be convinced that they really had to go ashore to literally show their face. But it went all according to schedule and by 1600 hrs. the ship was ready to sail but we had to do our Guest Boat Drill yet.
As new guests had embarked in Capetown and as it had been awhile for the others since the cruise started this was a full boat drill for everybody. As this is one of the most important evolutions that a deck officer is assigned to, we had our training class on deck to follow it all. Hardly any of them had been involved with a cruise ship before and thus it was an exciting and somewhat startling experience. Sheparding a full ship of guests to their allocated lifeboat station takes some doing and understanding human behavior is a basic must so for the uninitiated it is a rather overwhelming experience.
Before their venture out onto the deck, the day had been spent on understanding the company’s Safety Management System. Each company has such a system as it is governed under the international requirement of the ISM code. This whole system is made up from thousands of pages of rules and regulations and altogether it dictates how the company should be run. At the start of one’s career with Holland America it is extremely important to understand this system as most answers of how to do what and when can be found here.
I have included today the chart of the cruise that the ms Rotterdam is currently making. Please note that several of the ports have been cancelled as a precaution due to the Ebola situation in West African ports. Tema, Banjul and Dakar will not be called at. That means that the Rotterdam will spend more days at sea. With a travel advice against basically the whole west coast of Africa, it is not possible to substitute other ports instead and thus the will ship spend more days at sea. (The little round half/suns indicate overnight stays)
With all of that known to the guests, we departed at 1700 hrs. from Capetown. It was beautiful sunny weather but very windy. Table Mountain might be nice and impressive for the city, for the ships it can cause a headache. The wind can really funnel around and over the top causing very strong winds in the inner harbor area while further out it is much quieter. Thus the captain had ordered two tugboats as a precaution while sailing out through the narrow opening from the inner basin to the outer basin.
Again something of importance to our new officers so we were all out in force. Maybe it was something of an historical moment as I do not think that ever before in Holland America History a ship has left port with three captains in attendance. Captain Hans Mateboer in command on the Bridge, Captain Marco Carsjens with a group of trainee’s on the forward mooring deck and me with the other half of the trainee’s on the aft mooring deck.
As most of the trainees have a cargo ship background, the procedures that we followed were scrutinized with great interest as onboard a cruise ship most things are done differently than on a cargo ship. Biggest difference is the fact that we have people available for everything, many more people than on a cargo ship and as a result it is a much more formal affair.
Tomorrow we will be a sea, sailing North West along the coast and then the day after tomorrow we will be in Luderitz. One of the few ports in the world I have not been to, so I am really interested.
November 17, 2014 at 8:14 pm
I think those trainees are very lucky to have such experienced HAL captains introducing them to cruise ships. As always, I am enjoying your blogs, Captain Albert.