18 April 2016; Piraeus, Greece.

Piraeus is on nearly each cruise schedule for East Mediterranean cruises and with good reason as Athens has more ruins per square meter than any other place in world, except maybe Rome. Plus the food is not bad either. So we like to go there. Getting there is another matter and generates less enthusiasm among the navigators as the routes leading to and from the port are normally very challenging at least when you take the direct routes which everybody else is doing as well.

The first challenge is going from Katakolon to Piraeus. Katakolon is located on the south end of the island of Peloponnesus, which is not really an island but can be considered to be one since they dug the Corinth Canal.  At the far south side of this “new” island is another island called Zakynthos. It looks like a sort of water drop hanging under the nose of the bigger island.  The gap between the two islands is wide enough for shipping and thus everybody tries to get through as it saves some 20 miles from going around. Still not a problem as long as the Westbound traffic hugs the Northside and the East bound traffic hugs the South side.

The route from Katakolon to Piraeus.

But here the problem starts: not everybody is hugging the way they should. There are some navigators out there who believe sailing in the middle is the safest and there are also navigators out there who believe everybody has to make room for them and set their courses diagonally through the passage as this is the shortest route. To complicate matters the passage has a nick at the top of Zakynthos Island and all the ships have to make a small course change there to stay on track. And again not everybody is doing that.  As a result we can often listen on the VHF to impressive recitals of all the bad words which the English and the native Greek language has to offer. Very educational. There are seldom accidents as everybody is always on high alert for this passage but sometimes things happen which makes you wonder where they got their education.  If something is about to happen the solution is always simple. Go a bit more to starboard, slow down or stop and wait until the situation clears itself up. That always goes quite quickly anyway as everybody is in a hurry.

The “route” of the bridge on the ships electronic chart.

Once clear of the passage, it is straight sailing to Piraeus harbor entrance, give or take a few fishermen who prefer to fish in the middle of the steamer routes. At the harbor entrance more fun awaits. We always give our ETA and normally that is accepted but whether it is being adhered to is another matter. The problem (for us) is the early morning arrival of the local ferries. They all arrive near 6 am. and they have  preference. If they are all on schedule then there is not much of an issue but that is not always the case. Sometimes the captain and pilot get the green light and start giving speed and then Port Control finds yet another ferry and we have to wait again.

This is the port entrance which is quite tight for a larger ship. One ship found it “too tight” and made the entrance a bit wider. Hence the repair crane being in the process of putting the little light house back and repairing the north breakwater. I think they are making it a little bit wider at  the same time as well.

Once that is out of the way, there is the challenge of docking. There are four cruise berths deep in the harbor and they are assigned to size and pecking order. The Koningsdam being completely new has no pecking order at all and as the four berths were full we had to dock at the “new pier”. This pier was built for the Olympic Games of 1996 in Athens and the first ship to dock there was the Queen Mary II; as a floating hotel. Thus we knew the Koningsdam would fit as well as she is shorter than the Queen Mary II. Still it is a tight fit and thus the Koningsdam sailed slowly through the breakwaters, stopped and then backed into position with starboard side alongside the dock.

On the departure she will do the same thing in reverse and then we will head for Kusidasi in Turkey. To get there we have to go through another busy passage but more about that tomorrow.

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.

We have some Breaking News:  It was just confirmed by the company that Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands is going to christen the Koningsdam. She will know what to do as she has already had practice by christening the Nieuw Amsterdam in 2010.