18 Oct 2014; Boston, USA.

Last evening we arrived in Boston and this morning the ship was ready to receive the guests.  For a cruise ship it is always peculiar when there is only crew onboard. First there is always the sigh of relief of having a day “without” guests; a day where you can do things that you cannot otherwise catch up with when there are guests onboard, but very quickly everybody starts to feel ill at ease as nobody can do the job they are here for: serving the guests. So this morning bright smiles on everybodies faces: we are back to being a cruise ship.

We actually start from Boston as the ship had been cruising in Canada before, but I was too late to copy it from the Hal website, so this was the nearest I could find.  Our first calls are Port Canaveral and then Fort Lauderdale where we pick up the remainder of our guests.

This cruise is officially labeled a Panama Canal reposition cruise as the ship will sail cruises to Hawaii in the winter. To get there we will create a three week cruise out of it, calling at some ports at the Atlantic side of the Canal and then hop along the West coast, calling at ports in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Mexico. That will bring us on 08 November in San Diego from where the ship will start the cruise to Hawaii. There I will leave the ship and after a short spell in the office, hop onto the next DAM ship. I was supposed to have left from here on the 4th.  of October so this has turned into something of an extended stay. Not that I mind, the Veendam is a nice ship, I was captain of it between 2004 and 2008, and I have plenty of things to do to support the Captain and the Officers on board.

But first the ship has to get on the road and departure was set for 1600 hrs. That was going to be an interesting affair as behind us was docked the QM2.

Boston cruise terminal is located in a side bay of the river and to get out you have to back the ship, (go astern) back to the river.  Plenty of room to do it but once passed the QM2 there was a container vessel docked at the other side and thus the had the Veendam to make a small swivel movement. First hugging the far side of the channel and once clear of the QM2, hugging the near/dock side to give the container ship with its overhanging cranes a good clearance.

You can just see the QM2 sticking out from behind the Veendam and in the distance the MSC Stella at the container terminal

Maneuvering with a ship is all about having a plan B. In other words having something up your sleeve in case the plan A that you had in mind does not work out for whatever reason. In the early afternoon it was blowing 20 knots and gusting higher and the thrusters can handle about 26 knots if the ship is sitting still in the water. As soon as it moves, the flow/thrust gets diluted by the ships speed and then the effective output is less.  If plan B consists of gently drifting back to the dock in case of a squall or wind burst then that is a good option. If there is a ship at that berth then it is not. as even “gentle drifting” tends to create damage.

Thus Plan B today was to have a tugboat on standby.  Captain Chris Norman had looked at the weather when it came close to the dead line of ordering a tug, and as at that moment the wind was still too strong, the decision was simple to make. As is often the case, then just before departure the wind died away, and then comes the thought, I could have saved that money………………. But you don’t know and thus better safe than sorry.

Clear of the Queen Mary 2

By 1530 all the guests were on board and they all had attended the Emergency Drill so the good ship Veendam was cleared and ready to sail south.  We sailed astern out of the slip and exchanged greetings with the QM2. I was a bit amazed at her whistle. The law stipulates that a certain size ship has to have a whistle with a pitch that decreases in tone height, the larger that ship gets. Well I am very happy to say that although the QM2 is 2.5 times the size of the Veendam, her hoot & toot was not any more expressive than the Veendam’s.

Over Boston dark clouds were gathering and it smelled distinctively wet in the air, it looked like we were gone just in time.

Tomorrow and the day after we are at sea, sailing along the East Coast of the USA, and then on the 21^st. we will visit Port Canaveral as out first port of call. The weather forecast is a bit unsettled as our Hurricane friend Gonzalez still has some influence on the weather so it might be overcast tomorrow or it might start to break up already. We will then also find out if the swells created by the hurricane have reduced themselves according to the predictions of yesterday. We should have about 6 feet and makes for a very smooth ride.