19 March 2018; At Sea, on ms Eurodam.

And so I made the transition from Veendam to Eurodam. The Eurodam is a Sunday ship and thus I had to spend a night in a hotel in Ft. Lauderdale and then return to the port to find the Eurodam and the Koningsdam waiting. (…………….and two Celebrity ships and two Princess ships and the Allure of the Seas = busy day in port)

The route for this cruise. As the weather is so nice, the captain is taking advantage of the shorter route North of the Bahamas, instead of going against the current via the Old Bahama Channel, just north of Cuba.

The ms Eurodam is currently on 7 day cruises and alternating between two different routes. This week we are doing Ft. Lauderdale – Amber Cove – San Juan – Philipsburg – Half Moon Cay – Ft. Lauderdale. Then next cruise we make a grand circle around Cuba, calling at ports North, East, South and West of the Island. It will be interesting to see how San Juan has recovered from the Hurricane devastation of last year as I have not been there since.

The good ship Eurodam is in the capable hands of Captain Eric Barhorst who is one of our newer captains but who has been with Holland America for a long time already. As a matter of fact he has never sailed for another company ever since he was a cadet. In the 90’s Holland America had a period where we had to get captains in from outside as we did not have enough Captain’s licenses among the senior officers. Pilotage in both England and Holland was pulling greatly and any officers with plans to start a family, might not be eager to leave Holland America but were certainly eager to spend more time at home. And thus we had a number of captains and staff captains who came in sideways and as they liked the company, they stayed. Now my generation is slowly leaving the fleet, the next wave is coming up, and now all the senior officers are coming up through the ranks again.

The Eurodam is one of the two ships of the Signature Class, the Nieuw Amsterdam being the other one. They are both an evolution of the Vista Class ships, sharing the same hull but with a slightly different layout and an extra restaurant, the Tamarind, on the top. That novelty was first explored with the Arcadia or the 5^th. Vista Class which was handed over to P&O as it was decided that a 4 ship class worked better.  For that ship they had a bit more time to review its layout and when the guests kept asking for more food options (It is amazing that similar company’s get similar requests/demands/complaints) and they put their own specialty restaurant there the Sindhu. P&O is English and they have a very close historical connection with India, hence Indian food. As we have a very close historical connection with Indonesia, Holland America put an Indonesian, Thai, Japanese fusion restaurant there and we call it the Tamarind.

A tamarind Tree. At least that is what the internet says. If it is not, then I lie in ommission as I can barely differentiate between an Oak tree and a Fir tree.

A Tamarind is a tree, of African origin, which is kept as an ornamental tree but its fruits / nuts, can also deliver a brown paste which is used to season Indonesian and Thai cooking. When I grew up in the Netherlands my neighborhood was full of people who had worked in the Dutch East Indies and had left Indonesia when it became independent; the stories were always about gathering in the evening under the Tamarind tree of the village to exchange the latest news. The Tamarind tree is quite dense and provides a good shade.

To get to Amber Cove, we are sailing above the Bahamas Bank today and then this evening we pass the Turks and Caicos Islands and then cross the end of the Old Bahama Channel to arrive at Amber Cove tomorrow morning at 07.00 hrs. at the pilot station. Amber Cove is located on the north side of the Dominican Republic in a sort of sheltered bay. I say sort of as it depends a little bit on the angle of the North Atlantic waves coming in. At the moment, the ocean outside is a smooth as a mirror as there is hardly any wind and that ocean would have been flat if it was not for the ever present swell but even that is low.

Weather Forecast for tomorrow: warm to very warm. 88oF/31oC. The Trade Wind is blowing at its regular strength but there are hills in the way and that will reduce the breeze in the port considerably. A lot of guests were talking about going snorkeling and that might be  a good idea. The temperature of the water is expected to be 25oC or 77oF.