Last night we embarked on a 10 night East Mediterranean cruise. Visiting ports in the East part of the Med. is a very popular and the ship is once again sold out. I do not know whether it has to do with the popularity of my Veendam, or that things are going well in general, but thus far the ship has sailed each cruise with a full complement. Sail away from Venice was spectacular, with the sun just starting to set over the houses, coloring them in a golden hue. We made a slow exist through the canals to give everybody ample time to see the sights.

The pilot that we had outbound lived in downtown Venice and his house was located very close to the centre. So he could be a very rich man, if he sold, but who wants leave one of the most beautiful cities in the world ??? Thus he preferred to remain a poor sailor but living in a great environment. He was also a bit of an historian and kept up a running narration about all the bad things Napoleon did to the town during the years that Venice was occupied by the French. From all his colorful examples it was quite clear that the Venetians had long memories and that ill feelings still lingered on.

By 11 am, we approached Dubrovnik again and once again we docked at the port of Gruz. Good weather encouraged most of our guests to go on tour or to take the shuttle into town. It was a sunny, wind still and very clear day, great for exploring. This time we stayed until 20.00 thus on departure we had a spectacular sunset over the Croatian islands, when we departed just before 8 pm. We saw a Red blood sun descending over a flat calm sea with church bells running all around.

The local fishing fleet was out in full force and we had to pick our way carefully between the little boats, whose owners took very little notice of us and clearly gambled on the fact that we would see each and every one of them while they went about their business. Some of them had lights on, some had not. In a situation like this we stay on slow speed and post extra lookouts to make sure that we do not miss a single boat. We have the best radars in the world but wooden and polyester hulls do not reflect very well and sometimes do not show up on the radar at all. Thus good eyes and good binoculars are still an important part of safe navigation.

Fishermen sit mostly above the edges of a reef or an underwater shelf where the depth and flow of the water changes. The changes in current caused by the variations in the depth of the sea bottom causes fish to come to the surface and to get caught. So the moment the water got deeper, we call it “dropping off the shelf” the fishermen were gone and we could speed up to our required speed for a timely arrival the day after tomorrow in Santorini.