22 August 2010; At Sea.

As forecast last night it was indeed not such good weather today. With a wind force 7 blowing from the south West, there were white caps everywhere and with the Prinsendam going against it with the speed of a wind force three, it was very breezy on the bow. Still in the Baltic it is only the wind that is a real issue. As land is never far way, the wind cannot build up a long running ocean swell and thus what you see is only choppy seas. That means that the ship does not move at all and the guests can enjoy a peaceful day onboard. A day that is much needed after having done Tallin, St. Petersburg, Helsinki and Stockholm all in a row. Intensive ports for sightseeing and thus a restful day at sea to recharge the batteries for three more ports is a good thing. Another positive thing is that we can combine this sea day with the fact that today is a Sunday. We cannot always schedule the cruises in such a way that we can spend Sundays at sea, but if we can do it, it is better. On Sunday’s most shops are closed and a lot of other local services are not available and it is the ship that get the complaints. Thus a day at sea makes everybody happy.

Including myself as in the evening the wind started to die down and that means that tomorrow morning arrival in Warnemunde should be one with nearly wind still weather. After that it looks less promising, but with autumn on the way I am taking things one at the time. Thus today was a windy day but the sun came out in the afternoon and that still made a very nice Sunday. We have three sea days on this cruise and as this was the 2nd one, we had the Mariners luncheons today. Due to the fact that most guests on the Prinsendam have either made numerous cruises before or take a back to back cruise it means that nearly everybody onboard is a mariner. However this time we had the peculiar situation that although we had nearly 700 mariners we only had 8 people with the high day count. Normally there are about forty or fifty and I have the privilege to hand out several medals, but this time nothing, only 8 guests with a count over 400 days. That meant that having a mariner –medal-meeting in The Explorations Lounge would look a bit sparse so I moved them all up to my cabin for pre lunch cocktails and a chat. The only hindrance here is that it is a long way back to the dining room for the meal that follows.

A Sea day also means formal night and I prefer to do the Renewal of the Weddings vows on a formal night as you have at least some control over how the guests are dressed. Most of them dress up to the hilt, but I have had instances with people popping up in shorts, Hawaiian flower shorts and a bottle of beer in the hand. I suppose everybody has different ideas of how to honor your spouse with a recommitment of your wedding vows, but some things are a little too basic for my personal taste. So we go formal. This time we had a couple, both windowed who had only been married for a few days. They had hoped to get officially married on the ship by the captain, only to find out that that is not so easy, and on Holland America impossible. The British Law (as the captain is the representative of the Queen onboard who is the head of the Church of England) gives the possibility provided that the ship has a Bermuda registration. Onboard our ships you can only do it, while docked in a port and you bring your own Minister, J.P or local Registrar on board. (see my blog this last march with the wedding in the Falklands) So they decided to do the next best thing and renew their vows on the ship. Again my cabin was the venue, as I have ample room for it.

The Dutch law only gives options for a Final Will and a lot of emergency and regular disciplinary possibilities. Which is a pity as doing a wedding ceremony gives something extra to the daily affairs of the ship.

All day we sailed in the Traffic Lanes for the ships that run from West to East through the Baltic and hence most of the guests only saw ships going the same way as us. It makes for a much safer operation and the task of the navigator much easier. Everybody behaves according to the same rules and you only have to pay attention to the ships to see if they do not change their mind. Most of the time there is always one, although today that ship was sailing somewhere else.

Tomorrow we are in Warnemunde and I will be at the pilot station at 0400 hrs. That is very early but I want to be docked early before the ferries arrive for which I would then have to wait. That might endanger a timely departure of the train tour to Berlin and that is a no-no of course.