We made up some speed during the night but not enough to off-set the time lost during the ice navigation in Hubbard glacier. The ship was doing quite nicely until a weather system located about 100 miles south of Sitka started to move north and brought wind force 8 and 10 feet swells for most of the late night and early morning. The wind was full on the bow and that meant that it slowed down the ship by about a knot. Same for the pitching, it again costs speed. As result we arrived an hour late in Sitka.

Not much of an issue, I just decided to stay an hour longer. All the guests had as much time in port as normal and none of the tours needed to be cancelled. The latter can be an issue sometimes when there are more ships in port or when the morning busses are used for different tours in the afternoon. Holland America does not have that much of a problem in this case, as most of our tours use buses owned by ourselves.

The fishing season is slowly gathering pace and there were more fishing boats out than in the previous weeks. Still nothing compared with the heydays of the 1980’s when hundreds of boats would clog the channels and fairways. In those days the boats would not move if a deep sea vessel would come through a passage and that resulted often in cut nets and a lot of acrimonious exchanges on the VHF. With the good days of fishing gone, the fishermen cannot afford to loose any nets anymore so they move nicely aside. We follow the Rules of the Road as much as we can but in a small channel we cannot always change course and stopping the ship does not make the nets go away. Also there is an understanding in Alaska that the cruise ships will stay on mid channel courses and that the rest of the traffic will work around it. It works very well and we have not had any problems.

In Sitka Sound most of the commercial fishermen are trawlers and they simply choose a track that does not interfere with us and for the rest there are sport fishermen and charters in small and fast boats. These small boats do sometime bother us due to the different perception between them and us. They move around a lot while fishing and although they have no intention to be in the way, their different perspective on what a “safe distance” is makes us high up on the bridge worry sometimes. 100 feet is a lot for a speed boat of 15 feet, it is less than a ship width for our side and so not much at all. Most of them are very good, they have followed USCG approved training classes and can see the bigger picture………..but there is always one.

Leaving Hubbard late yesterday; also meant that the Captains Welcome onboard Toast got changed. The Cruise Director did the toast as from the ships staff only the Hotel Manager and the Environmental Officer would have been able to be present. Captain, chief officer and chief engineer still busy with ice standby on the bridge and in the engine control room. As most guests still like to see “who is driving the boat”, I did a walk-on this evening with the staff and the employee of the month, just before the regular show started. I do not know if the Comedian Entertainer enjoyed it to have such as intro, but the guests appreciated it. No complaints about a late Sitka, only happy faces for a good Hubbard day.

By the time we left Sitka the waves outside had subsided and the Veendam sailed without wobbling about, northwards towards Skagway. It is supposed to be a windy day tomorrow, but the wind is from the south and thus not as cold as it could have been when blowing from the North.