Our temporary home for the day. Berth 34 in Montreal.
Thus today we docked at what turned out to be a temporary cruise terminal. The new terminal, better said: the refurbished old one, where we always used to dock was not ready yet it turned out. Due to strikes and other complications work had been delayed past the start of the season. So we were diverted to a cargo terminal with a Marque on it. The Veendam is now scheduled to in-augurate the opening of the new terminal.
The good thing was we did not have to go into “the hole” and sail past the outflow of the St. Lawrence where it turns into the port of Montreal. The bad thing was the ship now docked on the river, fully in the current. Most of the berths at Montreal are on the river and in the current so it is normal here but with so much current, you need tugboats and that is what we always try to prevent. First: because we normally have enough power to do it ourselves. Second: the conversations between the tugboat skippers and the pilots are normally in the local lingo and today it was no different. Most of us speak a certain amount of French but not Quebecois. And that makes is very hard for the captain to keep oversight of what is going on and if the tugboats are doing exactly what the captain wants and what the pilot is relaying.
The dock width coming out was about half the width of the ms Maadam.
The docks along the river are designed in a peculiar way. They are trellised. The idea is when the ship is alongside then the wall sticking out will keep most of the river flow away from the ship. That might have worked in the days when the docks were built and the ships were much smaller and had less width, but now we are sticking out by almost half. We saw that happening when we docked. The ship came in and then bounced out again as the current still managed to flow in between. One good thing is that the flow or current is constant. Only the river level dictates the water height and even if it rains a lot it normally only changes gradually. We are now so far up river that there is no influence from the ebbing and flooding anymore. With just current things are easily manageble but if the wind had been blowing over the very flat area, then this would have been a nasty place for a cruise ship.
For those with a bit of a nautical eye will see that this is current. Over five knots, it even caused a white wake while racing past the buoy.
And so carefully and slowly with two tugboats in attendance we came alongside while the river raged by with at least 5 knots of current. We were docked by 7 am. and then dis-embarkation started. Canadian Customs has an easier system of clearing the ship than the USA and that made everything go quite fast. The ship then went to the turnover stage so embarkation could start again at 11.30. We are expecting a full house and if everybody can find Montreal on time we will have all cabins full. We sailed again at 16.00 hrs. to ensure we will make it to Quebec on time. This time the river will help us with a lot of “push” in the back and going down the river we can reduce our engine speed. Still we need about 10 to 12 knots on the engines to really to control the movement and the direction of the ship; otherwise we really would be surfing, and not necessarily in the right direction.
This is the Radar screen with the ships heading (long white line) and the drift /set by the current the small arrow. At times the drift sideways was over 25 degrees while approaching the dock. The two little triangles are the AIS identifications of the two tugboats.
The sunny day here today had one negative effect; the ship was surrounded by what one person called mosquitoes, another called moths and other called midgets (very big ones). Once we swung the ship around and sailed down river, passing green pastures on both sides of the ship, the ship was inundated with them. This must be an early summer thing, as I do not remember it to happen during the Fall cruises from the past in September and October.
I spend most of the day outside for a ship inspection, taking advantage of the nice weather but the –whatever they were – did not bite me, so I wonder if they were mosquitoes or more moths type.
Thus tonight we will sail the same way down the river as we came up and then tomorrow morning we will dock again in Quebec. The weather for tomorrow is good , with partly cloudy skies and temperatures of 17oC or 63 o F. There is a storm surge warning in effect which might push the water levels even higher than the already are, but there is no indication that this will also affect our berth.
May 30, 2017 at 2:54 pm
I think those numerous little buggers were May flies (Michigan term) also known as Fish Flies (Canadian term). They don’t bite but a swarm of them can blacken the sky.
June 9, 2017 at 7:40 pm
Aaahhh, memories (a little late comment). I used to have a little plot of land around a huge house for one. But, the grass needed cutting from time to time. Those mosquitos / moths / very big midget ones / May flies / Fish flies had buddies that could sting on my Trapezius muscle (?) … we used to call it the monnikskapspier. Guaranteed, my face was swollen the next day. Perhaps that was in the summer heat.