31 December 2010; St. Georges Grenada in 2 attempts.

The wind had died away completely during the early morning and it was calm of wind when we made our approach. However we saw a swell running towards the dock and that was not in the books at all. The continuous bad weather in the North Atlantic kept pushing wave fields into the Caribbean Sea and the swells were rippling all the way down to Grenada. Thus we had the unpleasant situation that the waves were rolling in from the North West towards the dock. For that possibility the dock has no protection as normally wind and waves are coming from the East and thus the piers are sheltered by the land. Things were looking interesting. Still you cannot really see how much swell there is or how it will affect the ship until you are alongside, unless of course the waves are running over the dock. The pilot indicated a “little swell” and that meant nothing to me either and the only thing we could do was to go alongside and see what happened. That is only a 10 minute affair as the cruise pier in St. Georges sticks out straight into the sea and thus it is a straight shoot in. Hardly alongside and the ship started to move on the swell. About a meter up and about a meter out. Not pleasant but it might get better, so I kept everybody onboard. It was 07.00 anyway for a 08.00 arrival and then I watched from the bridge wing what was going on.

Also scheduled was the Serenade of the Seas and she came stern in, as sometimes that makes the ship move less as the “pointy bit” slices the waves in two before they reach the hull. It did not make a difference at all and the moment the Serenade came alongside the swell started to get caught between the ships and under the open pier. Spouts starting to appear between the dock and the ships and the ships became livelier. Our gangway went in and out nearly 2 meters. The Serenade sailed straight out again and decided to start a tender service. With her Dynamic Position capabilities (DP for short) she could sit on a constant angle to the waves and keep a good lee for the tenders. With the Serenade gone, the motion of the Prinsendam became less and I decided to review the situation a bit longer. When a ship settles on a regular swell you might be able to work with the pattern of the motion.

A shot from our Transas electronic chart display. As you can see the ship just fits in.The cruise ship pier can just be seen in the upper left part of the chart.

The pattern was that about every 3 minutes a larger swell came in; a swell that lifted the gangway almost off the dock and with that we could not work of course. Now it became time for plan B. I sent the CO ashore to have a look in downtown to see if there was a swell running. There was but only a little bit as the inner port is located inside a sheltered bay. With the permission of the Harbourmaster we were allowed to dock and the cargo ship scheduled was told to wait outside until our departure, before coming in. Normally they do not like cruise ships in downtown as it is a cargo pier and the shops are all located in the area of the cruise pier. But if the choice is between getting a cruise ship in or having a cancellation then things are decided quite quickly. So by 10 am I moved and by 11 am we were happily docked in St. George’s downtown with the Prinsendam towering over the harbour front. I decided to sail an hour later than scheduled to make up for the lost time. I could not do more as I wanted to sail out of the very tight harbour at sunset; so I could see the buoys and secondly we had to get ready for New Years Eve.

We sailed just before 6 pm. and inched ourselves out of the port. The approach channel calls for an 180o course change within two ship lengths and with a channel of about half a ship length in width, so you want to take it slowly. By 19.00 hrs we were outside and we all could get ready for an evening of merriment, culminating in New Year at midnight.

This is turning into quite an eventful cruise but tomorrow we should at least have a quite day at sea.