12 August 2010; Oslo, Norway.

As we had a 0700 arrival, it meant a pilot boarding time of 0300 hrs. and the start of the approach one hour before. With the aid of the AIS system on the radar, we could see the pilot sitting at his dock tucked away between the rocks and that made life a lot easier. In the past all we could do was look with our binoculars to see if we could find the pilot boat and then to slow down on time to match it’s speed and make a lee for safe boarding. Now we can see when the pilot leaves the dock, how fast it is going and how much time it will take before it meets the ship. Thus slowing down, changing course for a lee side and opening the correct access door can all be timed a lot better than before. The pilot boat does the same and some pilot boat skippers take pride in delivering their charges right at the agreed time. Here it was no different, the pilot stepped on board with 30 seconds to spare. Five minutes later we were back to full speed, as the first 30 miles up the Fjord it is wide open and there is no speed restriction to avoid wake damage. Also the ferries that transverse between Horten and Moss about 1 hour in, do not operate yet, so the ship can race up the fjord unhindered.

By the time we came to the town of Drobak, which is the most narrow place of the fjord we were down to 10 knots to avoid wake damage. The anchor party was on standby forward, to release the anchor in case something went wrong and the pilot was on the VHF with traffic control checking if there is any traffic. This time there wasn’t any so we had the whole fairway to ourselves. Just past Drobak is where the Battleship Blucher sank; hit by a Norwegian land based torpedo, when it tried to get into the fjord as part of the German invasion in April 1940. The wreck is still there, 55 meters down in the fjord and it still trickles oil. Most of the oil has been siphoned off in the past but they cannot get to all of it, without disturbing the final resting place of about a 1000 crew who died with the sinking. When we passed over it, we saw indeed a little sheen on the surface coming from the location of the wreck. It only trickles slowly but then it only needs a very tiny little bit of oil to produce a considerable sheen on the surface of the water. As it was wind still that oil did not get dispersed and thus we could clearly see it.

A photo from last call, where the gate was opened near the gangway. Now the guests had to walk all the way to the stern. I was not a happy camper.

We were docked by 0700 at the Vippetangen berth in downtown Oslo. Shortly after the Costa Atlantica docked in front of us at the Akerhus berth (that is under the castle) The Arcadia of P&O went to Riverkaien in the ferry port around the corner and much later the Queen Victoria docked at the cargo & ferry terminal at the West side of Oslo. So roughly 8000 eager shoppers and sightseers’ descended upon Oslo to enjoy a beautiful day ashore. As indeed as I had hoped; the cloud cover disappeared and the sun shone all day. I was very unhappy with the port security as they had decided in their infinite wisdom to open a gate near the stern of the ship, instead of at the gangway. For those on tours not a problem, as they had to walk to the buses that way anyway, but for those who were going to town it added at least two ship lengths to their stroll. First you had to walk all the way to the stern to get out of the gate and then all the way to the bow again, in the direction of downtown. Had they told me that before arrival, I would have docked the other way around. However such is life and there is not much you can do about, it as complaining about a security setup never gets you anywhere.

Going the other way out was at the more decent time of 1700 to 2100 hrs. there was ample opportunity for sightseeing. After the guests had first gotten a lecture from me about the various cruise ships in port; they were then treated to two hours of useful and anecdotal information by Frank our Travel Guru. By the time it was dinner & show time, we knew all about why the fjords where there, why the Blucher sank where it did and that it is better to sail through the Fjord on a Saturday or a Sunday as you see more topless girls then. As said it was all very useful information. Our cruises are all about enrichment of life and that it what the guests get.

We were back at the pilot station from where we came in early this morning and then sailed south in to the Skagerak. The area of water between Norway and Denmark. Tomorrow we will spend the day in the North Sea sailing south to our final port of call Amsterdam. The weather looks good, so we should have a nice completion of this 3 week cruise.