Well ahead of the two other cruise ships we approached the pilot station at 0800 hrs. Although the pilots in Cartagena are good, I still have still not figured, after all my years of coming here, how it all works. We normally call Port Control, which has a control tower at the entrance of the Bay but they can never tell us what is going on. They take our ETA and then refer us to the pilot, who might or might not hear us depending if the VHF in the pilot boat is switched on. Then when you ask the pilot for a traffic update you get referred back to port control. They might then give you some information or they will refer you back to the pilot. If information is given it might not be correct as the pilots might decide among themselves to change the sequence of the ships sailing. Or a ship might not sail at all and somehow that information got lost somewhere. Cartagena is a very organized port, once you are in the sequence of the port process but it is always a challenge to find out what is going on. So we always focus on our two main concerns; what time will the pilot make it to the ship as we are not allowed to go in without one, and secondly is the channel clear. The latter is important as the Boca Chica access channel to the bay of Cartagena is not wide enough for ships to pass each other. As a matter of fact it gets smaller and more narrow every year. According to the pilot the harbor master keeps moving the buoys but does not advise anybody why.
Still with all of the above going on, the pilot boarded at exactly 0800 and we sailed under glorious weather into the bay. This is quite a scenic happening as you first see the fortress at the entrance and then the industrial area on the far right; followed by the city and the navy base on the portside and then finally when approaching the inner harbor you pass the Statue of the Virgin Carmen (protector of the sailors) in the middle of the bay, where the fairway splits to the north west and the north east. The whole bay is very shallow and thus there are buoy routes that lead you to the inner harbor. We were docked at the western container pier with a small feeder container ship opposite us, so the guests could have a very good view of the modern day cargo operations. Not many people realize it but about 95% of the world’s trade goes by ship and a lot of it in containers. We were docked by 09.30 and just before 11 am joined by the Zuiderdam and the Celebrity Infinity. They both docked at the other pier, which handles larger ships as it has two extra dolphins for the mooring ropes.
We were bunkering 800 tons of Heavy Fuel Oil and there the fun started. Normally this amount can be loaded in 2 to 3 hours but it all depends on the quality of the pump of the bunker barge. That was not that great obviously because when I wanted to depart at 5 pm., they were still at it. When done, there was the -not unusual- dispute between the Bunker barge and our chief engineer about the amount loaded. Bunkering a ship is not as easy as filling up your car at the petrol station where the meter exactly indicates how much is loaded. When a ship bunkers, the HFO, which is in a cold form nearly like tar, gets heated to make the transfer possible. When fluid gets warm it expands and thus its volume changes. If you then load 800 Mt of fuel, then you get less of it when it is warm, than when it would be cold. So Chief engineer and bunker barge have to be in agreement about the exact temperature of the fuel and thus the exact volume loaded and how that translates in the exact weight that went into the tanks. It is no unusual for bunker barges to be a little creative with the figures (always erring on their own side) and with the current price of fuel, it is important for the Chief Engineer to be on top of it. A small difference can cause several thousands of dollars of extra cost. The dispute dragged on a little bit and I started to get worried because the other two ships were scheduled for 18.00 hrs. if I came too close to that, then I might be last one out; while I had organized everything yesterday to leave a 5 pm. Still at 1750 it was all done and the other ships were not yet ready, so if I could get out within 10 minutes, then I would still be ahead of them. Otherwise there would be a 45 minute delay.
And thus Cartagena saw the maybe fastest departure of a cruise ship ever, with the Statendam swinging around off the berth with the speed of a super charged merry-go-around. Our pilot had never seen how fast an S-class ship can spin, so he was standing there with a totally bewildered look on his face. I had to shake him out of his trance when the 180o turn had been completed and the ship was heading for the exit channel. 45 minutes later we were outside and on our way to our next port of call Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas.
The channel to the entrance of Cartagena Bay is protected by a fort, San Luis, on either side of the fairway. It is quite famous as a big battle took place here between the English and the Spanish. Courtesy Hotelmanager Statendam
For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cartagena_de_Indias
October 11, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Great to have you back. Without your blog to give me my HAL fix over the summer, I went with my wife and friends on a fabulous Mediterranean cruise on board Nieuw Amsterdam. On that ship the state room corridors are adorned with black and white photographs of HAL ships, their passengers and crew. I noticed that around 50% are from your collection. Wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed walking round the ship looking at all the photographs and thinking about the sea travel experience in all eras of the 20th century.