Just by looking at the chart we knew that this was going to be a peculiar place. No doubt a nice place but a peculiar place. The harbour entrance forms the border between France and Spain. Where the harbour entrance becomes a small estuary flanked by two breakwaters, the borders veer away from each other. Thus we have Spain to the West and France to the East. In the middle is an area of about a mile by a mile which they call the neutral zone. This zone does not belong to anybody but both countries exercise control over it and it seems to work, except when cruise ships come to visit.
Spain does not allow any ships in the neutral zone except when they are French or Spanish. Currently there are hardly any cruise ships that fly those flags (there are Spanish and French Operators but only a few small ships) and thus the cruise ships which visit Hendaye have to anchor inside French territory while the port entrance is right on top of the Spanish border. That makes for a long tender service. Thus I tried to anchor as close as possible with the result that the bow with anchor was in France and the rest of the ship in the neutral zone.
The French pilot explained that the French side is working on a better anchor solution; by trying to convince the Spanish that Dutch ships are part of the European Union and thus have every right to anchor where ever they want as the water is technically also part of the European Union. Thus far the Spanish are not having any of it but the discussions continue. This peculiar border arrangement was worked out in 1805 or 1806 between Napoleon Bonaparte and the then time Spanish Government. They solved the issue by proclaiming a “King of the Island”. This is an island which is a little bit inside the Hendaye breakwater and straddling the border. Nothing grows or lives on the island but it is strategically controlling the access to the port. The harbormaster is the “King” of the Island. For six months it is the French harbour master and for six months a year the Spanish harbour master from the town just across the border. The French pilot found this very humoristic as France is a Republic, and proud of it; but now it still has an official King who rules a territory.
The local Chamber of Commerce thought that they had done us a favor by arranging a tender dock inside the Marina right on top of a little shopping village that forms part of this Marina. However to get in there was very difficult and we had to move the tenders very slowly around all the docked yachts and with a harbour master who was very concerned about wake damage. Also it being a Sunday, it was a constant coming and going of Sunday Sailors, adding another complication. I resorted to having all day deck officers on the tenders to ensure that there were no collisions or other issues and if something happened there would be a licensed officer as a witness. All went well throughout the day but for next call Hendaye, I have set my sights on the Harbors masters dock which is in the same area but avoids going into the Marina itself. For the guests it does not make any difference at all but it might save us a lot of paperwork and definitely a lot of tender time. With all the deck officers on the tenders I had to take a bridge watch, which was fun to do, as it had been a while since I had stood a watch.
It being a Sunday meant that the ship was continuously surrounded by yachts, speed boats and water scooters. Another reason to be glad to have officers on the tenders as now the tender driver had a sailor on one side of the tender as a look out and an officer at the other side for the same.
We left shortly after our scheduled time from the anchorage after the pilot had established that the French Navy had gone home for the day. There is a large exercise area between Hendaye and Bordeaux and I had half and half expected to have been ordered to sail all the way around it. But the navy was safely tucked away in port for a quiet Saturday evening and so I could take the short route.
Tomorrow we are in Bordeaux. Pilot is at 06.00 hrs. in the morning and docking up river at 11.30 hrs. It will be an early morning for a lot of crew, as the pilot is coming by helicopter, the pilot boat having broken down. That means that I will have all the fire teams and related crew on the spot, just in case………………….
June 19, 2009 at 5:37 am
Hi Capt. quick question: Has Holland America been paying port visits for a long time at Hendaye? Just wondering how the powers to be select such a port? Not a place, unlike, say Le Havre, Bordeaux, St. Nazaire, Monte Carlo, etc. a lot of folks have heard about, I bet ya! 😉
June 21, 2009 at 10:59 am
Hendaye was a new one. I think it has great potential as long as the port is a little bit more easily accesible by tender, so we will work on that. With bus you can reach Bilbao and around the corner is the reosirt of Biarrittz. As there are more and more cruise ships coming we have to find new ports as the regular ones are full with the very big ships. So with the Prinsendam being the Elegant Explorer, we indeed also explore new ports. Our clientle on board is very eager to sample new things and we carefully scrutinize their comments to see what the reaction to a new port is and what we should do with it in the future. To give an example Quebec is the highest (by our guests) rated port of all the HAL ports and thus the company is expanding the stays at this port. Either by means of using it as a change port or extended port times. If you place brochures next to each other from the past years, you can see the trend
June 21, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Thanks for your explanation, Captain!