Although drizzle was predicted, it was a sunny day but slightly hazy. The weather here in the Med is very difficult to predict anyway. The sea is enclosed by land on all sides and that has a great influence. The Russian flatlands to the North, the Sahara in Africa to the South, the Arabian dessert countries to the East, it all makes it very difficult to discern a predictable pattern but as long as it is nice weather, you will not hear me complaining.

Today was also heavy loading day, and being Holland America Line, we procure a lot of items from Holland. They are trucked in with Dutch trucks to Venice and normally arrive the evening before, so loading can start the moment the ship is safely docked. All our supplies are palletized and once the stores are onboard we do not need the (wooden) pallets anymore. On the ship everything is stored on stainless steel racks to comply with US Public Health rules. So what to do with those 150 odd wooden pallets that we have left over every 14 days? We like to recycle as much as possible so throwing them away as garbage goes against the (Dutch) grain. If we keep them onboard they take up space and I consider them a fire hazard.

We found a solution but had to go around the houses for it a little bit. If we keep the pallets onboard, then they are considered garbage when we return for our next call. This means we have to pay for garbage containers and those perfectly good pallets go to the dump. That costs about 1200 euros’. If we want to recycle them we have to make sure that they do not go with the ship but that they are left behind when the ship sails. So we have found a local company that will come and pick them up, they charge us 300 euros’ to do so and they make their profit by selling them on. So we recycle and we save ourselves approx. 900 euros’ as well.

Today we were lucky with the fact that all flights landed on time and that the Veendam could leave on schedule. We save fuel by leaving as early as possible as it brings our average speed down, speed we have to maintain to get to the next port. For Venice I try to get out as quickly as possible as well for another reason; namely to see Venice before guest dinner starts.

I always get comments from the guests about the tugboat that hangs on our bow while sail through the port. Guests find it peculiar as they do not see a tug in other ports. The Veendam only needs a tug during very windy weather but Venice has a special reason. The local authorities require a tug as a fail safe. The thought that a big ship might miss the sharp turn off St Marks Square and plow into the houses, is too gruesome to contemplate. And thus we hook on a tug for 4 miles until we are past the old town.

Most people think about Venice as just the old historic town. But the area is quite industrial as well. Just past Venice is the town of Marghera which has petrol-chemical plants, container docks and a big shipbuilding industry. This includes the Fincantieri shipyard where the Veendam was built. As a matter of fact the Veendam was the first Holland America line ship built at Marghera. This was so successful that ever since all new HAL ships are coming from this yard.