25 November 2008, At Sea.

We sailed with following winds and seas from Key West, crossing the Straits of Florida on a South Westerly course. The almost constant North Westerly wind from the past days had its effect on the Gulf Stream, which was located much more to the south than in the previous weeks. Thus while sailing above Cuba we lost almost 2 knots of speed, until we started to hug the Cuban coast where we picked up some counter current. Hugging the coast is a bit too much to say; we stayed about 12 miles away from the coastline.

Three miles is territorial waters but 12 miles is normally the borderline where true international waters start. Thus where we can, we stay 12 miles off the coast and if not possible, we try to stay at least 4 miles out. There is one other imaginary line and that is the 200 mile EEZ, or Economic Exclusion Zone. Basically this means that a country exercises control over this area. This in regards to fishing rights, drilling and other exploration, environmental, Search and Rescue matters, etc. etc. If countries are closer than 200 miles, then there are normally agreements of where the exact border is located. Not everywhere in the world has this been defined yet and thus there are still issues between Russia and Japan over certain islands and also about who owns the Artic and the Antarctic. It all involves politics, so I am staying far away from that. It is already complicated enough when you have to sail through these area’s, as you will find out when I start blogging next year about the Prinsendam voyages.

With just over a month to go on the Veendam, I have started to pack things up and one of the issues that I had to deal with, was, what to do with the Nieuw Amsterdam model. In order to make sure that the model did not get lost after we sold the Nieuw Amsterdam in 2000, I had appointed myself as the custodian of it, and it has traveled with me from ship to ship ever since. First on the Noordam (III), then on the Maasdam (IV) and now on the Veendam (IV). Thus my initial idea was to take it with me again now to the Prinsendam. It has been on display on the Lower Promenade deck in the atrium for the last two years and you might have seen it there. However as we now will have a new Nieuw Amsterdam (IV) in 2010, it is of course more appropriate if the model would go there. My Sr Vice President Fleet Operations Mr. Dan Grausz concurred with that, so now I am making arrangements to have it shipped to the interior architects who are involved with designing the new ship.

The model is a so called “Window model” and was made in the early 1950’s by a company in Holland. Holland America ordered about 25 of them as far as I know and they were given to the travel/booking agents in the various main ports to put on display in the window. These were the days before television, so when in the evening people would go for a walk, they would see such a model lit up in the window of the agency. A real good advertisement to get the clientele in. This particular model stood for many years in the Head Office in Rotterdam, until the new building of the Nieuw Amsterdam (III). Then it was donated to the officers of that ship for their hard work during the new built by the then President of the company Mr. Nico van der Vorm. It was put on display in the Officer Bar where it remained until I packed it up when the ship was sold to United States Lines in 2000.

Now with the transfer to the New Nieuw Amsterdam in 2010, the model will have been linked to three Nieuw Amsterdam’s in its life time.

We had an uneventful day at sea. With following wind and seas, the ship moved around a little bit but nothing to distract the guests from having a good time onboard. Tomorrow we will be in Belize and we should be able to complete our call there without issues, before the next cold front comes down into the Caribbean.