A sort of communal sigh of contentment settled over the ship today after a long and hard day of sightseeing all the way through the Canal. On top of that we had an hour forward last night to get ourselves in tune with Aruba time and thus today is was a quiet day on board with a lot of guests taking it very easy. As a result the Greenhouse Spa with its wellness and pampering programs was doing very well and everywhere guests where enjoying comfortable seats and were having a hard time getting past page one of a new book, without  deep and profound contemplation setting in.

Sailing in the lower southwest part of the Carib. The Trade Winds have been blowing freely all the way from the eastern rim and have built up quite a nice swell by the time it comes to Barranquila

The ship is sailing today north of Colombia and is going against the Trade Wind and the accompanying seas. Thus on occasion there is a shudder going through the ship, when the bow collides with a wave under the wrong angle. All normal routine but it takes getting used to as it sounds as if the ship is hitting a block of concrete once in a while but not moving for the rest.

I am gearing up for one of the more complicated drills that I conduct when on board. In my blogging history you will find exercises where we put the whole show lounge on fire, rescued multiple injured persons from collisions and setup three or four hospitals (triage areas) to deal with larger numbers of casualties. We also have another challenge with cruise ships and that is if a ship rolls severely in bad weather. That has happened in the past in the cruise industry and even while guests are warned, some severe rolling can still result in a large number of small or medium severe injuries which all need attention at the same time. Ships infirmaries cannot cope with such an instant influx and thus triage is needed to establish a picking order of importance.  Read: selecting the most serious injuries first.  We mark those from Green to Yellow to Red to Black. With green being walking wounded and Black being the end of it all. For the medical staff, the yellow and the red, those who need immediate attention and those will not survive unless instant action is taken, will cause the biggest challenges.

A number of years ago, an Australian Cruise ship, called the Pacific Sun got caught in synchronized rolling. There is a clip of it somewhere on You Tube. This can happen if the speed and the direction of the ship is such that ocean swell can catch the ship under the exact right angle and cause that ship to roll with the same frequency as the wave that is pushing it. The only way to stop that is to change course and/or speed. But before the bridge has carried this corrective action, a few nasty rolls can have occurred already. Resulting in all sorts of injuries, and lots of people descending on the ships hospital all at once. Then suddenly 5 medical staff have to attend to 60 or 70 people who need (and demand) instant attention.

So tomorrow we are going to do an exercise to see if our protocols work as expected and to get more experience in this evolution. Today I spend a lot of time discussing everything with the major stake holders. Medical, the various groups in the Hotel Department and the Heads of Departments. Deck and engine are only involved on the edge of things as their primary focus is on keeping the ship safe if something happens. So tomorrow a large group of volunteers will descend on the ships hospital and one Medical Officer has to do Cabin calls for those who cannot get to the hospital. So our guests might see a lot of housekeeping running around with stretchers collecting various hapless volunteers who are simulating broken legs or worse. An important part will be the correct administration of all the casualties so at a certain point the Captain will have to alert the outside world and get boats or helicopters in or divert to the nearest port for the final disposition of those who need further shore side treatment. As we are working with a lot of people it should be interesting as we never know what one or two individuals will do when they get creative.

Tomorrow there will also be a lot of people. We will be in Aruba with 5 cruise ships. Caribbean Princess, Adventure of the Seas, Zenith, Nieuw Amsterdam and Freewinds. Originally it was not supposed to have been so busy but cruise companies were forced to replace Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, St Thomas and the BVI with other ports until the hurricane repairs have been completed. Roughly 11000 guests will invade Oranjestad during the day, not counting the crew. I think the local infrastructure can handle this but it is going to be busy in Front street. I do not think that the shop keepers will be offering many bargains tomorrow. The crew will want to go to the big supermarkets and hopefully they will be able to get taxis.

Weather for tomorrow: Sunny and hot 87oF / 31oC and very windy.

With a little bit of time to spare the Nieuw Amsterdam arrived at the convoy assembly area, to line up for the Transit. The canal still runs in convoys as the area at the Culebra Cut is still not wide enough for ships to pass each other. That might happen in the future but it will take a lot of dynamite before that day arrives.

The new locks are now also in operation. This is the Atlantic side, but still used sparingly. There has been some good rain fall lately but conserving water is still very important.

Once the ship is drifting off the sea buoy, there is a whole flotilla of boats that attend to the ship. The agent arrives to deal with anything needed and to bring the Panama Canal narrator. The Boarding Officer arrives to clear the ship. The Canal Technician arrives to see if all the required equipment is working, such as the steering light, the window wipers, the whistle etc. etc. Then the first pilot arrives who will take the ship towards the first locks. They all come with their own boat, although the Canal Technician often comes together with the Boarding Officer. Once everybody is happy the pilot gets the green light from the Boarding officer and then slots the ship in, in between the rest depending on the number assigned. Today we had a whole cruise fleet going through. Ahead of us was the Norwegian Sun and behind us we had the Norwegian Pearl.  White hull, blue hull, white hull.

View from the Bridge of the Nieuw Amsterdam while in the Culebra Cut. It is much wider than in the old days, but not wide enough yet for opposing traffic. The white square in the distance is the Norwegian Sun.

Once the ship comes closer to the locks, the 2^nd and 3^rd pilot comes on board, followed by the Panama Canal crew which will handle the wires of the locomotives when they make fast to the ship. All ships have a 2^nd pilot and two pilots work as a team on the bridge each on a bridge wing when going through the locks. One pilot takes the lead, the other assists with distances at the opposite side of the bridge. Once the ship is sailing through the Canal they take shifts in conning the vessel. Ships which have overhanging lifeboats, making it impossible for the pilot on the bridge wing to what the aft locomotives are doing, have a 3^rd pilot who will stand at the stern when going through the locks.  A transit for a cruise ship normally takes between 8 to 10 hours from sea buoy to sea buoy although it can be shorter or longer. I have done it once in 6 hours but I also had a colleague who was stuck behind a tanker (which was really stuck in a lock) and it took 16 hours to get back to open sea.

The all important locomotives or mules which keep the ship in the center while going through the locks.

In my 37 years of going through the Canal on a regular basis, I have never found it dull. There is always something new to see, as the Canal is continuously expanding or evolving and there is always something to think about; why are they doing it that way. Also today, there was something of special interest going on. While going into the first locks (Miraflores) they were a locomotive short and somebody had to run to the waiting area to wake up the driver. No big deal but with an operation that works on the minute to get as many ships through as possible, any delay becomes at once a significant delay. Then in the next locks a locomotive got stuck, we think the engine seized up, so the ship had to put the brakes on otherwise the locomotive would have been pulled off the tracks. This happened sometime in the past with a bulk carrier whose bow swung the wrong way and the locomotive nicely plunged into the Canal. Getting a 40 ton locomotive out of the water is not that easy, although the canal has procedures in place for all these sort of happenings.

Overview of the largest lock system on the Atlantic side. At the Pacific side it is split in a one chamber and a two chamber set up.

The weather remained quite good for the day and although it was tropically warm, it was mostly overcast which make it quite enjoyable to stay out for longer periods. We were at the sea buoy on the Pacific Side at 05.00 hrs. and we were at the sea buoy on the Atlantic Side at 17.00 hrs. so this was a transit of about 12 hrs. from the very beginning to the very end and that is about average. Start of first lock to end of last lock was from 07.30 hrs. to 16.00 hrs. and that is a regular day for guest sightseeing.

Tomorrow we are at sea, heading North West towards Aruba and I am expecting a bit of a bumpy ride as the ship has to go against strong N.E winds and waves.

One from the good old days, the Statendam and Ryndam together in the Panama Canal.

Most of the day was over cast with a lot of rain clouds in the vicinity both at sea as well as over the land. Although not the ideal situation for a cruise, it is good for the region as the tropical forest needs it and also the Panama Canal needs it; as it operates on rain water collected in the Lake. Recently the Panama Canal authority has been very cautious with using the new big locks == only for those ships that really need it == as those big lock chambers use a lot of water and there has not been enough of it. It has been raining less recently than in previous periods. So we will see tomorrow what the situation is although we will be only using the old locks.

The distance between Costa Rica and Panama does not look that big but there is that nick at the border and we have to sail around it towards Balboa.

Today we sailed along the coast of Costa Rica and Panama. With the pedal to the metal as we left 4 hours late from Punta Arenas due to the late return of the tours.  As mentioned, the last guest stepped back on board at 10 pm. last night and then we left at once. Some of those on the tours were nearly delayed by six hours in returning to due slow traffic and (at least) one fatal accident.  On board the Lido was kept open until the last tour had returned and for those who did not have the energy to go there, Room Service was on full battle stations as well.

Maybe because of this the morning on board was very slow. I was almost the only one in the Lido Restaurant at 06.30, while normally it is buzzing with early risers and a lot of traffic of gentlemen who have been sent out by their better half to get coffee and rolls. We have the friends of Bill W. on board, and meetings of Service Clubs, maybe there should also be a meeting of “those who suffer from the early morning Roll and Coffee run” it could be quite popular. But only later it got busy with guests trying to get breakfast in before they started to participate in all the activities of the Daily Program.

The crew of the Nieuw Amsterdam was preparing for the Canal Transit and those who would have to make long hours tomorrow were taking it quiet today. I blogged about it in the past that we have nowadays the MLC 2006 labor regulations which govern the working hours of all sailors worldwide. And that means that over a 7 day period there is a maximum. Tomorrow especially the Deck department and the Bar Lounge and Deck stewards will go over those maximum hours and those hours = too many= have to be compensated either before or after. Hence a quiet Sunday at sea for quite a few.

Navigational wise the preparation is about letting the Canal know that we are coming. Which means 72, 48, 24 and 12 hour notifications so that we as a cruise ship we can fit straight into the convoy when we arrive. As a passenger ship we have preference, as long as we arrive on time. If we miss our slot we will be added as the last one in the convoy and then we will always be behind the last slow tanker going through. If we make the time agreed upon between Captain and Panama Canal Authority then it is possible that we end up behind the fast boys (Container ships) and will have a speedy transit.

Just above the N of North, we have to slow down to 12 knots and then sail with that sedate speed towards the Balboa sea buoy. Slow speed gives more time to avoid dangerous situations.

Thus the captain is keeping the pedal to the metal, to be on time and also to have surplus time as the last 25 miles we have to do with a speed of 12 knots. Panama has instigated this on the Pacific side to make things a little bit safer. In the past cargo ships would give full ahead at the sea buoy and race towards the Pacific, sometimes with leaving only a very junior officer on the bridge. The rest were tired and thus left it to Jason to sort things out. At the same time there was all this traffic coming towards the sea-buoy and it resulted sometimes in very scary situations.  With our ships we used to go extra wide to avoid these fast johnnies who were going full speed while not keeping a sufficient look out, and cutting corners wherever they could. Now they all have to behave with a regulated slow speed and the world is the better for it.

We expect to be at the sea buoy tomorrow at 05.30 and then enter the first locks, the Miraflores Locks around 07.30. Expected Weather: Hot and Humid with a fair chance of a big shower. Good news; it is supposed to be overcast all day, which reduces the chance of sunburn.

When you come to this area of Costa Rica, Puerto Caldera is the main cargo port here. A long time ago, in the late 1980’s Holland America started to call at Caldera and docked at a new cargo pier which was nicely protected by a breakwater meant to keep the sometimes very unpleasant swell out. Then cruise ship tourism expanded greatly and it caused in spring and autumn such a congestion with cruise ships that there was hardly any chance for a cargo ship to dock; as every day there was a cruise ship coming in. So the local authorities decided to build a cruise terminal, a pier which runs straight into the main street of Punta Arenas. Puerto Caldera is just a cargo port and there is not much of anything else there. Now the guests could walk straight into the local town.

This was a great idea but they forgot or ignored the concerns of the professionals at sea and did not built a breakwater to protect this dock from the swell that comes in at times. and took for granted the current which comes in at an angle of 90o onto the pier and can run up to four knots. Thus the ships now have to arrive near slack tide when the current drops under two knots otherwise the ship either gets slammed against the dock or cannot get alongside. All depending whether it is flooding or ebbing and at which side of the pier you are at.  Then they made the pier so small that there is hardly any room for the buses to come in and go out. They have to back in or back out of over distance of half a mile and when loading needs to take place, it is getting very cluttered. As the dock is located at the end of the Golfo di Nacoya, it forms an estuary tidal situation where the sea water is pushed up to considerable height and that means that there are long gangways/ramps and platforms and all sorts of other clutter on the dock.

An un ending stream of “invaders” marching into Punta Arenas.

So it is always with a certain trepidation that a cruise ship captain calls here. Yes we want to go as the guests really like the tours but operationally it gives quite a headache. Today was no different. The tide today was slightly different than the predictions and we had to postpone docking by half an hour and when we finally could it took all the ships power and the aid of a tugboat to dock against the still remaining current. We were joined by the Norwegian Pearl which was docking after us and also struggling with the remainder of the current, and she had to put all the brakes on to make a soft landing against the dock. By the time both ships where safely docked and the gangways were out and platforms in place, we were an hour late and nothing we could do about it. Thus from both ships all the tours left an hour late, making the tour dispatch a bit challenging as well. 10 am. means that all guests had had their breakfast and now wanted to go ashore all at the same time. So for about an hour 2000 people streamed from each ship and thus a total of 4000+ guests marched into town or invaded the country side by tour bus.

On the bridge they had their own challenges, as the swell was running in which caused the ship to slowly move up and down and with the waves once in a while creating a shudder in the ship when one slammed under the stern. When a ship is moving along the dock a little bit it means that the deck department has to continuously adjust the mooring ropes so that all 12 of them take the same tension when the ship moves. For us, when it was ebbing it was easy, yes the ship moved but the ebb pushed the ship back against the dock. When the flood came through, it started to push the ship away from the dock so the captain put on the thrusters and the Azipods and kept the ship alongside that way. A very safe operation but it meant the bridge was on battle stations all day.

As the dock is very tidal, the port provides long ramps and platforms. Ramps ensure that rollators, scooters and those who have difficulty going up and downs steps can still get ashore. To the right the Norwegian Pearl who docked the other way around.

Ashore they had their own fun and games with the return of the tours. Unbeknown to all involved there had been mudslides on the new highway to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica way up in the mountains. Thus all traffic had been diverted back to the old road and things were slowed down to single lane traffic. Then there was a fatal accident somewhere down that road and as a result all traffic came to a grinding halt. As a result the last tour group stepped back on board by 10 pm. As ships crew you feel really helpless then, as against nature there is nothing you can do while you still feel responsible as it is your company’s tour.

We had one final piece of luck, because it was 10 pm. we just fitted in the tidal window of being able to sail and were not more delayed because of the tide being too strong. We have some leeway in the schedule so by going up to wrap speed we can still make the Panama Canal pilot station by 05.00 hrs. the day after tomorrow. But now we have of course a very unhappy chief engineer as his fuel budget is going to take a hit. Tonight we are going an hour forward to get in sync with Panama time and tomorrow we should have an overcast day with some rain clouds. For the guests there should be things to see, as wildlife will now be playing around the ship.

But we are ending the day with a smile………………. from the kitchen department.

Our guests have been indicating that they enjoy Corinto and thus Holland America is now having more ships calling here during Trans Canal cruises and re positioning cruises to and from Alaska. My first time here was in 1979 when I was cadet on a container ship just after the revolution and things where rather hairy. I was there with a container ship which sailed for a company that was once the cargo part of Holland America until it was split off on 1 January 1973. The management of the remaining passenger ship part of Holland America wanted to concentrate on cruising. These were most interesting calls as the ship was very advanced for that time and the local longshoremen could not handle the equipment (Or those who could had run away during the political changer over, I never found that out) and thus it fell upon us, cadets, to run either the ships cranes or the large shore crane which had been installed a few years before.

The Dock at Corinto. This is an air photo of the port from 2 years ago and also then the crane was already out of order. Currently they are tearing down the two sheds on the dock.

Routine was then that the Engineers would check over all the shore equipment including the large fork lifts before the deck officers would and could get the show on the road. And so there was little me, sitting there in the crane, with a sleeping longshoreman beside me who was supposed to do the job but could not, and at times a gun toting Sandinista behind me, ensuring that the whole unloading procedure was carried out in a sufficiently revolutionary way. The crane is still there, albeit a long time out of order; but every time I see it I have to remember my activities as a budding crane driver. During subsequent calls we used our ships cranes as that worked a bit faster as long there were sufficient trucks to drive the goods away.

Sailing into Corinto can be unpleasant due to the swell running across the entrance channel and yes we rolled a bit but it was not too bad. I was having breakfast in the Lido and being incognito it is fun to listen to all the experts around me, explaining and complaining about why we were “tipping sideways”. As usual very few people had listened to the Captains announcement about this, so the most wonderful theories and nautical expressions (mostly out of context) were bandied around. Now I have learned that when a ship goes into port, it does not roll; it can only list because the stabilizers are not out; moreover it can list to both sides at the same time. Who says that breakfast in the Lido cannot be educational?

This is the forward tricing pendant from a tender on the Koningsdam with a rigger in action. It holds the lifeboat to the ship to make embarkation possible and then it has to be disconnected before the lifeboat can be lowered.

While on education, I promised yesterday to explain about Closed Loop Communication. I have a whole series of training going on at the moment, to educate the lifeboat crews in using this technique as it reduces misunderstandings. We have it in use on the bridge for a few years now and it works very well as soon as you start using it routinely. Closed Loop Communication is simply a repeat and confirm exchange which eliminates assumptions and half understood orders or announcements. It is great for situations where the sender and receiver are a certain distance away from each other, or cannot see each other. Even more so, when they belong to different nationalities and they have to work together for safety routines. Such as in a lifeboat where the crew member in the bow and in the stern is completely hidden from the view of the commander if there are 150 people sitting in the boat.

It goes like this:

Commander: Release tricing pendant forward (that is a line that keeps the lifeboat bow to the ship)

Boat rigger forward: Releasing tricing pendant?

Commander: Yes

The commander now knows that the boat rigger has understood the message and is ready. The boat rigger (the person in the bow or stern of the lifeboat) knows the commander has understood he/she is ready as the repeat of the command is acknowledged.

Tricing pendant is released. (Something the commander cannot see)

Boat rigger: tricing pendant released

Boat commander: tricing pendant released?

Boat rigger: Yes.

It is very simple and it reduces mistakes. It can and should sometimes be used in civilian life as well. How many people forget to put the trash can out at night and the other half, most of the time the better half, just assumes it has been done………….. because it always gets done. That is an assumption and a form of complacency and a little closed loop would sort that one out.

Tomorrow we are in Punta Arenas Costa Rica. We are there with two NCL ships so it will be busy and it will be as warm and as sunny as it was today.

Puerto Quetzal is only 200 miles south of Puerto Chiapas and has the same weather and sea conditions. That means we can also suffer there from a swell running into the port. For this purpose the port has constructed the entrance to the harbor with a 90 degree turn in it and that prevents the swell from reaching the docks. Still while going in you might get it until you are inside the protection of these breakwaters. Puerto Quetzal is a very busy cargo port with always a lot of ships at anchor, waiting to load or discharge. When you approach you can see if the swell is there as those ships are then rolling on that swell. It cannot be fun for the crew on board those ships to be sitting there at the anchorage for a number of days and just have to cope with the constant rolling of the ship. It must be even less fun to see one of those “fur coat boats” taking preference over them and going in without waiting.

The new cruise terminal dock when built. The middle is a pontoon that goes up and down with the tide, so the gangway is always under the same angle.

Today we did not have any swell to be concerned about but we did upset a few cargo ships I think as we pinched their berths. Normally we go to the cruise terminal but two days ago the dock or the dolphins (we do not know exactly) was damaged by a departing cargo ship. This had been docked further in and when departing had clipped the edge of the pontoon or the dolphins. The authorities wanted to investigate first to see if there was a structural damage or just dents and scrapes. Until a diver had been down nobody was certain about what the damage might be or not might be. Until the full assessment has been made the cruise terminal is not available.  And thus two cargo ships were bumped to the anchorage so we could get in. And that we did; and by 07.30 hrs. we were happily docked at the Commercial Berth no 1.

That terminal was opened a number of years ago by Captain Werner Timmers when the Zaandam was the first ship docking there.

Not that we like it, the pier is too high during low water to have our gangway in place in the best way possible and the guests have to be bused first with shuttle buses to the Cruise Terminal if they are not on tour. Walking on the pier is not allowed, which makes sense as it is a cargo terminal and traffic acts accordingly. (And our guests do not act in general in a way that makes a cargo pier supervisor very happy) On top of that it was a very warm day. The sun was happily shining and the gentle breeze that was blowing was not bringing refreshing sea air but warm air from the interior.

But there is nothing we could have done about it; we could not even decide to run a tender service as this port is absolutely not feasible for such an operation. Too long a distance, too much swell, no proper landing dock and too much traffic going in and out. So the Commercial pier it was and we made the best of it.  The port authorities made 2 buses available for the shuttle service to the cruise terminal and Holland America added a few more to ensure that we provided a good service all the time.  The cruise terminal is similar as the one in Puerto Chiapas, the main building is a sort of square beehive and around it is a small flea market with trinket shops and beverage stands.

The extra shuttle trip our guests had to take, just because a cargo ship drifted over a bit too far. All photos courtesy of the Puerto Quetzal Port Authorities.

Most of the crew wisely decided to stay on board as the shuttle service would have taken quite a bit out of their leave time and no doubt they will all be back again sometime in the future. I kept a number of that crew from getting bored with training in proper communication. We have learned through the years that most mistakes from humans, who worked in groups under stressful circumstances, happened because they did not communicate properly. Either they assumed that somebody would do something, or thought they heard somebody saying something and acted upon that without verifying it, also because somebody did something (most likely something good) but never gave it a thought that somebody else needed to know what he or she had done. And the result of that action would have an impact on the next step that somebody else was going to take. It is called Closed Loop Communication and as I cannot remember that I have ever blogged about that, I will explain how it works tomorrow.

We sailed from Puerto Quetzal, slightly late as we had to wait for a tour bus. I have never been inland here but it seems that they have one of those roads near the port which everybody likes to use when our buses are on it, as the tours are seldom back on time. Not that it matters very much this time as we have some leeway in the schedule to make Corinto tomorrow on time.

Weather for tomorrow: even warmer that today 89oC / 32oF partly cloudy with a 90% chance of rain around noon time. Maybe not so nice for the guests, but it will cool down the ship quiet nicely.

Our aim for Chiapas is always to arrive at sun rise at the pilot station. Then you can see the way the swell runs into the port and if it is not too high for safe entering. It is more or less standard that the swell increases later during the day when the wind offshore has been blowing for a while. Thus the earlier you are, the better it is, as long as you can see the breakers on the break water.

The entrance breakwaters which is  the most critical point of sailing into port.

Because of yesterday, Captain Van Donselaar could not be that early but luck was on his side, the swell was under a good angle and did not even run into the port. So we had nothing to worry about when we sailed in accordingly. We have a pilot in Puerto Chiapas and his main function is to advise the captain where the shallow patches are in the entrance to the port as the breakwaters are just an extension of the mouth of a river. This river carries a lot of silt to open sea and once it has passed the end of the breakwaters, it loses its momentum as the sea defuses the flow. When the flow stops, the silt settles on the bottom and a bank starts to form. To keep that bank under control, there is a permanent dredger at work. But it cannot dredge everywhere at the same time. So the pilot is letting us know where the best depth is, always in the leading lights but one day at little bit to the port and another day it is a little bit to the starboard.

The electronic chart on the radar and our red dotted route going into port. The light color is shallow water and the silt disperses around the entrance. A dredger is doing its best all the time to keep the water deep on the approach route.

There is always a minimum of 2 meters under the keel, otherwise we will not go in if there is a swell running but every inch helps to make more space under the keel for more water flow and the more water that flows under the ship, the easier it is to sail into the port. And for the rest it is a question of bringing the ship to a standstill on time in the turning basin.

We either have to turn on arrival or on departure as this is not a port where you can back out off by going astern. We did so in Puerta Vallarta but that is a straight fairway and there is no swell that can make your life difficult. In the morning there is always less (or mostly no wind) so the Nieuw Amsterdam swung on arrival and then docked at the cruise terminal. We were the only cruise ship in port and thus the 2^nd berth behind us was taken up by a cargo ship which was very busy with loading Bananas. The ship had the most appropriate name of Chiquita Venture. Puerto Chiapas is, apart from being a cruise port, also an export port for tropical fruit and apart from Bananas I have also seen a lot of mango’s in containers going out; mainly for the North American market. Our pilot is a mango farmer and much to the delight of our quartermasters he always brings a few on board when the harvest is in progress.

How about this for service !! Coming back hot and bothered and there is a crew member with a nice cold towel to refresh yourself, even before you come close to the gangway.

The local Bureau of Tourism is working very hard and as a result Chiapas is one of the places where you can get in touch with local culture very easily. Our main shore excursions are inland to Maya Ruins and to the nearest city but in the terminal there are local shows and all day long they have one or more Marimba Orchestra’s playing. (Not at the same time….. they alternate) When I grew up, I saw it sometimes on television and that was always Marimba’s by themselves and sometimes with a guitar. Here they combine it with saxophones, clarinets, drums and once I even saw an Accordion. Today they played a sort of Jazz and Dixieland style, which sounded amazingly good. Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie missed a trick here.

I walked ashore briefly to have a look in the terminal as I am hunting Fridge magnets for a good friend of mine but they were out of those which had the name of the place on it. So then I thought maybe they have something exciting inside the fridge but no craft beer, only Corona. Which is not a bad beer for a warm day but I just happen to prefer Ale which has a bit more taste to it.

Tonight we will cross the border to Guatemala to call at Puerto Quetzal. for some reason, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua are on a different time zone than Mexico, although the are further east and thus we are going back an hour tonight only to hop forward twice when we are in the Caribbean.

Weather for Puerto Quetzal: no rain, no wind, hardly any clouds and thus the temperatures are going up to 87oF or 31o Celsius. So I am going to keep my bald head indoors.

It is not often that I miss a day with my blog but for the 10^th. of October 2017, it has now happened as it was a very busy day. Thus I am now catching up 24 hrs. later.  We arrived in the beautiful port of Huatalco for what was to be an uneventful day in a very nice resort. And so it remained until just around 11.30 hrs. Then out of nothing a rain squall descended on the ship, literally out of nowhere.  There was wind in the squall, better said a storm and that wind went suddenly from 0 knots to over 70 miles per hour. The same sort of idea you get when being inside the house and then open the door to the garden and get the full blow of an autumn storm in the face. That sort of change in situation

It caught the ship full on the portside and as were docked portside alongside it started to push the ship away from the dock, very fast. There was no way the mooring lines could hold against this impact wind and the bowlines broke free. And thus the bow drifted over to the shallow side of the basin and for a short time touched the seabed. All emergency crews, including yours truly, went to battle stations to contain the situation which was done very well. Kudo’s to all involved. Once the wind and the rain had passed and the tide came back in we moved the ship back to the dock.

While this was going on, we lowered a tender and sent the Hotel Director with a meet and great team to the shore to support the guests who were slowly coming back to the ship after their morning ashore. Those who had ventured into the town behind the resort where absolutely drenched by the sudden deluge. Then we used the tenders to start ferrying back the guests and when the ship returned alongside the rest that followed could just walk back on board. Because we have such elaborate safety and emergency protocols with Holland America, there were no injuries and there was no known damage to the ships bottom. Something our safety inspection afterwards confirmed.

The safety inspection delayed our departure somewhat but as you can see in the next blog the captain managed to dock only 30 minutes later than scheduled. These are the sort of things you hope that will never happen as in a port you are quite defenseless against unpredictable and unexpected weather happenings. I was just glad that all the training that we put our crew through did work; the un-expected happened and the whole ship response worked like clockwork.

A view most people do not see. The dock is nice and sheltered between the mountain ranges but as a result you can also not see anything approaching from the land side. If the two docks are full, then there is an anchorage but it is a bit of a tender ride to get into the resort behind the Dock.

Once we were back to the dock again, we had indeed the most wonderful day in port, with a gentle breeze blowing, sort of overcast skies which kept the outside temperatures under control and a lot of guests who decided to go for an afternoon ashore again, after they had dried themselves out.

I have blogged before about horizontal rain in Ketchikan and that is where you expect it but this was the first time in Mexico that I saw the same phenomenon and that is where you do not expect it. The fact that it was warm rain did not do anything to make it feel any nicer.

Tomorrow we will be in Puerto Chiapas and the weather is again very Mexican. Warm, sunny with very little wind and no rain predicted. I would not be amazed if the temperature would go up to the mid to high 80’s.

Today the ship had to generate its own wind as the Pacific Ocean was really pacific, really peaceful. There was not even a gentle breeze blowing during the day; flat calm as we call it and only the long and low rolling swell prevented the sea from being as a mirror. This swell came from two directions, from the North West indicating past mayhem close to the Gulf of Alaska and from the South West, indicating a less peaceful area of the Pacific Ocean.  But here it was quiet, very quiet. The only thing which brings a little thought of concern is this SW swell that is running, if it runs just under the wrong angle it might enter the port/bay of Huatalco. Not that it will prevent the ship from going there but it might mean that the Nieuw Amsterdam will ride along the pier and that will result in a moving gangway. And moving gangways makes the security officer very unhappy as it increases the chance of accidents.

This part of the coastal sail-a-long is not that exciting. Yes the weather is nice, we can see the shore line, but there is not much activity. For wildlife we have to wait until we are past Puerto Chiapas. Then we will get the starlings and the brown boobies circling around the ship and we most likely will see large numbers of turtles in the water or tortoises (I never know which is what). Turtles swim on the surface and they do not go very fast, not on land and not at sea. They are not a danger to us and we are not a danger to them as they bob up and down like a cork in the ships bow wave and are just pushed aside by it.  I once sailed through a raft (?) of turtles and had about 50 on either side and it was just amusing to see a hundred brown/black corks bobbing on the sides of the ship and never coming close to danger. Their biggest danger is garbage, either in the form of small plastic pieces which they eat or large plastic pieces and nets in which they get entangled.  I am very happy that Holland America already has a zero overboard policy for a long long time, which prohibits anything from going overboard.

My company was the first cruise company who really made this a point of policy. Under Marpol law there were already grave restrictions of what you could dump overboard but it was never a 0% rule. So HAL did that it’self and went very strict, so strict that it even included cigarette buds. We even had crew members fired over this, as they were slow on the uptake of understanding the fact that it also applied to them personally. Now we are 25 years down the road and we recycle about 90% of what comes on board and the rest is processed shore side. The only thing we still do is feed the fishes on occasion. If we cannot burn, dry or compact food we still provide a feast for those living under water and thus they get a bit of an exotic boost to their regular diet.

We do the same with water; by the time it goes back it is as clean as when it came on board. It are just the health rules that prevent us from recycling the water for our own use, in the same was as they do on board a space craft. The technique used there is not much different than what we have on board, it is just smaller. So galley water, shower and sink water and toilet water all gets processed before the filtered water is returned to where it came from. Although we load water in most ports; once at sea we mainly use seawater which we convert into fresh water by means of evaporators which work on the excess heat produced by the main engines.

A diagram indicating how our exhaust gas cleaning system works. The final left over ends up in a sludge tank. Some ships dry the sludge and compact it into bricks before giving it ashore for further processing or it is pumped ashore directly, which is something we do.

The latest technology we now have available are scrubbers; which are a sort of washing machines which filtes out all the soot from the exhaust gases. This is a fairly new technology for the shipping industry and we are at the fore front of having it.  It is one of the reasons that you see less and less colored smoke coming from our ships funnels.  The old days when ships were bellowing smoke while sailing down the river are completely gone. But then in those days everything smoked. From the oven in the kitchen to the steam train at the station. Not to mention that nearly the whole male population also sent smoke plumes in the air on a continuous basis. Holland America also has a Quit Smoke program for its crew but that is a different story.

Tomorrow we are in a resort port which listens to the wonderful name of Huatalco de Santa Cruz and is set in a natural bay in the coast line. It is supposed to be a wind still day, with a chance of showers and temperatures around 77oF or 25oC. There being no wind might make it feel a lot warmer between the mountain ranges so a bit of shade might be a appreciated bonus.

Housekeeping notes:

Some readers have advised that they do not get the automatic notification anymore. The computer experts are looking into it, some links have been replaced but the cause is still being investigated.

I have updated the captains sailing schedules on the blog, which is now up todate (Subject to extremely much change) until the end of 2018. The company has appointed two new captains and their bio’s should be on line in a few days.

Puerta Vallarta is located in a bay, far inland and not directly on the coast line of the Pacific Ocean. One of the pilots told me in the past that this was due to the river that flows through of what is now the town and resort. Or better said a city as PV has grown enormously since he 1950’s. Then it was a quiet laid back little town and was made famous by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor with their movie the Night of the Iguana. If that resulted in this enormous boom which started in the late 80’s I do not know but it is now very big compared to what it was.

Tender service in 1984 with the ms Noordam (III). As you can see the tender even had it’s own local pilot. Note how empty the background is.

When I came here for the first time in 1984 we could only find the entrance to the port, which is indeed the end of a small river, by trying to see three small apartment buildings against the glare on the rising sun over the mountains. There was no way of recognizing anything that remotely looked like a port as it was all low land and a swampy area where now a large cruise port is located. With only one dock, we had to anchor most of the time as we always had the Star Dancer alongside as she made 7 days trips from Los Angeles and we made 14 day trips. (Same pecking order as I described yesterday at Cabo) That lasted until finally the pilot convinced the captain that we could dock inside with two anchors and ropes from the stern to the shore. Style Mediterranee we call this in nautical jargon as it used to be standard in all the Mediterranean ports and often still is.

The view of the port from the approach channel in 1984. Note the two poles striped red and white. They are the leading lights old version. This is the green channel buoy and the tender is not in the center of the channel as the leading light masts are not in line. The tender hugged the green side to keep the rest of the fairway clear for other boats.

Now there are three docks for cruise ships and quite often they are full, especially midweek when the 7 days ships are in. All three berths full, and sometimes even one more at the anchorage. We did not have any issue, as there were only two of us. They were repairing the cruise terminal, berth no. 1 and it look liked that they were adding more shopping capacity. So we were directed to berth 3 as berth nbr. 2 was occupied by “The World”.

The World. It is about the size of the Veendam or Maasdam but has only 220 apartments instead of 670 cabins which is more standard for this size.

This is a real floating apartment building and for some time now completely owned by the owners of the apartments on board and that qualifies it to be a sort of floating country club as there is no real nautical word for it. Ocean Club??? As far as I understand the process, all the members vote on a proposed itinerary about two years before and the captain takes into account all the highlights of the Jet-Set in the various places in the world. I have seen the ship at Cannes film week, at various Grand Prix and at other locations where anybody who is “somebody” or thinks he or she is somebody, needs to be.  As the ship cannot be everywhere at the same time, there is a sort of voting system. I do not know if there was something special going on in PV or that it was just a regular call on the sailing schedule.  The apartment owners fly in and out whenever they want and as a result the ship is sometimes nearly empty when the location and time does not fit in with the owner’s schedules. In most ports it stays for at least 48 hrs. so there is more leisurely time to explore, meet friends and go out for dinner.

A view of the port from the same location near the beginning of the approach channel, now higher up. Where once the swamps were is now a shopping mall. Note the red and white striped poles. Those are the new leading lights, much higher otherwise you can not see the lights against the background light of the shops. The two masts are exactly in line which means the photographer is in the middle of the channel (and the ship under him hopefully as well)

Because The World was in port, it made it a bit tight for swinging inside and thus the Nieuw Amsterdam went stern in, or backed up as the landlubber would say. To sail in stern first, the ship is swung around just outside the port boundary, lined up on the leading lights and then goes in with about 1.5 to 2 knots stern way and slowly the stern is then moved over until the whole ship is aligned with the dock. In the old days, the officer aft would call out if the ship was in, and stayed in the leading lights and thus in the middle of the fairway, nowadays we have a camera at the stern and we can just look at the screen on the bridge and the nautical chart with GPS position (exact to a foot) does the rest. The Sea Captains from the old days would have been very jealous if they would have known how it is done nowadays; or maybe they would not………… as there is now email………………… and lots of it. Most of the day we had overcast skies which in a way was a blessing as there was no wind and a bright sun would have made it very warm.

We stayed here to until 17.30 hrs. being the all on board time and left when the last crew had returned from their shopping missions at Walmart. Our next port of call is now Huatalco de Santa Cruz but we first will have a sea day as it is more than 600 miles of sailing along the Mexican coast.