Nicely on time we docked this morning at the Crown Bay cruise ship dock at 07.00 hrs. As explained last cruise all HAL ships use this dock instead of the Havensight dock opposite the downtown area of Charlotte Amalie. It was a full day today with all the docks occupied. If there had been more ships then they would have had to go to the anchorage.  Next to us we had the Allure of the Seas who came in a little bit later in the morning. At Havensight we had the Carnival Splendor, the Disney Fantasy and the Regal Princess. If you only count the number of lower beds on the ships then there would have been in port today 12,800 guests. It being a Thanksgiving cruise means that a lot of the upper beds must have been in use as well, so my guess is that the shopkeepers could say hello today to at least 15,000 guests, and then we are not counting the crew. The Westerdam has a lower berth capacity of 1916 and we have 2150 on board this cruise. I expect the other ships are in a similar situation.

Today was a busy day on the Westerdam. With all the guests going ashore the Staff Captain lined up all his 18 sailors for a major chipping project on the under decks of the ps. lifeboats.  St. Thomas is about the only day when nearly all the guests are gone and you do not inconvenience anybody if you rope off one side of the ship. I just hope nobody wanted to sleep in until after 09.00 hrs.

Then at 10.30 there was the monthly General Emergency Drill; where we go through the whole alarm cycle as if it is a real emergency and not a training drill. Our biggest challenge here is to ensure everybody is accounted for. If the ship sinks we can always buy a new ship, Mr. Arison is rich enough, but we cannot buy a new guest or a new crew member. No one will be left behind. Today’s focus of the drills was how to get guests and  crew to their muster stations if they were wounded, confused or unwilling to go.

For that purpose I had enlisted my team of trainee’s.  There were two with a broken leg laying in a crew area, one Drama Queen who refused to leave the cabin and two obnoxious guests who were acting as if they did not believe it was real and did not want to leave the public area they were sitting in. To discern them from the real guests, they all wore a white helmet.

To identify / find these people we have three main teams, the Passenger Assist Team who evacuate all the Guest Cabins, the Passenger Sweep Team who clear out the public area’s and the Crew Sweep Team who evacuate the crew cabins and crew areas.

Once they were given the order to start their sweep, it took only 5 minutes to find them all. Then the stretcher teams and the wheel chairs had to be brought to the location to get all “the helmets” safely to the muster station. This takes a bit longer as in principle we also simulate that the elevators do not work. Although in a real emergency we normally have at least 4 in working order as those 4 receive their power from the Emergency Generator.  This counting and coordinating of missing people on board is done by Muster Control. This is a group under the leadership of the Hotel Director who coordinates the whole process and ensures we get 100% of everybody at the Muster station.

As we are an operational cruise ship not all crew participates as the Lido still has to open for lunch on time, the bridge and engine room still have to be manned and also security cannot leave the gangway. But we try to use skeleton crews there and have at least 90% of the crew partake in the drill. Then this 10% crew will attend the next drill.

In the end all who were involved were accounted for except one. The only one who was missing was ….me. I was sitting in the front office observing the accounting process and thus I never made it to my muster station. But I was reported so I would have been found.

We left Crown Bay nicely on time and tomorrow we will be at sea, heading North West towards Half Moon Cay. This is a tight stretch in our schedule so the ship is going full out. We have wind and current with us and that means we should easily make it on time.

I almost thought we were the biggest ship in port today but it was not the case. When we docked we had the Seabourn Odyssey next to us and an old Seabourn ship, which is now sailing for WindStar, at Pier 1.  But then at 14.30 the Celebrity Silhouette arrived and that ship is with 122,000 tons considerably larger than our Westerdam.  I was working with two sailors and a cadet on deck when I saw an ambulance waiting at the empty dock nbr.3. An Ambulance is normally a clear sign that a cruise ship is coming in and yes shortly after it came around the corner.

This afternoon I spent some time rigging up a wooden wall for a coming damage control drill. The Vista Class is different in layout than the S and R class and it means I cannot use the aft mooring deck but had to create something on a passenger deck. So today I designed a rolling ships bulkhead with holes, which we will roll into position when it is time for the drill on Thursday. You will see the results then on Thursday         ………..probably photos with a lot of very wet engineers.

My class was being indoctrinated at the same time by the Safety, Environmental and Health Officer. Every crew member has to go through basic environmental training about recycling, conserving energy, working safely etc. etc. The higher the ranking is, the more training there is, and the more complicated it becomes.  I make sure my students get the chance to do this during their period with me so it will not conflict with their working or rest hours once they are on their own ship.  After the training course the S.E.H was taking them on a tour of the ship to explain a bit more about the history of all the improvements which we have made in becoming more and more environmentally friendly and what we are still working on. Some of that is software (training the crew in procedures) and some of it is hardware.

Without going into too much technical detail, the system is simply a washing system working on sea water and nothing goes over board but is collected and stored. (Courtesy www.Motorship.com

The HAL fleet is currently busy with installing scrubbers which reduce the emissions of the ships. A number of years ago we made the change from regular fuel oil to sulfur free fuel oil. This was a big step as all the engines had to be adapted to be able to burn sulfer lean fuel. This made the emissions of a ship a lot better. Now the next step is to clean out what is still left in the exhaust gas. With a simple description we call it “particles”. Most of those particles you see on deck as soot.  As I am not an engineer at all, I describe a scrubber as a sort of washing machine which uses sea water to wash, scrub, and rinse out all the soot particles.

Here on the Westerdam they are in the final testing phase. Installing it on a car (a catalysator) is much easier than doing the same on a ship. A car just drives down the road. A ship bounces and rolls down the road. With the ships movement there is always a little variation in the engine output, the outside temperatures varies greatly from day to day and also the fuel which we bunker is not always exactly the same. Ashore when you tank Shell V- super (I do not know if you have that in the States but it is a premium petrol option) then you get the same quality at every pump, wherever you are. Not so with ships bunker fuel. What you order is in compliance with the standards of the type of fuel requested but as those standards are not that tightly defined you do not get the same in Piraeus as in Amsterdam.

Eventually it will mean that all Holland America Line ships will have solved both the issues of pumping things overboard, and puffing things in the air. For a few years now we have had Zenon which cleans out all the grey and black water and now we will also have nice and clean exhausts. Apart from those ships that run solely on gas turbines (which burn gas oil) we will have the highest standards in the industry.  Next step will be the arrival of more and more ships which run on LNG and that does not have any exhaust at all. The first cruise ships with this system have been ordered and no doubt more will come.  It is an exciting time to be an S.E.H Officer.

Tomorrow we will be in St. Thomas and we might be lucky again. During the day here in San Juan the rain stayed away and the sun caused a nice and warm day, and it looks like  in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas that it will be partly cloudy / read partly sunny with temperatures of 84oF / 29oC. That might cause difficult decisions to be made by the guests. Do we take the children to the beach, or do we go shopping??

I normally go for breakfast at 06.00 in the morning as it gives me an hour to review the class material for the day and when I went up to the Lido the weather did not look good. Dark clouds were gathering over the northern part of the island and there was rain in the distance. But it turned out well as shortly after, when the sun arose above the horizon; all the dark bits disappeared overseas. The sun came out and although it was sometimes more cloudy than sunny, it was a perfect day for the beach. We were in port together with the Carnival Dream and once both ships pushed out the gangways a relentless stream of happy guests rolled ashore and a lot of them straight onto the beach.

I took this photo last cruise, as today this welcome sign was obstructed permanently by the continuous flow of many guests between ship and shore.

I did not have a camera with me so I missed a priceless opportunity of taking a unique photo.  At about 9 am, while there was still a wave of guests coming out of the ship, an old Gentleman with a Rollator was slowly making his way towards the beginning of the pier with the duty free shops. Because he was going so slowly and the rest was going so fast, the overtaking guests passed him on both sides. It really looked like a stone in the water and seeing a strong current rippling passed it on both sides. It did not deter him in the slightest and he kept his slow but steady pace towards the terminal.

That was about all I saw from the outside world today. I have taken over the Training Room on board and that space is located on A deck which is the highest crew deck and also the deck where the Tenders are leaving from. It has a small porthole but it is always closed as otherwise you cannot see the screen with the power points.

The numbering of the decks on our ships sometimes  gives reason for confusion. In the old days the decks only had names and the crew decks had letters. With the arrival of the more modern cruise ships we also numbered the decks but the names still prevailed. Then it became compulsory (starting with the Rotterdam in 1997) to have the decks numbered and the cabin numbers correspond to it. This resulted in 4 digit cabin numbers.  What was on the S class cabin 103 now became on the R class 7103. Seven being the boat deck and the 7^th deck above the lowest crew deck.

With the arrival of the Vista Class, the emphasis came on the number and less on the name. This made sense as most guests could not remember the names of the decks anyway and went up and down in the elevator in the same way as ashore.  Nowadays even the crew members do not always remember the names of the decks. If they live higher up in the ship, they live on deck 7 or deck 8; they will seldom say Rotterdam Deck or Navigation Deck.  Again it is a little thing where modern regulation has pushed company tradition a little bit to the side.

I was bumped up for the coming three weeks from an outside cabin on Main deck – Deck 1 – amidships to an inside cabin on Rotterdam deck – Deck 7- ps. Aft.  I do not mind what sort of cabin I have, as long as it has a good bed, a shower and no singing neighbors. A large cabin is not always an improvement if you are working on board.  I once ended up in the ships Penthouse, which is very large, very luxurious and very impractical if you are working. It already takes you 5 minutes to switch off all the lights before you go to bed. Too many lights, too many options and too many hotel switches. (If you switch off something with one button, it comes back on again with another button)  This time I have a very quiet cabin; to my right is the steward station and to my lift is the emergency staircase. And as long there is no emergency, it is very quiet in that staircase.

The team had engine room familiarization today, courtesy of the Staff Chief Engineer. This consisted of a march through all the spaces with all the safety features being pointed out. In the coming days we will review those systems in theory and then later on they will all get the chance to push buttons.

Tomorrow we are in San Juan, so at 3 pm the Westerdam put the pedal to the metal, swung away from the dock and raced back into the North Atlantic. The Carnival Dream was still trying to get the last stragglers from the beach back on board and missed her planned sailing time.

We expect to be at the San Juan pilot station at 10.30am and to be docked just before our official arrival time of 1200 hrs. Weather: Scattered Thunder storms, 86oF / 30oC. If we send out sufficient positive vibes then those thunder storms might stay over the Rain Forest and not come too much to the North and over the port.

After a rainy departure the ms Westerdam crossed the Straits of Florida and sailed through the Bahamas into the North Atlantic Ocean.  We are now fully in open waters, the sun is shining and is providing a beautiful day for all on board. The ship is full of happy family’s and the children are all over the place while the Club HAL attendants are trying to keep them occupied at various locations. We have a dedicated area for children behind the funnel on Deck 10 but during a cruise like this the Club HAL area, although quite large, is much too small. Thus the three conference rooms and the Disco have also been taken over. And listening to the amount of noise coming out when I walked by, it seemed that a good time was had by all.

Sometimes we can even be too successful. It is not unusual for children to be reluctant to go there during the first day, then starting to like it so by day 3 you cannot get them out anymore. I have seen small dramas been played out when the parents try to get “little Johnny” to come to the dining room for dinner and the little man is steadfastly refusing to do so. Being among peers, not being told off by parents, and having the choice to eat pizza instead of turkey, does not make for a difficult decision.  These are our future customers so then Holland America is not going to be skimpy on pizza.

Club HAL tween area.

The Club HAL program is an integrated part of our operation and each ship has a Club HAL location on the top aft deck.  All ships except the Prinsendam as that is completely designed for different cruises. But there is a Club HAL person on board if and when groups of children are expected and then a regular public room is used.

Club HAL teen area.

Because they work with children, the selection/vetting of Club HAL staff is very rigorous to ensure we get the best even if they are part timers. Normally there are two or three staff on board but the company norm is at least one for every 20 children and thus we have part timers as well. Quite often students who are studying to become teachers or for other jobs where one is working with children and they come out during the vacation periods. Then we have more children on board and these students have the same vacation time as well. They get a minimum of a free cruise out of it and the ports off while practicing the work which they have chosen to do for the future.   A win, win for everybody.

I expect that the other cruise ships on the 7 day run this week will be as full of families as we are. The Carnival ships might have even more children on board than normal and it will change the make-up of the crowds in the ports considerably. We will be together in Grand Turk with a Carnival ship and I have the vague suspicion that the beach next to the pier will be heaving.  I remember from my young days that we used to stake out sections of beach for the group/gang which you belonged to, we then dug a hole and used the out coming sand to build a wall and then protected it until our last breath from the assaults (normally with buckets of water) of “the others”. Maybe we will see a similar sandpit battle of HAL against Carnival.

In the meantime my 5 new officers have started class and today they went through the first of many of the indoctrination sessions they will have to absorb. This morning was with the rest of all the newly boarded crew and they got a parade of a whole group of persons who needed to speak some wise words.  In a nutshell:

Captain – welcome on board, work as a team and enjoy yourself

Medical Officer – wash your hands and stay healthy

Environmental Officer – Do not throw anything overboard and save the planet.

Security Officer – Behave yourself.

Safety/Training officer – Your first drill is Grand Turk Morning.

Human Resources Officer – Make sure you complete your paper work and turn it in on time.

This whole parade takes about 45 minutes and then there will be further trainings and explanations in the near future. Only my group will be stuck with this sort of stuff for the next three weeks. But better to digest it slowly than having to absorb it all at once when you start working, and it is an awful lot.

Weather for tomorrow in Grand Turk, real Caribbean weather: partly cloudy, temperatures around  85oF or 29oC and a gentle easterly breeze.

We were happily docked by 07.00 hrs. Ready for a regular turnover day, in other words, regular – controlled-mayhem.  Getting the guests ashore is not so difficult, they all have their disembarkation colors which relate to their luggage and they are being called off group by group. By 10 am. they were all gone and yours truly could saunter ashore to show his face to the CBP to ensure that he was still legally the same person from the cruise before and to help achieve the all-important “zero count”. Everybody really being off the ship………………… Once that is achieved, shore side can prepare for the wave going the other way.  And with it being a Thanksgiving cruise, it was a very excited wave with lots of little cruisers charging up the gangway.

ms Westerdam arriving in Ft.Lauderdale. Screenshot from the web cam in the port.

The company had also invited a group of 80 Sea Cadets to visit the ship and be shown around. These are teenagers who are sponsored by the US Navy, with the hope that they eventually will join the forces. It was strange to see that they were in combat fatigues and not as we in Europe are used to with white caps and tallywackers. But they were also excited; especially when it came to the Lido Lunch, each station was visited several times by most of them. First time I have seen somebody eating a pepperoni pizza with pork in and coconut on top. (The Italian and Far East food station are next to each other) I do not see these guys coming back as Holland America employees but seeing a ship might strengthen their resolve to seek a career on the water. And maybe later we see them coming back cruising with HAL when they all have family’s so I am all for it.

The Westerdam docked. In the back ground the Largest “apartment of the seas” the Allure of the Seas. (Web-shots taken by Lesley Schoonderbeek)

Thus most of the controlled mayhem is coming from the shore side. A whole wave of service personnel and sub-contractors descend on the ship to do all the necessary work to keep all the equipment going. Our engineers do a lot themselves but nobody is a real coffee machine expert and for those specialized jobs we have regular contracts with shore side companies. What we also do not have on board and thus he comes from the shore side is a piano tuner. Every week we hear the ping ping and poing poing rippling through the ship, when the tuner goes from lounge to lounge. The gentleman who is doing this I have seen coming on board at least for 10 years if not longer. Now thinking about it, I have never seen a Lady piano tuner. They must be out there, I suppose, but I have never seen one on the ships; and we get tuners on board all over the world. Once we had a Piano Tuner on board in one European port who had a baby with him in a stroller and the little chap slept through all the noise his father was making but thus far I have never seen a lady tuner.

My class of trainees showed up as scheduled, right at the moment I was stuck in immigration and helping the zero count. I hate that as I like to meet and greet them when coming on board, but the three week course has now started. I have a Lady Officer from Holland, a Lady Officer from England, one Gentleman officer from Holland, and two Gentlemen from Belgium (Dutch side). Four have been with the company before as cadets and one comes from a tanker company. It seems he has finally seen the light that there is more to look at than only oil and pipes.  Today we only had a short get-together as I do not believe in people in the class with jet lag  so tomorrow we will start in earnest.

During the day the weather turned for the worse and it started to rain and of course also during the Passenger Safety Briefing on deck. I prefer the guests to be on deck for a drill so they can actually see the boat, but with weather like this, it would be nicer to be happily inside in a public room. Autumn weather (although the rain is warm) does not look good in Florida.

For the coming days, we have to hope and think positive. There is a lot of rain around, but at the moment it looks like we will be calling at Grand Turk during the only sunny day they will have this whole cruise. So our positive thoughts must go to helping the weather forecast get better.

With more wind than expected the ms Westerdam dropped the hook at HMC. There was up to 25 knots of wind blowing from the South East. Not the best angle for a safe anchorage or a nice tender operation. But because the Westerdam has Azipods and thus can put a lot of power to push the ship against the wind, a good lee-side could be made on the portside and a safe shuttle service could be operated. It must have been a bit of a surprise for some of the guests, while happily sitting on a rock steady shore tender and then suddenly to be rolling considerably. That happened the moment the shore tender cleared the lee of the ship on the way to shore and it got caught in the waves rolling in from the South. Luckily the Tender skippers always make a careful announcement about everybody remaining seated while the tender is moving. If somebody was caught by surprise then it was not a surprise as a safety announcement was made.  The weather was nice and sunny and a good time could be had by all.

I was to continue my narration about safety in the kitchen.

Part II, if the fire is too big to handle by the crewmember / cook on location. If the crewmember comes to that conclusion then we go to containment and wait until the Fire Fighting Teams arrive to take over. This does not mean that a crewmember cannot do something. We have gadgets to protect the area and to extinguish a fire remotely.

As cooks never work alone, they can do several things at the same time. One can call the bridge and report. Another one can evacuate everybody to a safe distance and a 3^rd one can activate the fixed fire fighting equipment. All three things are trained, even the telephone call to the bridge. There is a protocol for calling as the bridge will ask questions. The better the crewmember is prepared, the quicker the call goes and the faster the bridge can respond. Thus when a crewmember calls, he/she has to give Name, Function, Location, Sort of emergency & what is happening and what Action has already been taken. This all together gives the officer on the bridge the time to form a mental picture about the situation which he/she can use to provide the proper information to the Emergency Response Teams that are being activated.

Activation buttons next to the emergency escape door. A push button for stopping all the equipment and a break glass button for ventilation stop.

Removing everybody to a safe area means that there is at least one Fire Screen Door between the area of the emergency/ fire and everybody without protective equipment. Guests and Crew alike. Preferably two Fire screen doors if we can manage it. As all our cooking areas are surrounded by steel bulkheads, the only week spot are open doors and serving hatches.  Closing the hatches and closing the access doors (Which are Fire Screen Doors) will ensure that the area affected will be completely surrounded by a wall of steel that will contain the fire for at least 60 minutes. Long enough for a Response Team to reach the area and do their job. It is a company requirement for a Response Team to be on location and ready to deploy into the affected area in 8 minutes from the moment the alarm sounded.

Then the cook in the area can activate the fixed fire fighting equipment. Cooking area’s on ships are so constructed that the activating equipment is located close to the Emergency Exit door which will be used when evacuating the area. So when everybody runs out, the only thing the last person out has to do is hit the buttons and then close the door.

Not a very exciting photo except for a mariner. High pressure water mist nozzles in the ceiling. This extinguishes every fire.

The buttons that are being pushed are: The emergency stop of all power supplies. The activation button of the HI-Fog. (This is a very fine water mist system which is sprayed under high pressure into the area and is very effective in extinguishing fires. Even big engine room fires.)  The shutdown of all ventilation. Then we have CO2 available in case there is a fire in an extraction hood above the cooking areas.  By the time the Firefighting teams arrive, most likely they do not have to do much anymore except checking if the fire is really out and ensuring there is no Reflash and then make the area safe for entry again.

This was the last port call of our cruise and nearly all guests are going home. As the Westerdam does the same cruise every week, we have very few back to back cruisers because there is nothing new to see.  The coming cruise is the Thanks Giving Cruise which is a real family cruise. We are getting extra Club HAL staff on board to look after the large number of children for the coming week.  I will have my own “children” to look after as my school class will be boarding tomorrow.

We will arrive early in Port everglades and as it is a normal call the whole circus of change over day will start at 07.00 hrs. in the morning. Weather forecast for tomorrow: Partly Cloudy skies 84oF / 29oC and a gentle breeze.

For those going home, it is going to be busy at the airport as apart from ourselves, we have the Oasis of the Seas in, the Seabourn Odyssey, The Independence of the Seas and also the Emerald Princess;  which together will be landing approx. 16,500 guests if they all sailed full.

The wind ensured that the rain stayed away and the guests had a sunny day at sea. We had following winds which made the relative wind on deck just pleasant with 12 knots. The ship is running at 18 knots which means that the true wind is at least 30+ knots. When I had a good look at the waves at lunch time it looked like it was blowing at least 35 knots and sometimes more. That is a nice gale. Those winds create waves and if they have been there for a while there is also swell and we have that swell three quarters on the stern. This is the most unpleasant angle to have swell at. You can get that nasty cork screw motion. But with our speed, we are “surfing” most of it away and we only have occasionally a little roll or indication that we are in open waters. The swell angle is just enough towards the beam for the stabilizers to still get a good grip on the waves. At least most of the time.

The route takes us exactly in the opposite direction as from the beginning of the cruise. Late last evening was sailed past San Juan and just before lunch time we came abeam of Grand Turk Island, but not close enough to see much. Then late this evening we will come in the vicinity of the Grand Bahama Bank and we will dive in between the islands to approach Half Moon Cay from the South as it is located on the West side of San Salvador Island.

Thus today is a full sea day and the ship provides all of the Holland America line cruise activities. On a seven day cruise we do not have much time to entertain the guests as most of the time they are ashore and today being the last sea day we have to make up for it. If a guest wants to follow and partake in the complete program today, then he/she might need another cruise to catch their breath again.

This is part of the staff of the Main Kitchen, which stretches on the Westerdam over two decks.

I relieved the Training Officer from a number of trainings today, which are all related to initial actions in case something happens. First Response Training it is called.  95% of all emergencies on board are solved by the quick and correct action of a crewmember. Be it extinguishing a small fire, or helping a choking guest with the Heimlich maneuver; whatever it is a small quick response prevents something from being a small challenge to becoming a big problem. The most dangerous area on board, apart from the Engine Room is the kitchen.  To have a fire you need Oxygen, Material/fuel and Heat. All three are present in abundance in any cooking area. And we have some very large cooking areas.

This is part of the main kitchen, the soup kitchen. To the left is one of the fat fryers we always worry about.

Because the equipment varies from ship to ship and the cooks also rotate through the various kitchen areas, it is important that we refresh their knowledge on a regular basis. All Cooks know what to do in an emergency at least the basic principles. Try to extinguish the fire if it is not too big; phone the bridge, evacuate the area and close as many doors as you can. But we have a lot of equipment available to counter a fire and to ensure that everything available is used properly, you need training.

The biggest danger is a Deep Fat Fryer. The hot oil is almost at a temperature were it can ignite itself and if that happens the flames flare up and can spread very quickly. Certainly if you have a moving ship.

The training goes as follows for such a fire:

Small fire basic instructions: use fire blanket, use CO2 extinguisher, use powder extinguisher, and do not use water. When the fire is out, call the bridge to report. What is a small fire?  Such a size that you are comfortable with to extinguish yourself. And then we simulate using the equipment to do it.

What is a big fire: you are not comfortable to do it yourself. What we do then I will explain tomorrow.

Thus tomorrow we arrive at Half Moon Cay and we will be the only ship. Which means there will be plenty of space for everybody.  The weather forecast (at least for the inhabited island next door) calls for partly cloudy skies with a gentle breeze and temperatures of 27oC or 81o F. It should be a beautiful day to end the cruise with.

Today we are in St. Thomas and although we always call it that, it is officially Charlotte Amalie, and the area we are docking in is Crown Bay.  When I first came to the island in the early 80’s it was still a submarine base for the US navy.  They left somewhere in the late 80’s and then it was decided to redevelop the area as a cruise terminal for the overflow of cruise ships. With the ships getting larger and the length of the pier at Havensight (West Indian Dock Company Pier) being limited, more and more ships had to anchor or were forced to have different calling schedules.  Carnival Corporation invested in the dock and allocated it primary for the use of Holland America and Princess. It is of course also used by other companies, including Carnival.

Crown Bay on full house day. The red roofs in front of the ships is the little shopping centre. In the far distance Havensight with three mega liners alongside.

Holland America is parking it ships here now permanently and the dock can take two large ships. Today we were by ourselves and the captain decided to dock nose in at the north side. (He was probably pushed by the Staff Captain as it was boat drill time today and the sb. boats had to go down. The portside boats get their chance in San Juan which is nearly always sb. side alongside)  Also coming in to dock has two options as Crown  Bay is laying behind Water Island and you can come in/leave via the West Gregory channel or the East Gregory channel.

Crown Bay in the shelter of the island.

Which one you pick depends on your arrival maneuver. If you are planning to dock stern in, it normally works best to come in from the West, overshoot the dock and then go astern alongside. If you are planning to go nose in, then the East approach works better as it is a straight shot in. When you leave it is just going astern, bring the bow over to port and open sea is right there.  Today we were alone at Crown Bay but Havensight was full with the Freedom of the Seas, the Norwegian Gem and the Norwegian Spirit. Altogether bringing 8000 eager shoppers ashore. So maybe it is not such a bad idea of being in Crown Bay, it is a lot quieter there. There are also shops and the open air island taxi’s run very frequently for those who feel the need to go to downtown.

While the guests were running ashore, 25% of the crew went on exercise. As blogged before, all crew has to be trained during a monthly cycle and this normally means they get one training and then a drill in this one month’s time period. During the training – drill the officers take the time to explain and exercise everything, either to teach the crewmember or to refresh. Then when the months cycle comes to an end there is the drill-drill where everything has to go smooth and fast without any help or explanation. Today was training time and then things are being taken very slowly as for most crewmembers messing around with lifeboats is not their daily job. Normally they are focused on passenger services, either front of the house or back of the house.

I am starting to gear up for my school class which will be joining this coming Fort Lauderdale. This week I am also doing some training for the regular crew and some audit work but the main reason for my being here on the Westerdam is the Nautical Excellence Class. To my amazement I found three of my previous students here on board. One from the December 2014 class on the Rotterdam and two from my last class on the October Rotterdam class. Makes sense I suppose as they are just in the cycle of being on the ships. Those of the March Noordam class joined their ships in April and May and are now on leave.

We sail from St. Thomas at 17.00 hrs. and will spend tomorrow at sea, retracing our steps back towards Florida. But we have one final stop to make and that is a call at Half Moon Cay, our private island. We were lucky with the weather today although mainly overcast, it remained dry in Crown Bay. What will come in the next 36 hours is a bit of a guess as the frontal system is still here but it has cleared the Bahamas area. So in principle we should have sun shine and if the weather develops as forecast the winds should die down to a gentle breeze. That is always nice if there are two ships in, as you anchor at HMC quite close to each other.

Due to the distance from Grand Turk we cannot arrive here much earlier than noon time in San Juan and that is what we did.  We arrived at the pilot station at 10.30am and were docked an hour later. Official arrival time is noon time but most captains try to be a little bit earlier to ensure that the clearance time needed by the authorities is not eating into the shore time of the guests. It worked out this time and just after 12 noon there was the dong-dong for all ashore that is going ashore.  Already in port was the Norwegian Gem and the Aida Vita.  The Navigator of the Seas came in around 2 pm. Not a bad day for those earning their money in tourism. Roughly just under 11,000 guests going ashore.

The Aida bike tour gathering. I wonder how the local drivers will cope with such a throng of bikes. Not a usual sight in San Juan.

The Aida Vita is docked next to us and we could see their bicycle shore excursion going off. All Aida ships have bikes on board, some of them have over 200 and it is wildly popular among the Germans.  They do biking tours in every port as far as I know, maybe with the exception of Russia. I find it fascinating to see this, especially as the whole thing is organized with German “Grundlichkeit” or thoroughness. They have an official “Fahrrad Meister” on board. This is a function you could translate into bicycle manager but it is much more as the German word “Meister” also encompasses the quality of being an expert. This function is responsible for the whole operation in regards to the bikes. Going off the ship, back on the ship and the tour in-between. I assume that there is also a dedicated bicycle repairman on board as with so many bikes it is not something an engineer can do just on the side.

When the ship docks, all these bikes have to be brought ashore and I have seen them doing 150 bikes in 10 minutes. As it was such a startling sight to see these bikes pouring out at such a high tempo from the ships break door, I walked over (this was in Bergen Norway about two years ago) and asked how this worked so well. The answer was, we train. So they had dedicated training to carry 150 bikes ashore in 10 minutes to ensure that the gangway was not unduly blocked and the tours could leave on time.  Just amazing.

The port has a narrow entrance but a large central basin which branches off to the various dock areas,

San Juan is a fairly easy port to enter, with just one challenge, the wind. The port is under the constant influence of the Trade Wind, which when enhanced by a weather front, can easily blow up to wind force 8. The problem is that wind is full on the ps. beam when entering the port and full on the sb. beam when docking.  When the wind is pushing you off track the course compensation you need to apply makes it sometimes look as if you are entering port under a totally wrong angle. The bow is aiming straight for the Fortress on the eastern shore and the middle of the ship is on track in the fairway. It makes life a bit more interesting but it can scare the guests who are watching the approach.

Today we had about 30 knots of easterly winds in open water, about 25 knots when we passed the Fortress at the entrance and then it came down to between 10 to 15 knots in the harbor. So not much of a problem for a powerful ship such as the Westerdam and we docked without much of issue at Pier 4 West.  San Juan has a number of dedicated docks for cruise ships.  Pier one is mainly used as an overflow and for the smaller ships, Pier two is currently not there, Pier three is for the mega liners and Pier four is for everything which fits in and that was us as well today.

The weather was clearing up and the sun came out. There was still a lot of rain in the air but it was mainly hanging over the Forest to the south. Tomorrow might be a different story as there is a band of rain clouds in the area and thus Ch. Amalie, St Thomas might offer a rainy shopping day.  That port is just around the corner and therefore we can leave tonight at 11 pm. Even then it only takes about 12 knots to get there for a normal arrival time. I hope it will be dry, at least in the port as rain, even warm rain, is not much fun and most of the crew has safety drill tomorrow and standing on deck in the rain is even less fun.

It was not a very nice morning when we approached the island. Overcast, windy and rainy.  The rain and the wind eased off later but the clouds stayed. The dock is located on the SW side of the body of the Grand Turk Island which puts it in the lee side of the island. Thus the island protects it from the ocean swell and it should help with reducing the wind as well and create a lee. Unfortunately the island is as flat as can be, so there is not much lee side to enjoy. For centuries the main source of income was harvesting salt from the sea by means of salt plains and you can only have salt plains if the surface is flat and preferably can be put under water when needed.  Luckily the wind was dead east and with the Pier only under a slight angle from the East it did not cause much of a problem for docking the Westerdam.

The Noordam was the first ship docking at the new pier in 2006. Note how small the dredged area is around the dock and how near the deep water is near the stern.

Although the ship has ample power to deal with adverse winds (read wind on the beam) there is not much room to drift when coming in as they did not dredge very widely around the dock. Barely two ships widths of room to come in and that gives only 32 meters extra to play wide and that is not that much.  So the captains concern is always where the ship is in perspective to this dock; how close are we to the closing line of the markers on the sb. side. And thus the officer parked on the wing at the not- docking side keeps a close eye on whether he still sees the beacons open, closing or closed (which means……… if you see them in line, you are on the edge)

They built the dock out as far as they could, as far as the shallow water reached. The end of the dock is almost at the edge of where the rim of the island falls away into the abyss which is 3000 feet down.  The last part of the dock is only a catwalk to each of the mooring bollards. This is not a problem for the linesmen and the ropes but it can be a problem for putting out the gangway. On the Vista Class ships the gangway is preferably at the amidships staircase as there is the largest handling area for the Scanners and for people to wait. The forward staircase is also possible but it is all a little bit tighter there for traffic control.

The central square of the Resort village. It is open for general public as well.

Going more forward to put the amidships gangway on the main part of the dock means the ship has to go as much forward as possible. For the draft this is possible but when they constructed the pier they did not put as many bollards on the pier as we as captains would have liked. Thus with the nose further in, the ropes are more vertical than what we prefer them to be. The longer the ropes, the lesser the angle with the vertical and the more weight they can carry before they will snap.  Not that they are likely to snap as they can carry /hold an awful lot of weight, but more length/less angle  is better. Thus the docking location for the ropes is also something which the captain has to take into consideration for the docking plan.  If you are expecting very windy weather during the day, then putting out the lines in the best possible way becomes extremely important.

Centre piece of the exhibition, a not completely life size model of the landing capsule. On an island where nothing happens this splash must have made a big impact, to generate such a set-up.

Today we had only 20 knots of wind blowing under a slight angle and thus the line configuration was not of critical importance hence we used the center gangway and staircase.  I walked ashore briefly to see what they had built here through the years and the dock /resort village is similar to other places in the Caribe. Big Duty Free, a nice beach, a nice pool, plenty of Water sports and several Diamond stores.  What they did have as well was a little exhibition about the Mercury Space program in the 1960’s. Close to Grand Turk was the area where John Glenn splashed down when he returned after being the first American in Space.    And they made a nice little open air exhibition out of it.

John Glenn is also world famous on Grand Turk Island.

We sailed at 3 pm. and will now spend the night and tomorrow morning at sea, before arriving at San Juan at 1 pm. for an afternoon and late evening stay. There are supposed to be at least two other cruise ships in port, the Norwegian Jem and the Navigator of the Seas. Weather will get better, at least for the day, with partly cloudy skies, temperatures of 86oF / 30oC and a regular Trade Wind breeze.

They have a whole series of posters with the information about the Mercury Space Program and it is very nicely done.