To get from Barbados to Martinique there are basically two ways to go. One is the direct route staying out in the North Atlantic Ocean and making land fall at Fort de France itself or go back the way we came and sail north in the shelter of St. Lucia. Last night we took the straight route as the swell was not that high and the wind although brisk not much of an issue. Had there been storm or large ocean swells it would have been a different story,  but it was regular north Atlantic weather and no issues at all. And thus we arrived at 0700 hrs. at the pilot station and were docked by 8 am.

Fort de France has for some years now a new dock, right in down town where in the old days we used the tender. The older dock is used by cruise ships as well but is located in the cargo port and quite a walk away from downtown. So this new dock is really a great option. We were sticking our nose right into the town itself.  A very quiet down town as it was Sunday and everything was closed. True to French tradition, they might have gone to church but they certainly would have focused on having lunch with the whole family.

That made a lot of guests decide to either stay on board or go on tour. Company organized tours or by themselves. We even have a German tour group on board who had organized a beach party tour by ferry to the other side of the island. Luckily they came back just in time before the ship sailed because the captain is not required to wait for independent or private tours organized outside the company. The captain might wait and he will try to provide the service but there is no obligation and he would not endanger a timely arrival in the next port for it. Luckily that seldom happens.

In the meantime life goes on and thus also the induction of my trainee class. They are going step by step deeper into the”mysteries” of the Holland America’s way of doing things. One of the very important aspects is everything related to fire drill, fire safety and fire prevention. The first step is to observe how it works, next step to get familiar with the equipment and the third step is to start training and gain experience with our systems and routines.

Team 2 of the deck department. They are not looking very happy but then no team is if they are forced to be the standby team. Today was an Engine drill and then Deck is the backup & support group.

So the first step was observing a fire drill. Especially the gathering of the teams, the dressing up and getting ready. Raising a hose against a (simulated) fire will come later. First they have to understand the principles, the pitfalls and the dangers as ships fire fighting can be dangerous if not properly trained and not knowing the protocols. Thus step one is to look and see how the ship’s crew is doing it and then take it from there.

The trainer and team “on location”. (Both Photos courtesy of Security Officer ms Noordam “JP” J.R Prins.)

Fire station inventory will be next to get to know what equipment we have; then dress up drill and finally we will open the fire hoses.

Since St. Maarten we have been island hopping with a different island each day. We will have two more to go before the guests get time to take a breather with a sea day. Tomorrow we are in Antigua and then in St. Thomas.  Antigua is just around the corner and after our departure at 5 pm we will have a slow ride and then arrive early in the morning at St. Johns. Today it was a windy day but for the dock in Fort de France that does not matter as it right on the edge of the open bay. St Johns is inside a bay which only has a small turning basin so we cannot have not too much wind otherwise we cannot swing around safely. Luckily the wind forecast is for lessening winds and so we should be good for tomorrow. For the rest it will all be the same. Warm, sunny and a chance of a shower.

Barbados is a peculiar island to call at, for several reasons. First of all the ships have to make an “extra” effort to get there as it is located outside the eastern rim of Caribbean Islands which form the boundary of the Caribbean Sea. The island is surrounded by North Atlantic Ocean on all sides. So is it really a Caribbean Island??? Secondly they are very independent but still very British. They used to close the shops on Saturday afternoon for the weekly cricket game. That happens less now as the booming Cruise Trade forced a rethink between tradition and style and raking in the dollars.  Thirdly it acts as a turn over port for cruise ships, far- far away from Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

Barbados has excellent airport facilities (the Concorde used to fly here) and can handle a larger number of airplanes and passengers at the same time. Thus British company’s such as P&O use Bridgetown as a changeover port. This is also done by smaller company’s / smaller ships which do not want to make cruises where one day or more is lost to get to and from the Caribbean and still stay on the 7 day circuit. Today being Saturday we had several ships in port doing so.

When the good ship Noordam pointed it’s nose into the harbor, it was the last cruise ship in. Docked were the Ventura, the Royal Clipper, the Seabourn Spirit and Windstar.  Apart from the Noordam they all used Bridgetown as a changeover port. That cannot be bad for the local economy at all.  The port of Bridgetown has a U-shaped main harbor and apart from a Geest Line Banana Boat the whole port was full of cruise ships. Everything else had to stay outside, at anchor, until they all sailed.  Understandable that we are not always very popular with the cargo ship captains who have to sit idle, losing money while the cruise ships take preference. But we book two years in advance and always show up on the minute to keep the schedule. Cargo ships cannot do that so what can we say?

Archive photo with all berths full of cruise ships. Going clockwise from top: Berth 2 A,B,C, Sugar Mill berth and Breakwater South and North. The knuckle is the end of the Breakwater.

If a ship does a turnover in Barbados then it is assigned a berth as close as possible to the cruise terminal. That is berth nbr 2. South. Because the Ventura of P&O was doing exactly that, we had to dock at the Breakwater north. Not a bad dock from a Captains point of view but not ideal for the guests as they have to walk around the whole of the harbor. The port runs a shuttle service with small buses but you have to wait and they might be full from another ship already.

Also for the captain this is an interesting location to be at. Coming into the port you have to make a very sharp 90 degree turn to line up with the Breakwater inside the dock. To do this successfully most captains line up the ship completely parallel to the dock before they slide in and go alongside.  Bending around the knuckle is possible but with a strong Easterly wind blowing it is not ideal as it might set the ship onto the knuckle, then you get a dent and you get paperwork and upset the local authorities. All these things you try to avoid as a captain as your life is already complicated enough. So what you do is you line up first and then slide in. If the wind pushes you over then at least the ship will make a soft landing with a larger part of the hull on the flat of the pier.  To help with this the port has been dredged to give the very large ships the option to swing/and line up outside the confines of the harbor itself.

Today was a bit windy with occasional squalls coming over but as Barbados is lower than St. Lucia none of these squalls released much rain. They did cause the wind to pickup every time when one was coming by. This was also the most important lesson for my school class to day. When you play with an empty life boat – drifting like an egg shell on the water – the wind is the biggest factor in your assessment of the coming maneuver. Either you use the wind as your friend = let it do the work for you, or treat it as your enemy and you have to battle against it. After 90 minutes playing around, everybody understood that watching first how the wind affects the lifeboat and then using it your advantage, works better than deciding upon your boat handling without taking the wind into account and having a big battle on your hands.

Barbados is also the most southerly point of our cruise. Tonight we sail north again and tomorrow we are in Fort de France, Martinique. This is a regular part of France which means apart from speaking French and having French law they also have the Euro as the local currency. Although I do not believe that they are that french that they will not accept American Dollars.

Weather for tomorrow; more of the same. Warm, windy and a local shower.

It can rain in the whole Caribbean but it seems that Castries gets more than its fair share. The high mountain range which separates the port from the Atlantic is high enough to slow down the rain clouds a little bit and that means they are pushed together enough to saturate them. Once coming over the mountain top, they release the rain. Although the rainy season is over a regular shower is still very much on the program for this port. And today we were not disappointed. It rained while the sun happily kept shining. A very local shower, right above the ship. Although the rain was not cold, it was still wet so a few dapper shoppers were caught out while traversing the distance between the ship and the shopping terminal. Same occurred in the afternoon when the ship called at Soufriere to re-embark the overland tour. All 340 of them and of course there was a shower right at the moment the coaches arrived near the tender pier.  Who says the life of a tourist is easy.

Today we were the only cruise ship in but, quite unusual we had two Dutch ships in. At the downtown pier, which is mostly used for cargo and containers we had a Banana/ container boat in from the Geest Line. This company has quite a nice history with the unusual angle of having originally been owned by a Dutch Family.  The Van Geest brothers were originally from the Netherlands but the family ended up in England during the period that thousands of Dutch laborers came over to turn the Fens, located in the west part of Norfolk, into farmable land. As the area was almost identical to Holland being mostly under water it made sense to use Dutch engineering skills and labor to accomplish it. As the area was almost the same as Holland many of them stayed and ended up in vegetable farming, in the same way as they were used to in the mother country. The Van Geest Brothers started a horticultural business in 1935 and in 1945 expanded into shipping. In 1953 they founded an export company in St Lucia and started exporting Bananas with chartered ships. Then it bought their own ships which all commenced with the prefix Geest (Geestbay, Geeststar, etc.) Until 2001 one could buy Bananas with the Geest name in the UK in the same way as Chiquita and Fyffes. In 1986 they went on the stock market and thus reduced the family influence but the name is still there. They normally flew the English flag so I was quite amazed to see that the ship in port today was flying the Dutch one.  I always admired the ships which they had in the 70’s. Stylish design, giving the impression of being very fast and always maintained in a very good condition. Now of course they are as square as the other ships as they have to carry containers.

Ship Lovers delight. A stytlish Banana Boat of the 1970’s.

The Noordam left at 3 pm. and had to swing around on departure in about 25 knots of wind. Not pleasant as the swinging basin is not that large. No room to drift. But it is an Azipod ship and thus has lots of power at the stern.  The trick is then to come off the dock and push that stern against the wind and have the (weaker) bow follow. It worked well and we sailed happily out of the harbor.  The pilot left once we were out of the narrow entrance, under great applause from the guests hanging over the railing and the balconies above. The pilot transfer from ship to pilot boat was also carefully observed by my school class who were amazed about all the safety precautions we take for such a transfer. Most of them have a cargo ship background and there things are most of the time not so strongly regulated as with Holland America.

The Royal Clipper sailing past the Pietons. I could not take my own photo, so a stock photo. (Courtesy Star Clippers)

In Soufriere we were entertained by the departing Royal Clipper which is the largest Square rigger in the world but also a 5 star sailing- cruise ship. She made quite a magnificent impression when she left the anchorage and sailed to open waters past the Pietons.  We ran our tender service to get our guests back on board and then set sail for Bridgetown Barbados. This means sailing into the open North Atlantic as Barbados is located outside the eastern rim of Caribbean Islands.

Weather for tomorrow:  partly Cloudy 28oC / 82o F.

According to plan and schedule we arrived at the pilot station of St. Maarten and then proceeded to the berth. Even with 90,000 ton and 1900 guests on board we were the smallest ship in town today. From left to right we had:  the Celebrity Summit outside of Pier 2. Freedom of the Seas inside Pier 2; Regal Princess inside of Pier 1, Celebrity Eclipse, outside of Pier 1, forward dock and us the Noordam, outside Pier 1, aft dock.

The two piers in St. Maarten. The Noordam does not have a helicopter on board and thus I could not take a shot of todays Pier situation from above. (Photo courtesy, internet unkown source)

The next question is then, how do we dock apart from having been allocated a location to go to? Nose in or Nose out?  It is most of the time better for the guests to have the ship docked nose in as most ships have the gangway closer to the bow than to the stern. Going nose means that their walking distance to get by the ship and to town is reduced. For ships with the gangway in the amidships area it does not makes any difference of course.

However in St. Maarten there is a 2^nd consideration to take into account. Swell which causes the ship to move while alongside.  Quite often the swell, coming from the North Atlantic Ocean to the East can really swerve around the East Cape of Groot Baai in which the docks are located. The ships can move considerably alongside the dock and breaking mooring ropes is not unusual.  To reduce that movement it is better to dock nose out. The sharp bow cuts the waves rolling in and a wave chopped in half has a lot less influence, while the square stern is lifted by the full wave.  The closer you can dock to the shore side the less influence this swell has.

According to this logic the ships were lined up accordingly. Both Regal Princess and Celebrity Eclipse were docked nose in, as they were deepest in the sheltered corner of the cruise terminal area, while the Celebrity Summit, Freedom of the Seas and the Noordam where docked nose out as they were more exposed to the swell.

Luckily the swell had greatly reduced overnight as the winds had abated last night from 35 knots to about 15 knots and with the sustaining wind gone the waves died down quite quickly as well. Also the wind had shifted more to the North East and thus it did not push the swell so much into the harbor as normally. Although all day long the ships did gently move on the still present swell but it was neither annoying nor dangerous.

Philipsburg St. Maarten had to cope with 14,000 shoppers today and if everyone spent $ 100,– then you cannot say that they had a bad day. I heard one couple complaining that it had been too busy in the jewelry store and they had left disappointed and empty handed. Luckily for them there will be more Caribbean ports and more jewelry stores coming.  At least everybody had very nice and sunny weather and the temperatures were pleasant with 80 – 82o F.

The Noordam sailed at 3 pm. as it has to make St. Lucia on time, located about half way down the eastern circle of the Caribbean Islands. The others stayed a bit longer as most of them were going to St. Thomas which is about 90 miles away and for that hop you can sail at midnight and still be early at the pilot station of Charlotte Amalie.

On our S.E. journey we will pass St. Eustatius and Saba on our portside. These are also two islands which together with St. Maarten are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  Together with Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao they form the six Dutch islands in the Caribbean. Some of them, St. Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire are fully part of the Netherlands the others have a more associated status and are running a more independent governmental system.

Tomorrow we will visit St. Lucia and it is a split call. In the morning we are docked at Castries and in the afternoon we do scenic cruising at Soufriere and the Pietons while we re-embark the overland tour.

Weather forecast:  temperatures in the high 70’s with a chance of showers.

The 2^nd day at sea takes us right into the open North Atlantic while we travel that corner marked by Hispaniola and Puerto Rico to the south and the Bahamian Islands to the west. This area is on the edge of the Trade wind system and the regular North Atlantic weather.  Those two areas with their own significant weather patterns can sometimes enhance each other to create more wind or the opposite and calm the seas down. Today they worked together and the average wind was between 25 and 35 knots. With the ship going against it with nearly 20 knots it caused relative gale force to storm force winds on the outside decks. Luckily most of the open deck areas for the guests are screened off by glass walls or protected by the bow of the ship. You do not feel 50 knots on the decks, just occasionally a strong tug at your sleeve if the wind plays around the corner of a windscreen.

The ship has to push against the wind and has to use more energy/fuel to keep the same average speed going. With a full wind on the bow, it slows the ship down by about 0.75 knots or so and with having the stabilizers going in the choppy seas as well another 0.75 knots comes off. Thus the ship has to go 1.5 knots faster just to maintain the average speed to get on time to St. Maarten. Because of this we are barreling away through the ocean with a speed of 19.5 knots but in reality we are only eating up the distance with only 18 knots or so. The fact that we lost an hour yesterday at Half Moon Cay does not help of course to keep the average speed down.

The route takes us far North of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico and it is only in early morning of tomorrow that we will make a landfall near the West side of St. Martin / St Maarten and then approach Philipsburg on the south side, sailing east.  The Northside of the island is French and the Southside Dutch but there is not really a border as such. If you travel from south to north you suddenly come across more people speaking French and the restaurants being more French style. Legend has it that this border line was decided by having a French drunk and a Dutch drunk start at opposite sides of the island and meet in the middle. The result is a bit of a wobbly border line with the French side being bigger but the Dutch side being better as it has a deep harbor. That port is called Philipsburg while the French side has Marigot, but there it is very shallow necessitating a long tender ride in and it is exposed to the North Atlantic swell. Hence cruise ships hardly call there.

Philipsburg is in the lee of the island and its waters normally have no swell at all, unless the ocean manages to curve around the east side of the island. Nowadays there are two large docks, which can handle 8 large ships and during some days there are 8 mega liners in port with one or two more ships at anchor. Very good for the tourist industry and the French side is really losing out here.

The ship will enter the Caribbean Sea through the passage located between the British Virgin Islands to the West and Anguilla / St. Maarten to the East. Then by 07.00 hrs. we will be at the pilot station and then shortly after docked. A little bit always depends on if the other ships arrive on time because if two ships dock at the same pier on the same side, the ship which is leaving later has to dock first as it is not so easy to get out by sailing around the other ship.

Tomorrow we are expecting: Regal Princess, Freedom of the Seas, Celebrity Eclipse, the Celebrity summit and us. All ships with 2000 or more guests on board.  We are looking at a minimum of 14000 guests ashore and most of them will be marching up and down Main Street.

I will not be among them. My class is gearing up for the more serious stuff now and they are about to be initiated in the mysteries of lifeboat lowering.

Weather for tomorrow: Partly cloudy / Mostly sunny 81oF; with winds coming down to about 15 knots.

The shortest route from Fort Lauderdale to St. Maarten is above the Bahamian Islands, or at least close to the top. We sail south of Freeport and north of Nassau into the Atlantic Ocean keeping most of the Bahamian Islands, reefs and sand banks to the south.  We use this route if the weather is nice, otherwise we can go south via the Old Bahama Channel north of Cuba which gives the guests at least one day of shelter against an North Atlantic storm. But the weather is good and thus we go the North. Apart from a gentle movement at times the ship is as steady as a rock.

We will have two sea days before the ship arrives in St. Maarten which looking at the schedule will be a full house with several big ships in. Although we left on an unusual day, Monday for the cruise ship cycle, we will be teaming up with other ships which have St. Maarten as their last port before returning to a home port in Florida.

We had some excitement this morning as the ship had to deviate slightly to do a medical disembarkation. One of our guests had fallen ill overnight and needed more medical treatment than the ship could provide. Thus the captain made arrangements for the Noordam to call at the nearest island with landing facilities for a small plane or helicopter and that place was Princess Cays. As we are now one big happy family and especially as Princess Cay is very close, and we share the same President, it is of course very easy to go there.

Princess Cays is for Princess what Half Moon Cay is for Holland America. Each is similar to each other in setup;  each is different in what they offer on the island in facilities and entertainment.

Thus the Noordam deviated from course, stopped at the anchorage, lowered a tender and brought the patient ashore to be collected for further transport. I am happy to announce that the patient is doing well. The whole operation took about an hour and then the Noordam continued its voyage.  An operation with a minimum delay for the patient, and minimum delay for the guests who will arrive in St. Maarten on time.

Our officer school class is getting into the swing of things and this morning they went through their shipboard indoctrination. Yesterday about 60 new crewmembers joined. Some of them brand spanking new and some of them old HAL veterans, but they all have to be refreshed into the company’s safety procedures.   At the same time they are introduced to the Captain and the ships staff so everybody knows at once who is running the ship. It is a nice touch which I always have liked as you come a bit closer to the crew members and they do not have to wonder who that guy is with all those stripes.

Each ships staff member speaks a few words of wisdom, all related to their area of expertise and then the security officer tells everybody about his area of expertise – how to recognize a suspicious object, always wear your I.D., report strange things etc. —- and then the safety officer takes the really new crew around the ship to show them the most important features they have to know at once. How to call the bridge in an emergency: not to walk through a closing Watertight door: what is a Fire Screen door: etc. etc. More in-depth training will follow later but everybody needs to know the basics to start with. Or need refreshment about what the basics are.

The most important part of my training today was to explain who is who in the office and what they are doing exactly.  If you understand the office structure then it is becomes a lot easier to understand what the decision making process inside the company is and how it affects the ship.

Tomorrow we are at sea for our 2^nd day and it supposed to remain sunny and breezy.

Although it is after Miami the largest cruise port in Florida it has never settled on a name and there will be forever the confusion if the cruise is leaving from Fort Lauderdale or Port Everglades. To make things even more complicated, the police cars and boats you see in the port are from Broward Country thus adding a 3^rd entity to the equation. We officially dock in Port Everglades but as the name says, it is on the port. Fort Lauderdale is the larger town/city nearby with the airport. As people fly to Fort Lauderdale the name became synonymous with the place /port from where the ships were leaving.  The fact that we see Broward Country Police around shows again the fact that Port Everglades is too small to have its own police force and thus it relies on the County with its Sherriff.  Fort Lauderdale has its own police department but I have not seen their cars very often in the port area. The big boss is a sheriff, although I doubt that he will be riding on a horse.  The Everglades are full of swamps and those and horses do not go well together. Alligators like horses, horses do not alligators nor mud.

When we docked this morning, the whole ship had to chance to see the Sheriff’s department in action when they made way onto the pier for the emergency services. One of our guests needed a medical disembarkation, luckily not life threatening and the police were there to get them to the ship. Protocol demands that the fire brigade shows up as well as they have the first line Paramedics, followed by the Ambulance. As it was non-life threatening they boarded together and I could watch a nice parade of life saving professionals coming on board.  A guy with the emergency Bag, two guys with the stretcher, A guy with a laptop = the record keeper, and another gent and lady as support troops.

I saw it all first hand as I was at the gangway awaiting our school class. Together with Ch. Eng. Willem Dullaert (Ret.) we received them at the gangway, deviated them out of the throng of boarding crew, and parked them in our training room. After an initial introduction it turned out that Breakfast was very high on the Agenda and thus their first impression of a cruise ships was: piles of food. Something sounds familiar there. This was followed by the Safety Indoctrination for all new embarking crew which is done by the Human Resources Manager.

I lost them there as I had to present myself as “down liner” to CBP. This is something new which has thus far only surfaced in Fort Lauderdale. It pertains to Repair men, Travelling Trainers and everybody else who joins a cruise ship in a Non-American port, while the ship is on a round trip from and to an American port. With the Noordam on a 10 day loop from Fort Lauderdale and me having joined in Willemstad, I fitted the description perfectly. They call such a person a down liner and he has to be processed separately from the rest of the world. As this is a fairly new phenomena, the way a down liner is handled still varies a bit. First I had to get off the ship before everybody else, e.g. at 07.00 hrs.  and then wait for the ZERO count but it was changed to going off together with the CVG guests. Those are the guests who are in transit. They assemble near the end of the disembarkation process in the showroom at sea and then “march” in unison to the CBP stand in the terminal. Once all are processed, the ZERO count = empty ship should have been achieved, and then they can “march” in unison back on board again. This time it looked like a real invasion with scooters  speeding ahead as spearheading tanks, followed by a 2^nd wave of wheel chairs and the regular infantry bringing up the rear. It is a very efficient and customer friendly way to do it, but it was quite funny to see a huddle of 200+ cruise guests scampering through the nearly empty customs hall by various modes of transport. But the 10.30 reporting time suited me very well, so hurrah for the CBP. Today we will leave at 16.00 hrs. for an 11 day cruise to the South East Caribbean with a farthest point the island of Barbados. Weather for the coming days; Sunny but breezy.

The interesting thing for me this time is that I have never worked on a Vista Class ship, and that means that I have to learn my way around. To find where everything is, where everybody is working and living and also the routines on board which are different to the smaller ships, simply because the ship is bigger.

As the HAL ships are progressions of each other, it is not so difficult to get a handle on the whole thing as the setup is very similar but with small twists.

When Holland America built the S class, the guests were very happy with the end result. Spacious and comfortable ships with all the gadgets which were up and coming and exciting in 2002. A space ratio of 43.8 was the highest in the cruise industry for the premium market and that is still more or less the case. There was basically only one complaint and it was the fact that there was such a large distance between the forward and aft elevators. As Holland America tends to listen very carefully to the comments that are brought forward it resulted in the R – class which did have a 3^rd or middle staircase. The extra section also gave space for more cabins and that made the accountants happy. A larger engine room space meant room for bigger engines and thus longer cruises or more ports could be done during a same length cruise.

The ms Noordam III when she had just entered service.

The next desire of the guests was: more balconies and the result was the Vista Class. Holland America went a little bit bigger because the competition went to Mega ships and being only slightly large meant we still could go through the Panama Canal. The next craze was more food outlets and thus with the Signature class the Tamarind restaurant made its entry.  We still do not have 10 restaurants on board as NCL does but with a Main Dining room, a Lido, a Pinnacle, a Canaletto and a Tamarind we are not doing that badly either. I believe the lower number of restaurants will be rectified with the Koningsdam.

If you keep this evolution in the back of your mind, then going from class to class of ship there is not so much of a difference. The biggest difference is at the bow, the 3 story theatre which means that the forward section is configured totally different internally, and the lower stern section as the ship has Azipods and not conventional propellor propulsion.

So today, having done all the administrative prep work and trying to chase up all the materials needed for the class, I went around to get into the “Vista Groove”. I think I walked about 10 miles and as I refuse to use an Elevator those 10 miles had quite a few vertical challenges to it as well.  One confusing thing is, compared with the S class, is the numbering of the decks. Soon after the S class came in service it became compulsory for the cabin numbers to correspond with the deck number. Thus cabin 1118 where I am living this week has to be on deck 1.  On the S class cabin 701 is on A deck or deck 4.

On the Vista class A deck is the highest crew deck, while the highest crew deck on the S class is B deck.  The Bridge on the S class is on deck 10, on the Vista class on deck 8 Etc. Etc.  As a captain you really know your ship by heart, inside out and then changing ships causes a few days of adjustment. This is the reason the company now has a system to ensure this is taken care of.  New captain on new class of ship, 14 days overlap. New Captain on a same class, 7 days overlap.  Same ship, same captain, 1 day hand over.

Today we were sailing in the Old Bahama channel, north of Cuba with a beautiful sunny day. Strong winds but they were following winds so it was very pleasant on deck. Tomorrow morning the ship will dock around 07.00 hrs.  and then I will have to present myself to Immigration. I have been promoted to a “downliner” which seems to be a person working on board who did not join in the USA port of departure. That is a new one to me so all will be revealed tomorrow.

The weather for tomorrow, sunny and warm. Florida seems to be heading for the summer already.

And so I arrived on the good ship ms Noordam. The final of the four Vista Class ships of the company. There was also a 5^th. Vista class which was transferred to P&O cruises while being built and is now called the Arcadia. Then there are two modified Vista’s out there, which sail for Cunard as the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Victoria. But those two differ considerably from the original Vista design as envisioned and executed by Holland America.

In command of the Noordam is Captain Robert Jan Kan, who will be the Master for the remainder of this cruise and the next one and then Captain Jeroen van Donselaar will take over. Captain Kan goes through life the same way as I do, being Dutch and living in England. Captain van Donselaar lives in the States. Although we might be captains in command and consider ourselves in charge of everything, there is always a higher entity to consider: “she who will be obeyed”; and as a result we all live where “she” wants us to live.

The Noordam is making 10 day cruises to the south Caribbean, with slightly different ports during each cruise. I am on board for 2.5 cruises. I hopped on in the middle of this one and then will have the school class on board for the next 20 days.  They will board on March 9 in Fort Lauderdale, which is the winter home port for the Noordam. She has spent the last years sailing in Europe in the summer but now she will go to Alaska and from there for the winter season 2015/2016 to Australia.

I joined in Willemstad after transferring from the Ryndam in Tampa and waiting for 2 days for the Noordam to come in. She docked at the Mega Pier (see my Ryndam blog from 10 days ago) and then hopped on to Bonaire and Aruba. From there it was homeward bound and today is the first day of the two sea days needed to get back to Fort Lauderdale.  We will be sailing north through the Caribbean Sea. Then through the Windward passage between Cuba and Hispaniola and then westwards above Cuba, ending up in Fort Lauderdale on the 9^th.

There 12 trainee’s will board the ship, all coming from the company’s simulator training in Holland. They have all passed their exam and before you can join the fleet you are by law required to have completed a Bridge Management Resource Training and Digital Chart/Radar training. So that is where they are at the moment. To make their arrival on the ships a little bit more comfortable, they will receive 20 days of induction from two Facilitators. As there are six deck officer and six Engineers, there are two Facilitators.  The engineers will be looked after by Mr. Willem Dullaert who retired a number of years ago as active Chief Engineer but is since then passing on his vast knowledge and experience to new and sometimes also not so new Engineers. This year he has been at sea for 50 years so the word “vast knowledge and experience” are correct in his situation.  Compared to him, I am just starting out as I can only offer 35 years at sea, so the Deckies will just have to make do with that.

It will be a very mixed group. The days that the officers on Holland America Line were exclusively Dutch have long since gone and now we source officers who indicate their interest in cruising and Holland America and that means various nationalities. Thus 3 from the Netherlands, 3 from New Zealand, 3 from Romania, 2 from Croatia and the UK has sent one representative.   When I give training then I like them all to be from the same nationality or I like a good mix, I even prefer the latter, as the cultural exchange really helps to bring the best out of everybody.

So tomorrow will be the last sea day of this cruise and then our Holland America school will start while sailing the beautiful waters of the Caribbean. I wish they had had something like that when I started out back in 1981 as a 4^th. Officer on the Statendam IV.

Cuba forms a natural Northern boundary for most of the Caribbean Sea and as it consists of one island you either go around it on the west side; Cabo San Antonio or the east side at Cabo Maisi.  For us going to Tampa it means the west side, using the Yucatan channel and keeping Cabo San Antonio to the East.  As all ships have to do something similar it can be – sometimes hair raisingly – busy at the Cape and thus the Wise Men of the IMO have introduced a Vessel Separation System for this area. The IMO (International Maritime Organisation) is a sub organization of the United Nations and is tasked with regulating the shipping world. A task which gives headaches as each member of the UN wants something different and once something has been decided it  takes a minimum number of member states to ratify it before it can be implemented worldwide.

Approving new Vessel Separation Schemes is often one of the easier problems to tackle although also here the bickering can be intense about having the boundaries one inch to the East or one inch to the West so to say.  Still, most of the time it goes fairly smoothly as everybody see’s the logic in trying to prevent collisions. It saves lives, it saves headaches for the adjacent Country and it saves money for the ship owners.  Before the VSS was there, things would go “bump” on a regular basis with ships because when they came around the Cape they simply kept doing their own thing; which was not doing anything, and even then a very large body of water can suddenly be very small.

Thus the VSS are there now, how to deal & comply with them is stipulated in the Rules of the Road or Colregs  and since then the number of “bumps” or worse have been greatly reduced. More and more of these VSS areas are appearing around the world all with the aim to reduce collisions and the often secondary effect of Environmental Catastrofies.

When the Ryndam sailed through the VSS which is a Vertical North / South system west of Cabo San Antonio early this morning there wasn’t much of a chance of a “bump”. One lonely ship came south in the other lane and for the rest there was nothing to see. Just the sky, the sea and us. If you are on the extreme eastern edge of the VSS you can normally see Cuba but it being slightly hazy today, made sure that Cuba remained a mystery.

This is my last day on board, tomorrow I will be transferring to the Noordam. The plan was to fly to Samana in the Dominican Republic but that was not easy as it seemed and thus I join in Willemstad Curacao.

There will be plenty of work to do while waiting for the ship to come in, as on the Noordam I will be running the Induction class for new officers, similar to the ones I blogged about in November /December last year when on the Rotterdam.  This time we have 6 deck officers and 6 engineers who will be looked after by our Retired Chief Engineer Mr. Dullaert.

Also in Willemstad there is a Maritime Museum which I have not been able to visit yet and I hope that they have some information about Holland America when the ships called there in the 1930’s during the early days of cruising.

So in the coming days my blog entries might be a bit intermittent until I have settled in on board the ms Noordam.