We were told that we were the only ship in Castries but it turned out that there was a second one, a small one, the Hamburg. This is an expedition ship sailing for the German Market. Although everybody can book on it, but it is sort of important that you speak German. With 15,000 tons and 420 guests she started out life as the Columbus C for the German company Hapag-Lloyd in the 5 and 6 star segment. Now she is owned by an investment company and chartered by a company called Plantours. Because of her small size she can get to a lot of places other ships cannot including sailing via the St. Lawrence Seaway into the Great Lakes and the Corinth Canal. The pilot parked her downtown thus leaving space for a cargo ship to come in as well. (And to please the shop keepers at the cruise terminals of course) Continue reading
Category: Destinations (page 4 of 6)
It is a slow run from Martinique as it is a mere distance of 120 NM. To be covered in 12 hrs. So 10 miles an hour. Good for the fuel and good for the way the ship rides the waves. Tonight we will have an even shorter distance to cover as it is 110 nautical miles from Barbados to Castries 97 NM. as the crow flies but we have to sail around the South point and up the coast as Castries is on the west side of the island. Again a good speed, as with 10 knots the stabilizers are still effective and the ship can gently ride the North Atlantic swell that is running here. Normally to keep that 10 knots we make a wide loop once inside the Caribbean Sea again and then approach Castries from the West. Continue reading
To my utter amazement all went well with the flights and even my luggage arrived which was no mean feat as, although there was code sharing, it involved three airlines and a change over time of only one hour in Madrid. But by 4 pm. I was happily ensconced in my boutique hotel La Falconeria or the Falcons Cage after having been picked up by our agent in Malta. That was about the only part of my travel that I did not worry about as the Malta agent, together with the one in Copenhagen, have the highest ratings among the captains in the fleet. But the layover of 2 days gave ample opportunity to get over my jet lag, clear up all my administrative paperwork, and even see some of the sights as well. A number of years ago my wife and I spent a week in Malta so I rode all the bus routes of the island while she got pampered with all sorts of Spa activities which I did not even try to comprehend. So Malta is not unknown to me but I had still two things on my bucket list. Continue reading
We had a bit of a bumpy night and a slightly moving ship. What “slightly” was depended on the view of the guests as some spoke of a heavy storm and some dismissed it as an occasional “bump”. I have been assigned a cabin above the Azipods this time and the only thing I had to do was to move the coat hangers in the closet as they rattled on occasion. That is not a regular ships noise and thus it will wake me up. We did have quite a bit of wind during the night with gusts to over 60 knots but as we were heading into the first arrival of the storm, the storm had not been able to generate very high waves and thus the ship did not provide the roller coaster ride, something some guests had been afraid of. Continue reading
The weather turned out to be as forecast although it took the wind a few hours this morning to get in synch with the predicted wind in the weather forecast. But by 10 am. it managed to do so and from then on all was well in the world. As a Japanese friend of my once said, things have to be organized and lined up nicely; otherwise you get confusion. Maybe that is why I have been going through life confused most of the time as the weather is seldom well organized and as a sailor you live very close to the weather. Continue reading
It is a tight schedule to make if you want to get to Portland from Halifax at a decent time and we could not be docked earlier than 11.00 hrs. and we just made it; with only minutes to spare. A late morning arrival is nice as it gives everybody the chance to see the ship sailing in; and sailing into Portland is nice. People go to the Canadian Maritimes for the Fall foliage but you can also take a sightseeing trip around Portland Harbor as the woods around the natural inlet were a riot of color. Arriving later has a negative side as well, as we were coming from Canada and thus everybody had to go through CPB immigration inspection. How fast that goes depends on how many officers there are available for the clearance and secondly if the CBP Supervisor allows those who have seen the CBP to go directly ashore, while the rest is still being cleared. That can vary from port to port and in some places the CBP only clears the ship once everybody has been seen. Today there were sufficient Officers available and the guests who had been seen were allowed off. Kudos to the CBP. They did the job they had to do, but they worked with the ship to give all a guests a good first impression of Portland. The sunshine did the rest. Continue reading
We had a miserable and overcast day today and most guests, who were not on tour, did not venture any further than the cruise terminal where they could pick up a few local souvenirs or listen to fiddle concerts. What was special was that I have never seen it so busy in Sydney, in all the years that I have been coming here with the ships. And that goes back to the early 1990’s we had a few visits here with the old ss Rotterdam. Today we had four cruise ships in. The Zuiderdam alongside, the Norwegian Dawn (who had followed us from Charlottetown) at the nearest anchorage, then the Riviera at the middle anchorage and far, far way a Silversea. The last one did not tender into the cruise terminal area but to a small local pier and had a shuttle service from there. The poor people of the Riviera (Oceana Cruises) had a long tender ride in the cold and the miserable rain. Although Oceana is supposed to be a notch better than Holland America (rated close to Seabourn) you had better sail with us, as at least we dock. Seniority rights do make a difference sometimes. Continue reading
A good day today, at least for what could have been. The skies remained overcast with a gentle breeze from the SE and that caused rain clouds drifting over but it also meant no “clouds” at seawater level so the bridge had a good view at all times and the Captain could stay in bed during the night. There was a low swell running from the South West but it was less than a meter and that is not enough to rock the boat. And even that low running swell disappeared in the course of the day, leaving us with an oily looking sea without any wind. A Vista Class ships needs about 10 feet of swell & waves to get going so 3 feet is nothing. All the guests would have liked sunshine but that comes with the inherent fog and then it is hard to sleep in the balcony cabins as the horn will be blowing every 2 minutes to warn the world that we are there. So give me overcast skies here at any time, better for a good night’s rest and although the guests might like sunshine, I do not think they are on an Alaska cruise to go sun bathing……………… Continue reading
Today we are in Juneau and the shopkeepers must be very happy and also the shore excursions people as it is a full house in the port. We have in port the Royal Princess (3600 guests), Azamara Quest (686 guests), Crystal Symphony (848 guests), Star Princess (3100 guests), Westerdam (approx. 2100). So based on lower bed capacity we are already talking over 10000 guests. I put approx. 2100 for the Westerdam as normally the number is lower but it being high season we have a lot of families on board and then the bunk beds fill up. This also means approx.4000 crew in the port and if 50% would make it ashore then it is even busier. Most crew are going to the supermarkets and Costco in the valley for which a whole myriad of shuttle buses are in existence. It is known that Costco stocks up on gadgets when the tourist seasons starts as they know that this is of great interest to the crew. They cannot take TV’s home but small electronics they can. And a lot of crew have extended families with lots of nephews and nieces and they all want a present when the sailor comes home. I once saw a Filipino bar tender going home with 41 fluffy toys in a box. He told me that his wife had sent him a list of so many in pink, so many in green and so many in blue and preferably Pokémon characters. He was quite happy as he gotten them for a very good deal in Chinatown Vancouver. But for the older ones, electronic gadgets are needed and that is all out there. Continue reading
Juneau is the capital of Alaska and is so because of historic reasons as the city of Anchorage is much bigger and it could be expected that that was the capital. Every so often there are voices heard that call for making Anchorage the capital but thus far all change has been resisted.
Alaska cruising the early days. Follow the Totem pole route.
Because of having the State legislative buildings and operations there, the town was never reliant on the Tourist Industry as such. It had the politicians, it had a gold mine and there were the canneries for the salmon fishing. That does not mean there were no tourists coming here and also that there were no cruise ship passengers. From as long as there have been steamships involved in regular ferry service to the various ports of Alaska, they brought with them passengers who were on sightseeing adventures, then called excursions. The name cruise came only later. Operators such as the Alaska Steamship company or the Canadian Pacific Railroad brought early travelers to Alaska and even provided “cruise excursions” by sailing to Glacier Bay. Continue reading
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