On July 11 and 12, the ms Prinsendam made her yearly visit to Bordeaux — a city that can only be reached by the elegant explorer after a six-hour journey upriver.

The Prinsendam beverage department had the chance to visit the vineyards of this area and see for themselves the origins of the wine that they sell on board. The group visited Chateau Bailly and gained valuable background information on the production of the great wines from the Bordeaux. As the group found the visit very useful and informative, they discussed their experience with the guests on board, while selling and serving wine. This led to positive comments from our guests who appreciated that the Prinsendam crew was willing to spend their free time to enrich their knowledge in order to enhance the quality of service to the guests on board.

Albert Schoonderbeek is Prinsendam’s captain.
Photos by Cellar Master Leo Flynn.

Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

The exit of the harbour of Sevastopol is facing west and thus you sail east while going in. With the sun rising in the East it means that you have the sun in the face and that makes it difficult for scenic viewing. We had to wait until we were past the first land on the starboard side before we could view the surroundings by looking aft instead of forward. The pilot boarded right on time and we then continued at slow speed towards the entrance. There is a speed limit of 6 knots all the way in, so it takes time to get to the dock, whether we like it or not. But as it was a beautiful morning, we did not mind and binoculars were applied frequently by the deck officers while I kept conning the ship to the dock. The pilot came on board with a VHF and two cell phones and was fully occupied with receiving calls and talking to other people. I did not know that it was so complicated to get into the port, that the whole world had to be called, but he kept at it. In between he smoked bad quality cigarettes on the bridge wing.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

Today we ended our 20-day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Civitavecchia. The cruise was called “off to Rome” and to Rome we made it, at least to the port of Rome. We were blessed with yet another good day full of sun shine and little wind and as we were saying goodbye to about half of our guests, I approached the port early. Luggage had to be taken off and then there was the ride to the airport near Rome. Traffic in the Rome area can be horrendous and thus a timely departure from the ship is of the essence and then it helps if I dock the ship on the early side to give the Hotel department a good head start.

We were not the only ship in port. Apart from the regular ferry traffic was an Apartment of the Seas (Voyager with 3100 guests on board) and the Grand Celebration with 900 guests. (This is the old Carnival Celebration which now sails for the Carnival subsidiary Ibero Cruceros of Spain. With a base capacity of 1500 beds, the ship was not very full). What also was not full was the container terminal and the new car receiving area next to our dock. It was distinctly empty, a sign that the recession is still in full swing. The port has recently extended the terminal area by filling up part of the North side of the harbour but it looks like that they will have to wait for an upswing in the economy before more cargo ships are coming in. However the container dock is shared with cruise ships and thus the investment is at least partly paying off.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

Another beautiful day and another beautiful port. As Monte Carlo is facing east, it is always a pleasure to approach the port in the morning as the rising sun shines over the whole area. Apart from a few fishermen there was nothing in the way. The Sunday sailors and gin palaces were still happily tucked away in the harbour and so we could proceed unhindered to our anchorage. As we were banned to Fontveille, due to the preparations for the Grand Prix, I had to find another anchorage. Our regular anchorage is just to the North of the new pier. Right abeam is the Hotel under which the race cars run their race, but using that location now would result in a much too long a tender distance. When going further to the South, the water gets deeper and the only shallow place that is really nice for anchoring is prohibited. The Oceanographic museum has some sort of water inlet system at the bottom of the cliff and thus we cannot drop anchor there.

The Captain of the Azamara Journey was obviously suffering from the same problem and decided to anchor all the way to the south. So far that I thought he was going to run his tender service into the marina of Cap Agile. However the boats were also going into Fontveille making it a long distance for them. As it was nice weather and no wind expected, I had no problem with dropping the anchor in 80 meters of water (240 feet) and could thus keep the tender distance to the port to a minimum. Dropping the anchor is really the wrong phrase here; with such a water depth we lower the anchor on the windlass, shackle by shackle, all the way down. (A shackle is one link of the chain, which is about 30 centimeters) Because of the depth most of the chain is hanging vertically and thus you are never certain if the anchor has dug in when the ship is in position. You can simply not see how the chain is leading and where to.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

The distance between Naples and Elba is just too long to have an early morning arrival and so we were scheduled to be there at 10 am. That is a decent time anyway. Time for a leisurely breakfast on board, followed by a nice stroll into town. Having the best of both worlds. It was indeed a beautiful day and when we approached the island from the West, the sun beamed its rays over the green hills of Elba. We approached from the West as the entrance from the East side is a bit tight. Although there is enough water, it has several death angles (e.g. you cannot see around the corner) and if suddenly a fisherman comes in the way there would be nowhere to go but to put on the breaks very hard. Engineers do not like that very much so I prefer to go through wide open waters if the ship has a high average speed to maintain.

By 0850 we were at the pilot station and a very happy pilot came on board. We were his only job for the day and so he was bringing some money home that day. We were directed to the middle of the anchorage just in view of the harbour. There was a pier available but it was just too short for the Prinsendam to fit at. Next time when we come back it should be ok as they going to extend this pier during the coming winter. However as mentioned yesterday, the tender run into the port is very scenic and gives a nice overview of this most charming Italian town.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

It turned out to be a beautiful day in Naples. Almost no wind, sunny skies from arrival to departure and temperatures in the mid 70’s. Just the weather that a cruise should have. The Prinsendam arrived as scheduled at 7 am. at the pilot station and as the pilot was already waiting we could just continue directly to the berth. Sometimes the pilot likes to do some work but not today. Which meant that I just continued conning the ship into the harbour and after swinging around docked starboard side alongside the cruise terminal or Stazione Marittima as they call it here.

Certainly impressive if you arrive from the city side.

This terminal was constructed in 1936 with the official reason that there was such an upswing in traffic from the port that a new dedicated passenger terminal was needed. What however played in the background was that Mussolini had started to push for a merger of several Italian passenger liner companies’ in what eventually would become the Italia Line and later Finmare. In the thoughts of the Fascists, this also meant that the terminals from which the passenger liners would depart had to be big and impressive. This resulted in an indeed very impressive terminal here in Naples that can deal with up to 10 smaller passenger vessels. Nowadays as the ships are bigger there is normally room for a maximum of four.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

The sea was as flat as a mirror when we approached the harbour entrance and it became a clear and dry day. Although the harbour basin is quite big, the authorities had decided that we should be parked at the East dock and that gave not that much room to swing the ship into the berth. But as the East dock is also the Eastern breakwater it was at least close to the entrance of the harbour and that saved timed. On advice of the pilot we docked stern in, as there was the expectation of wind in the afternoon and if you are then docked nose out it is all a bit easier. The East dock was just a short walk away from the boulevard and large enough to have buses and taxi’s come to the gangway. There was even a little sightseeing train that offered an hour tour of the city for 5 euro’s, so not bad at all.

Today one of my daily chores was a little bit more unusual. Welcoming new crew onboard the ship. Each new cruise, a number of the crew go on vacation and are replaced by new crew. However there is a difference between new crew and new, new crew.

With new, new crew we are talking about all of those who are either brand new to sailing or brand new to Holland America. As the ships culture is considerably different to shore side life, the company makes an extra effort to have these new members of the Club Prinsendam feel themselves at home as quickly as possible. They get a little welcome present and when they board there is a “buddy” waiting who takes the new one around and makes sure he/she knows how to get a good start in their new life. To make this welcome to a new world a bit more festive, we throw a welcome on board luncheon for all of them. Here they meet their, also new, fellow crew members and also the ships staff. This is normally done once a month when we have a sufficient number to make it a nice occasion.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

During the night the wind got less and less and by the time we approached the pilot station it was calm. The swells were still running but as the port is inside a shallow bay, the swell is stopped by a long breakwater and inside it was as flat as a mirror. The weather forecast for the day was uncertain but in the end it was bright with sunshine all day. The approach to the harbour is very peculiar as the green buoys on the right hand side are located well inside the reefs and the reef buoys on the port side when going in, are over in the fairway. So if you would hug the green buoys when going in, what you normally do, then you would be aground almost at once. So when going in and when going out you have to favor the red side of the channel. That means that Port Control keeps an eagle eye on all the ships going through the channel as you do not want to create collisions with this peculiar setup.

Staying on the red side makes sense as the turn into the harbour basin is almost 90 degrees, so the wider the turn you can make, the easier it is. The piers are named after Spanish Royalty and so we had the Princessa Sophia pier and the Alfonso XIII to name but two. We were docking at the latter one and it is almost the closest berth to the town. Almost; as we had to leave some dock space for a local ferry that was arriving later in the day. The beginning of the pier is a container terminal but when there are more cruise ships scheduled for the day, they delay the cargo traffic to accommodate the cruise ships. We were however the only one and thus there was not much of an issue about where were going to dock and about taking a berth away from a cargo ship.

Apart from being a cruise and container port, Cadiz is also very important as a ferry port with daily departures to the Canary Islands. During the winter time it is mainly cargo traffic that is being ferried over but during the summer time the ferries are full every day with tourists. Especially Tenerife gets a lot of car traffic in the form of SUV’s and Campers from the Northern parts of Europe. At the moment the season has not started yet and so we only saw lorries with containers driving on (Roll-on) and driving off (Roll –off)

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

Well the wind did not die off and the frontal system did not diffuse or move away. Instead the flow around Cabot San Vincent only got stronger and whipped up a nice South Westerly swell. What made things worse was that the wind shifted about 2 points more to the South and was thus running in line with the approach course to Portimao. Approaching with the swell in the stern is never pleasant because when you start slowing down the swells tend to overtake the ship and then it feels as if you get a kick in the……. every few minutes when a wave hits the underside of the stern. However it turned out that that was the least of my troubles.

With a wind force 6 blowing we approached the pilot station with an excited pilot on the VHF telling us not to come closer than 2 miles. He was coming out with the pilot boat and he did not have a very comfortable ride as the pilot boat was small and the waves, still building up, were large. I had to put the Prinsendam almost perpendicular on the wind and waves to make a good lee for his boat to come alongside and for him to step on board. By looking at the waves crashing into the breakwater I was already becoming convinced that sailing into port was not going to be a wise thing to do and the pilot quickly confirmed that. The strong wind was blowing straight into the port making it nearly impossible with a high ship as the Prinsendam to stay in the narrow channel. To make matters worse, the swell running into the harbour entrance reduced the depth at entrance by two meters every time a trough was coming through. The minimum depth there was 8 meters, minus 2 meters swell is six and our draft is 7, so we were at least a meter short with every wave trough rolling in. To top things off, there is a river flowing through the port and due to the hard rains yesterday this produced a strong flow through the entrance channel. Our pilot was not a happy chappy when he had to announce that according to him it was not a good idea to go in. (Also the shop keepers normally do not like it when pilots advise cancellations.)

I did not think it was a good idea either and thus we aborted the approach. As the weather was not going to improve until well into the afternoon, it did not have any use to hang around with the ship, so I disembarked the pilot and turned away from the port. After a port cancellation my first thoughts always are; is there something else I can offer the guests. Sometimes there is another port nearby, or you can arrive earlier in the next port if the schedule allows it but in this case it was not easy. Cadiz berth had been booked for tomorrow and a container ship was currently docked there. There is no other port near Portimao that could have taken the Prinsendam. Portimao is the biggest port in the area and even that is a tight squeeze for the Prinsendam.

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Captain Albert Schoonderbeek

As mentioned yesterday we arrived with glorious sunshine but an hour later dark clouds started to gather on the horizon. That had not been planned at all in the forecast. However the weather does not always follow the predictions. The weather front that created the overcast weather before we arrived in Lisbon, stalled and tilted a little bit instead of moving north and deposited a rather large amount of rain over Lisbon in the course of the afternoon of the first day. Then it remained drizzly during our over overnight stay. Only today the weather started to improve with sunny periods.

Apart from the pilots being involved in getting the ship into port there is also the VTS or the vessel traffic systems. These are watched over by traffic control centres in the Lisbon area. This starts already quite far out in the open sea. Near Cabo San Vicente (South West point of Portugal and Europe) and in front of the Lisbon coast VTS systems have been put in place to regulate the traffic. When you look in the chart you see imaginary highways keeping Northbound and Southbound traffic apart. It reduces the chance of collisions between ships and it also reduces the change of environmental disasters as it keeps the tankers away from the coast.

When approaching Lisbon with its estuary of the Rio Tejo; we have to call in at certain points to let the control station (called ROC control here) know, who we are, what we are doing and where we are going. When we sail up the river we switch over the VHF to Lisbon Port Control which controls the whole river area and the port itself. The idea is that port control comes back with information that will help plan a safer passage up and down the river. In the weekend the port is not so busy and so it is relatively quiet with the information offered. During the week days port control normally has a lot to advise and also helps with calling other ships if there is an issue arising. Also they are normally aware when something is going to happen in the port, especially with navy exercises.

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