Today we sail from Willemstad on a SSW course heading for the Panama Canal. Apart from it being too windy it is a sunny Caribbean day. The strong breeze has pushed the waves up high enough to create that corkscrew motion again which I mentioned some time ago. I am seldom poetic but every time it happens I have to think about a poem by Rudyard Kipling, Rolling down to Rio. I believe somebody even made a song out of it.

I never sailed the Amazon and I never reached Brazil,

But the Don and the Magdalena they can go there when they will,

And weekly from Southampton great steamers white and gold,

Go rolling down to Rio, roll down, roll down to Rio,

And I’d like to roll to Rio someday before I’m old.

I’ve never seen a jaguar nor yet an armadill – o,

Dillo’ing in his armour, and I s’pose I never will,

Unless I go to Rio, these wonders to behold,

Go rolling down to Rio, roll really down to Rio,

and I’d like to roll to Rio someday before I’m old.

Yes I’d love to roll to Rio someday before I’m old

So the whole ship was happily lurching against the occasional sway of the ship. The stabilizers were doing their utmost to stop it and the captain had announced it on departure. Today there were no green apples at the Front Desk, so obviously it was not affecting the guests too much. And certainly not the crew. Today we had something going on that the guests never see during a cruise. It is get togethers by the crew. In the movie world they call it bonding, we just call it a get together or in this case Family –Makan.

The company greatly encourages activities which bring groups in the ship closer together. So on occasion we have a crew party and the whole ship can let their hair down for an evening. Then there are parties and get togethers within the departments. Sometimes with snacks and disco (Engineers are good at that with complete light shows) or what the deck department does, with food, drinks and games. That is where the word Family Makan is coming from. Family everybody understands and Makan comes from the Indonesian word for To Eat. Our Sailors are very focused on food and they can put away enormous quantities.

The assembled Deck dept. listening to a thank you speech by leaving Staff Captain Vincent Engel. On his arm Staff Captain Jr.

It has more or less become a tradition that when the head of the Deck department goes home, the Staff Captain, that something is organized. Thus today we had food and drink on the mooring deck followed by tug of war between the various sub groups in the deck department. (Officers, Medical, Security, sailors, Fire Safety etc.) the whole thing is really light hearted; the real serious tug of war games take place during Independence day celebrations of the Indonesians and Philippino’s Then it goes very hard between the Deckies and the Meccies and most of the time the Engineers win as there is more muscle power there. Today it was all about silliness and good feelings. All the Deck officers could attend as well as the Captain had volunteered to take the watch for the duration of the party.

Not  much was left once the sailors where through with filling their plates.

Tomorrow we are in the Panama Canal. The PCA (Panama Canal Authority) has decreed that we should be in line to take our spot in the convoy at 05.30 and enter the first lock chamber at 06.30. Then out of the locks at 08.00 hrs. and to start tender service at 0900 hrs. to land well over a 1000 guests who are going on a shore excursion. Then by 12.00 hrs. we have to line up again to go back and then dock at 1600 hrs. at the Colon 2000 cruise terminal.

We will wait and see. The convoys in the canal are as fast as the slowest ship is traveling and thus it is by no means certain that we will be able to keep to that schedule. Last cruise we were 1 hr. late in Colon which was not good for the guests returning from tour, but good for the local bar owners as the guests had to wait somewhere.

Weather for tomorrow. Light wind and hot and humid. With a chance of a tropical rainbow……………

Tug of war.  Safety attendants against the sailors. Unfortunately some of the sailors were wearing flip-flops and that does not work with a tug of war………………………………

It was not a good morning; a strong frontal system was laying over the Middle Caribbean Sea bringing very strong winds gusting up to 50 knots, and sometimes even a little bit more, with rain squalls at times. The sea was very choppy and the ship quite “lively”. Thank God for stabilizers. The Front desk / Guest Services brought out the green apples and the dry crackers and the green apples were quite popular. I just don’t know if they were taken by those who felt a little woozy or by those who liked green apples. Thus we had bumpy ride all the way down to Aruba.  Then when the captain made the turn to line up for the pilot station, a gust of 55 knots came over with rain and the ship progressed a little bit slower to the pilot station so it could all blow over. And then…………………..

…………………..The most beautiful weather in the world. The way the Caribbean should be. The winds slowly died away to regular Trade Wind force and the sun started to shine as if the rain never existed. Good for all of us as we were now in compliance again with the Holland America Cruise Brochures, where the sun always shines.

The ms Rotterdam leaving at 15.00 hrs. We can see here 3 generations of cruise ships. The Boheme (now Freewinds) from 1968, the ms Rotterdam (from 1997) and the Mein Schiff 3 (from 2014) Design and size has developed considerably since that time.

It was a busy day to day in the port and thus the Zuiderdam, as last arriving ship, was assigned to the I dock which is the old container terminal and which will be developed into a new cruise terminal. A modern container terminal has been built closer to the airport turning the old port into a cruise port only. The Rotterdam was at dock A, followed by Mein Schiff 3 behind her at location B and C. The Freewinds was at her regular location of dock F and we were then at dock I. There would have been room for two smaller ships but even without them the port was full enough with approx. 6600 guests going ashore, not counting crew.  Our scheduled arrival time was 14.00 hrs. today and we had two gangways out just after 2 pm. Because Lido lunch starts at 11.30 hrs. and the dining room at 12.00 hrs. it meant that the whole ship had lunch by 2 pm. and everybody was thus ready to take off like a rocket.

With two gangways out an almost never ending stream of guests poured out of two gates in the hull. Within 20 minutes at least 1400 guests were gone. It always amazes me how fast this goes, and the more days we have spent at sea before a port, the faster disembarkation seems to go. If we did not have immigration inspection in Fort Lauderdale I would not be amazed at all if we could get the ship empty in 20 minutes.  ……………… it would create a bit of chaos I suppose at the suitcase collection area and therefore it is better that it takes place in groups. Two gangways went out to speed up the process and also to create a separate flow between those on tour and those going off by themselves. Otherwise it is quite hard to separate those on tour from the others and get them to the right buses.  Guests like any other human tend to follow the first few people going somewhere and in no time you have everybody going the wrong way.

The four tents are currently the newest cruise terminal in Oranjestad. In the near future, there will be a terminal building and the dock can then handle two small cruise ships or one big one.

This group mentality is something that happens less in home surroundings than in an alien surrounding. A long time ago, when I was 2^nd officer, my colleagues are I tried this a few times. We just formed a queue somewhere and within 5 minutes we had guests standing behind us and often it took quite some time before the question came…………. Why are we in line?  Answer: we are waiting for the Bus. And then after some more silence the collective realization came that there was something amiss here.  Once it resulted in complaints and the chief officer (the function is now called staff captain) went through his whole repertoire of nasty, dirty and harassing things he could compare us with and threaten us with. So we did not do it again but we felt quite good that we had given the chief officer the chance to release his tenses a bit and got rid of some of this stress. (We did not take that chief officer very seriously when he started venting as he did that almost continuously)

Tonight we will sail at 11 pm. and then go east to visit Willemstad, Curacao. We will not dock inside this time as we have been assigned to the new Mega Pier 2 in operation since November 2017 and I have not been there yet. Weather: nice according to the weather gurus so we will see if they are right.

Today is the first sea day while we sail from Half Moon Cay to Oranjestad, Aruba. During the night the ship sailed between the remaining islands of the Bahamas and then crossed the Old Bahama Channel to dive into the Windward Passage. We had Cuba with Cabo Maisi on our starboard side and then slowly worked our way down following the coast of Haiti. Because there is a lot of wind again, much more than predicated, the skies are very clear and clean and thus we have a good view towards the mountain ranges of Haiti. The only thing that is keeping “a great view” back is the fact that the sun has not completely come around to the southwest yet, so there is some glare left. If we would have been here around 16.00 hrs. with the sun still shining brightly from the west and with the same clear skies, the view would have been truly impressive with the emerald green mountain ranges rolling away from the beaches.  What we can see very well is the ocean floor. For a major stretch we are passing through an area where the depth is no more than 20 meters and with the crystal clear water here, the white sand is clearly visible. Sometimes there are even shoals of dark silvery fish visible. Hence the numerous fishing boats in the area. Still very traditional in the form of canoe’s with a single triangle sail.   They normally fish on the 10 meter line, where colder water from the deep meets the surface water warmed up by the sun. That is an area where there are a lot of nutrients for all sorts of fish and thus is it a good place to be for fishermen.

My good place to be today was inside the ship. I am conducting a sort of Marathon training programs with refresher courses for all the crew to get them geared for a corporate audit that is coming. I do not have to train them what to do, as most of our crew is experienced and know their duties. It is more to get them ready to give answers. Many crew members tend to seize up when confronted with auditors in any form or shape. USCG, Lloyd’s, ISO verification etc. etc. We have a lot of them and often the crew is afraid to just show their knowledge. That is where I step in. A captain in front of the class room who assures and motivates the crew does wonders and already quite a few auditors have been on the receiving end of a self-confident and fully charged up Shop lady or Bar tender. And that is what auditors like to see confident and outspoken team leaders. Our crew has it all; I just help with convincing them to use their skills and talents in that area.

My challenge was that I was kicked out of my favorite training room. Normally I have a public room for the larger groups and use the smaller ships training room for the smaller groups. But this cruise we have a number of groups on board who are occupying (& blocking) all the meeting rooms. This cruise we have a large number of bridge players on board, numbers we normally only see during long voyages but our biggest room has been taken over by quilters. Long lines of sowing machines have arrived on board and regiments of eager quilters are beavering away and churning out master piece after master piece. Thus I have split up the my training groups so they can be accommodated in the training room.

Cookies and refreshments are important during a concentrated day of quilting. This photo was taken just after lunch and not all Ladies and Gents (quilting is not limited to the female department only) had returned.

We have quite often these special groups on board. Sometimes they are smaller groups such as this quilting group, sometimes they are larger and sometimes it is a whole ship charter. Because we have these meeting rooms, we can reserve one for them and lock the door when nothing is going on and it does not bother any of the other guests on board.

Tonight and tomorrow morning we will cross the Caribbean Sea and we are all wondering what the wind will be like as it is at the moment not following the weather forecast. For the guests it does not make much of a difference. The sun is shining it is just a little windy on the portside of the ship, but we have the starboard as well and a lot of area’s shielded by windscreens and super structure. In the meantime we are aiming for 13.00 pilot station in Oranjestad Aruba. It will be a busy day with 4 regular cruise ships in and the Freewinds.

As mentioned we left an hour late, due to late arriving guests and then we had to wait for the clearance. The procedures for this have changed in the last few years. In the good old days, you would receive your clearance paper indicating that you had fulfilled all obligations (read payments) of the port and you were allowed to go. You handed in that certificate in the next port and then you were cleared again there. In some Caribbean ports it still works that way.

But most countries have now gone electronic and the USA and Canada have been spear heading that process for a number of years. Now the passenger landing manifests are sent up to 96 hrs. in advance, to be merged with the CBP computers and they are then scrutinized for naughty people. And it has happened that there was a receiving party at the gangway when the ship arrived, sometimes with hand cuffs, guns, dogs and all. Sometimes for traffic violations or for busting parole; but also for more serious crimes or for not paying large fines.  (They do not send a welcoming party if you have a 25 dollar parking fine outstanding, it has to be worthwhile the man power)

Now we have had for about 10 years the ENOAD, the Electronic Notice of Arrival and Departure. The departure one was the important one yesterday. The system is run by USCG and the CBP. The Coastguard wants to know what the ships are doing along the coast and the CBP wants to know who is on board. They also want to know who is on board on departure.  Until fairly recently we could just sail and then send an updated passenger and crew manifest. Now we have to wait until everybody is on board, then send the manifest and then wait for the confirmation that it has been received and then we are allowed to sail. Normally that takes about 10 minutes but if the receiving computer is down or the email does not down load correctly it can become a long and drawn out affair and you are not allowed to sail until it has all has been sorted out. That can be very bad for the blood pressure of the Captain.  In our case the confirmation did come in within the 10 minutes and thus the Zuiderdam sailed an hour late but not more.

That hour did not have any influence on our arrival time at Half Moon Cay as the ship had sufficient speed up the sleeve to catch up. It was just a bit expensive for the Chief Engineer so to say. By 08.30 we were at the anchorage with what looked like a windy but very nice day. Windy for the ship, the guests are nicely sitting on the beach in the shelter of the vegetation so they do not notice it; but it was a steady wind and no frontal systems in the area. Thus the wind remained blowing from the same direction the whole day and by putting the anchor in the right position, the ship could lay on the wind without much issue.

I took the opportunity to take 3 cadets forward to give a bit of explanation about the anchoring procedures. They normally go forward with a 3^rd officer, who has often just finished his/her cadetship and is still gaining experience his/herself.  I have been around the block a few times, so they hear from me about the pitfalls and the near misses and what to look out for. We have four cadets on board, two gentlemen and two Ladies who are all on their 2^nd contract. Read 2^nd half of their cadet year. As they are all Dutch, they have a dual training at school, so they have to spend time in the engine room and on the bridge. Then when they are finished with their school and have their dual license, they will choose for upstairs or down stairs.  At the moment there are 3 upstairs and one lady down stairs so I could take 3 of them to the bow. Both on arrival and on departure.  Dropping the anchor is easy enough, just operate the winch. The complicated part of the job is to learn to be a bit cynical…………….. what can go wrong with every step………………. If you prepare, nothing will go wrong, if you don’t……………………… murphy loves anchors.

We stayed in Half Moon Cay from 08.30 to 16.00 hrs. and then set sail for Aruba, where we will arrive the day after tomorrow at 1400 hrs. Although we expect a lot of wind again, more than the normal Trade Wind strength; it should not bother us to begin with. We first have to sail through the Windward Passage and past Haiti before we encounter the proper Caribbean Trade Winds.

It was an early morning arrival today due to the large numbers of large cruise ships coming in. Because one dock is under reconstruction, they had to park the Royal Princess on dock 21/20 where normally a smaller ship would go.

Layout of the port (Courtesy PTE Port Authority)

To make that possible the ms Zuiderdam, today the smallest ship in port with all her 86000 tons had to come in before one of the big ones to squeeze in at 19. Then the Royal Princess or Allure of the Seas could come in and block our bow and stern. The Celebrity Silhouette and the Koningsdam were on the docks at the Intra Coastal Seaway and two more Princess Ships, the Regal and the Crown Princess were at docks one and four. So the HAL group had five ships in port.  Not a top day, but still a busy day for the port as there were at least 21000 guests on the move out and 21000 guests on the move in.

You might have noted that the some names are different than what I gave yesterday. It turns out that now cruising is dominated by three large companies (Carnival, RCI and NCL, all with attachments and Sub Company’s) that they simply book slots about two years in advance and then plan the name of the ship in later. And as long as the ship sent fits in the dock space, Port Everglades Port Authority does not really care, as long as the port fees keep coming in. As a result they sometimes do not even know where the ships are coming from or going to.  For those who would like to have the occasional look at the Fort Lauderdale cruise mayhem, there is a website which keeps the coming and goings updated: https://pevvesseltraffic.broward.org/webx/

transcript from the website, all of us coming in.

All the ships want to start their operations at 07.00 hrs. when the regular longshoremen day starts and also Customs and Border Protection is available. So the schedule is based on all to be docked before 07.00 hrs. I do not always envy the CBP officers as they sometimes come from a full night shift at the airport and then still have to clear a cruise ship. Plus there are only so many officers available to spread around all the cruise ships so waiting lines are in-evitable.  And the guests are not always that understanding if they have to shuffle for 20 minutes through the terminal to be processed.  Humanity in all it variations and failings is laid bare before the scrutinizing gaze of the officer in his/her cubicle so to speak.  I also have to attend every week as according to the CBP I am not a crew member as I sign on, on an L visa. That visa makes it possible for me I travel over USA soil while working and changing ship. Crew members sail on a C1/D visa which requires them to join the ship straight away from the airport and when finished on board fly directly out of the country again.

The Koningdam departing just before 17.00 hrs. and taking up the full horizon. As you can see there was not much space left between the bow of the Zuiderdam and the Royal Princess once she was in position.

The rules have been tightened through the years and crew joining and leaving has become a long drawn out process. Once the guests are off the ship, we reach the zero count. Everybody has now seen CBP and now new guests are allowed to board. We normally have the zero count by 10 am. and new guests start boarding my 11.30. That gives the ship the chance to deal with the crew. First the crew who boarded last cruise has to go ashore to obtain there I-95. This is a piece of paper that together with their passport gives them the chance to go ashore in an USA port. In the old days you would get that piece of paper the day you joined. Now it is after the first cruise. Once that is out of the way, the disembarking crew can leave and are processed. They hand in their I -95 which is now replaced by an I -94 which gives permission to go to the airport. At the airport it has to be handed in. Not every crew member does so and not every flight desk attendant remembers to ask for it. Still there is somebody somewhere who checks all these little papers being handed in as occasionally captains are asked at the airport “what the heck their crew is doing”. As the captain’s name is on the landing manifest, the missing I-94’s are notched up against that manifest. I do not know if it still happens, otherwise the captains of the large RCI ships with 2500 crew on board are to be pitied.

Transcript from the Website, all of us going out.

We left an hour late as we had to wait for some late guests and then wait for the clearance paperwork. Also that used to be a lot easier in the past but that is another story. Tomorrow we are in Half Moon Cay and it looks like a perfect day. The wind from the right direction and the sun shining.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Today we finally had a day, the way most of us remember the Caribbean from the 1980’s. Wind force 4 (16 knots) and not more, sun all around with only a few wisps of clouds in the air and a nice blue sea with a low swell.  That is the way it should always be outside the hurricane season but now those days are few and far in between; it seems to be so much windier than before.  But we will embrace every gift from Mother Nature with gratefulness. So a gorgeous day it was.

This morning at 09.30 we entered the Vessel Traffic Separation (VTS) system of Cabo San Antonia, the west point of Cuba and from there we hugged the Cuban coast until well into the Straits of Florida. Then we worked our way slowly more into the middle, to see if we can find the Gulf Stream later in the day. The Gulf Stream moves from North to South in the Straits of Florida and nobody has yet been able to predict exactly when it moves or why it is doing that.  Sometimes it is closer to Florida and sometimes it is closer to Cuba. Important for us to know, as when for some reason the current is closer to Florida, then the counter current along the North coast of Cuba is stronger.  We need to know that otherwise we keep “hugging” the coast too long and instead of gaining speed we will lose speed and thus time.

The various routes we can take. Chartlet: courtesy of NOAA.

Chartlet explanation:

The two green circles indicate the two VTS systems off the west coast of Cuba. The two green arrows indicate the two counter currents in the Straits of Florida. How strong, depends on the location of the axis of the Gulf Stream.

The black line is the most direct course to Fort Lauderdale but we only get the benefit of the Gulf Stream very late in the day.

The red line in many variations is the course the ship follows to try and find the happy medium between the shortest distance and the best current.

The blue one would be the easiest way to find where exactly the Gulf Stream is located but it adds a larger number of miles to the voyage and it would be by no means certain if those extra miles would be fully compensated by the extra current gained.

The normal shipboard routine is then as follows. We nicely follow the VTS along the Cuban coast near Cabo San Antonio and then go with the curve of the Cuban coast to the North East. There is another VTS located which ensures that deep sea and coastal shipping do not get into muddle with each other. We do not have to follow the VTS, we can keep completely clear of it but when we are following a similar route that we have to use it and comply with the rules.  Then the ships speed log is carefully observed to see if the speed dips or picks up. The navigation team has to find the balance between trying to find the strongest current without losing to many miles in distance while doing so. Miles that will then not be compensated by the increase in current gained.

If we do it right, then from noon time today until tomorrow morning 05.00 we can gain at least 2 miles each hour and that would be 17 hours and thus 34 miles, which is more than 1.5 hrs. of sailing at full speed. As we burn on average 0.32 tons of fuel for each mile travelled at full speed that is 10.88 tons at a minimum which saves us at least 4000 US dollars in fuel cost.  In reality it is even more, as the more we gain in miles, the less average speed we have to maintain, the more we can reduce speed and switch off engines and the more fuel we save. This is big business so to say and it takes up the full focus of the navigation team.

We Dutch are very good at navigating here, a lot of Dutch explorers and pirates have been messing around here, including Piet Hein a famous Dutch Sea Admiral who captured a Spanish Silver Fleet in this area and the profit helped the Dutch Government out of their national debt. Piet Hein got very famous in Cuba as well; the Cubans did not like the Spanish very much and there is still a statue of him outside Havana. More about that in the future, as I will join the Veendam on Feb. 28^th. so I am going there.

Tomorrow we are in Ft. Lauderdale as it is the end of our 11 day cruise. It will be a busy day with 7 cruise ships in and the harbor master wants us early. Around 5 am in the morning, this is not exactly what we on board had in mind. We are expecting the Carnival Conquest, the Celebrity Summit, the Koningsdam, the Freedom of the Seas and the Harmony of the Seas, plus the local cruise ferry to Nassau. Most of them are very big boys and Fort Lauderdale is currently one dock short as they are rebuilding 25/24 and the plan for us is to dock now in the middle and thus they want us early. Weather looks nice 27oC / 80oF with partly cloudy skies and a light breeze. It is going to be a warm ending of the cruise.

As a continuation of yesterday; the plan to dock at 16.00 hrs. at Colon 2000 Cruise terminal did not work out. While the ms Zuiderdam did sail out of the canal on schedule, sailing back in through the breakwater near Manzanillo Container terminal did not work out as planned. Two container ships that were supposed to come in after us, sneaked ahead and that gave a delay of an hour. In principle it is quite unusual for a cruise ship that it has to wait for box boats but in Panama it is not. All over the world cruise ships always get preference but not in Panama. We are just a ship like all the others. The Panama Canal Authority and the surrounding container terminals make much more money from Container ships than from Cruise ships. Maersk Containers, the largest container company in the world pays nearly a $100 million in Canal fees during a year, while Holland America’s contribution is probably not much more than 2 million. So the focus is not on us but on the better clients. And thus we had to wait until the better clients were out of the way and we could sail in as well. But by 17.00 hrs. we had the gangway back out and the tour guests could return to the ship.

The turn we have to make from the Canal to the port which is just next door.

Then today we were in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a beautiful country with lovely people but they have one problem, they do not seem to be able to build ports with proper breakwaters that keeps the swell out. When we dock on the west coast at Punta Arenas the captain says a lot of extra prayers for a low swell and here on the east coast it is the same thing. Hence ships captains do not like the port very much as it is one of those ports that we have to cancel quite frequently because a high swell prohibits us to go safely alongside the pier. Anchoring is not an option as the tender boats would have a hard time docking due to the swell as well. Either at the ship or at the shore, or at both.

The black line is our way in. It has a loop because we swung on arrival to keep the bow into the swell and so reduce the ships movement.

Today it was half reasonable. There was a high swell running outside but the angle was just good enough for a natural rock formation and an island next to the entrance to keep most of the swell away from our dock and we had only about 1.5 foot at the dock. That movement is something the ropes can handle and it does not affect the gangway too much, so guests can safely walk on and off the gangway.

Puerto Limon and the same on the other side, Punta Arenas, are ECO stops. Our main reason to call is to give the guests the option to immerge themselves in Mother Nature. We also have very popular tours going to San Jose the capital of Costa Rica, where the focus is on culture and history, but mostly it is about wildlife. Costa Rica is blessed with large areas which are still pristine Tropical Forest and the Costa Rican Government has had the foresight to change large swaths of it into national parks. And I believe they are still adding to it.

Most of the tours are full day tours so they come back just before departure. Today that gave some challenges as there had been a severe accident on the main road and the buses were stuck behind the pile up. I have joined my ships several times in Costa Rica or went home from here and I observed that a larger number of Costa Rican drivers have a very peculiar attitude towards safe driving. In the way that they do not seem to care if there might be traffic coming from the opposing side. When they come across a car or a truck which is going slower than themselves, they simply start overtaking. Whether it is up the hill, down the hill, or just before a blind corner. While being transported by Taxi to and from San Jose airport I had the chance to observe that phenomena several times. And almost participated in that exercise myself twice. Only forcefully explaining to the taxi driver that a. he would not get a tip and b. he would be put on the black list by the agent, might have contributed to the fact that I am still around.  The taxi driver and it happened twice, could not see my concern at all and invariably the remark was: Yes but he goes slow and I go fast…………………….

The green blob of high waves is still off the coast of Middle America and we are wobbling our way through it.

We will now have two days at sea to get back to Fort Lauderdale. The weather still looks a bit uncertain. It remains unsettled. So for the coming two days we will get the occasional rain shower, until we have passed Cozumel and it will remain wobbly as the strong wind keeps whipping the waves up.

Part of both the 11 day and 10 day sun farer cruise that the Zuiderdam is making, is the call at Gatun Lake for the overland tour. To get to Gatun Lake we have to enter the Panama Canal as without a Gatun Lake there would be no Panama Canal to start with. The Lake is the reservoir for all the water that is being used in the locks to get the ships up and down. So the Zuiderdam dips into the Gatun Lake, sends the tour guests ashore and then goes out again. As per captain Bart Vaartjes, today was the 171 st. time that the Zuiderdam entered Gatun Lake since 2002. Either to sail through the canal on a Trans Canal cruise or to dip in and dip out as we are doing today. For the Panama Canal Authorities it does not make any difference, what you want to do. They slot you into the morning convoy from the Atlantic and they slot you back into the Pacific convoy coming through in the afternoon. And you pay the full price for a Canal visit, regardless of dipping in and out, or going the whole way; in our case around $ 348,000 give or take a few cents.

In the waiting room, while a very wide Maersk Container ship makes its way through the Canal.

Because we had to slot in with the convoy, we had to be at the Colon / Cristobal breakwater at 05.00 hrs. and then get in line. Once in line we could only be as fast as the slowest ship in the convoy. Today we were a bit unlucky as we ended up behind a Panamax container ship, which means that it takes a long time for such a broad beam ship to push into the lock chamber. The water has very little room to flow around the ship’s hull. That costs us about 30 minutes and we need to start tender service as quickly as possible to ensure that we are finished on time to catch the Pacific convoy to go out again. Today the schedulers had decreed that we should be ready by noon time.

The tender dock in the Gatun Lake. From here the coaches leave for the overland tour.

Thus we made a quick sprint to the designated anchorage area between the old locks and the new locks, lower 5 tenders and started ferrying about 1000 guests ashore who wanted to see Panama from the other side. Although it was only a very short tender distance, the ship had 5 tenders on standby. Two for being ashore to unload and two for being at the gangway to load. The 5^th. one is then the backup tender in case one of the other tenders breaks down and to slot in when the tenders go for bunkers one by one. As the primarily function of a tender is a lifeboat, the fuel tanks always have to be full to comply with the requirement that a fully loaded tender shall be able to sail for 24 hrs. with a minimum sustained speed of 6 knots.

The Panama Canal Tender Inspector with the Zuiderdam Safety Team. Made up by the Ships Safety Officer (Yellow helmet) and the ships bo’sun, While the cadet (with the two helmets) is trying to learn as much as possible.

Because we are “messing” around in the backyard of the Panama Canal with our own boats, the tenders have to be inspected by the local authorities to see if they will not sink while in operation, that they will not leak oil and that they are manned with qualified drivers so they will not cause damage to anything that belongs to the Canal. Thus every tender driver has to carry his tender driving license on board the tender and show it to the inspector.

Because we stay at the anchorage (normally we do not anchor for such a short period but drift on the engines) Pilots and Panama Canal crew leave the ship once we have stopped and rejoin when we get under way again. Then we get different pilots to the ones of early in the morning as the Panama pilots work in shifts and are also engaged in getting more ships from the anchorage or to the anchorage. Not every Panama Canal pilot does the whole transit every time.

The pink slip which each cruise ship captain signs to get through.

Something not everybody realizes is that apart from all the ships having a Panama Canal Tonnage certificate (used to calculate the transit fee) the Canal also has regulations for the ships structure. Especially about things sticking out. With the Panamax Cruise ships, those that are the maximum size that fit in the Canal as the Zuiderdam is, there is always something sticking out. To be allowed in, the captain has to sign a pink waver declaring that any damage to the “sticking out parts” is not the fault of the Canal or its pilots.

By the way, it seems that all the Web Cams in the first locks, the Gatun Locks, have been broken since a few months, so very little chance to see the ship coming through the Locks, for those who were planning to have a look at the Zuiderdam.

By 11.30 we had all 1000 tour guests off and the tenders back on board again. And by 13.00 hrs. we were back in the locks. If all goes well, we will be dock by 1600 hrs.  at Colon 2000, the cruise terminal of Colon / Cristobal.