We still have nice weather but now it is overcast and a bit gloomy. Although the weather system with the thunder storms pulled north and dissipated, another one developed but this curved nicely behind us but it pushed enough clouds towards us to have an overcast and grey looking sky. Because the sun cannot get through the sea look a bit grey as well and that makes for a gloomy day. But no complaints, nobody is sea sick.  We do not want sea sick people as it upsets the Bar Manager as the revenue goes down and it upsets the Cast in the Show room at Sea as they then have to perform for empty chairs.  Entertainers do not like that very much.

Going back to yesterday and the Fast Rescue Craft. As you can see from the picture it is a very nice and very fast speedboat, pushed forward by a water jet. It appeared first on the cargo ships and there is was a wonderful invention as it gave a cargo ship captain a very good tool to get a boat down quickly to offer help. Before that they had to lower a regular lifeboat. Cruise ships also had regular lifeboats but at least two of those boats had winches which could go at double speed, to lower or hoist very fast. But they were still lifeboats, and lay as a cork on the waves and bounced all over the place as they were really designed only to be operated with a full complement of survivors. So when we had to rescue people or do anything else we lowered a tender. Two engines and not very maneuverable.

The ps Fast Rescue boat of the ms Oosterdam. The orange drum on the top is a sort spoiler, meant to keep the stern down for better water flow.

Thus we were also looking forward to getting Fast Rescue boats. And when they came, the officers liked them. Boys with toys. Great to play with. There was only one challenge, the Boats only seat three people and then there is not much room left. And we prefer to go down in the water with a medical person with us, quite a bit of medical gear and if possible a stretcher as well. So through the years it showed that these boats were not so ideal for our kind of operation.  To get that sort of thing changed takes some time but eventually the situation was reviewed and a decision was made about how to make it better.

Boys with toys. A deck officer and an engineer putting the boat through its paces.

The Koningsdam is now the first ship which has a modified lifeboat which works well. Its main purpose is still being a lifeboat but it can act as a Man Overboard Boat or M.O.B. (That name is still from the old days; now we also loose women overboard and thus it should really be renamed in a Person Overboard Boat or P.O.B.  However that might take a while to trickle through in maritime legislation.) What is different to this lifeboat is, it lays deeper in the water and it has a bow thruster, just like a big ship. When the boat is kept in position while offering help, it is much easier to keep the bow also under control and provide a nice stable platform to get a person out of the water or to transfer a patient from another ship. I played a little bit with that boat while I was on the Koningsdam and it all seemed to work very well.

Maybe one day they will retrofit all the ships which such a lifeboat but for the time being we still have on the Oosterdam a Fast Rescue Boat. Much to the delight of the deck officers, who have absolutely no problems for volunteering for the monthly test run.

Just while I was hoping that all was going to be plain sailing to Tampa, we have to be alert again. A system is developing, which could change into a storm, and could change from a storm into something worse and then go the direction of Tampa. We will keep a close eye out and time will tell what is going to happen, or not.

Tomorrow we still have a normal quiet day and we should have a super moon to look at. The last time there was one was in 1942 and thus I have also never seen one. I hope that the clouds break up so we can see something.

We are very lucky thusfar, very little wind, very little swell and the rain nicely moving around us. But have to keep an eye on the South Caribbean.

We are still doing well. We have even less wind than before, down from wind force 4 to a small 3 and the sun keeps shining as if it is all free of charge.  And for every gift we say thank you and happily accept it.  At the moment there is not much to see outside, wildlife in this particular area of water is fairly quiet as it is too far from land for birds and for some reason this is not much of a dolphin area. The Navigators on the bridge have to get excited about spotting buoys as those are very much the only things which come floating by. And as most of the buoys are either white, red or yellow you can easily see them.  All of them lost over board or broken free from nets during storms.

Under water it is a different story. A few thousand feet down we are looking at hills, mountains and valleys. We are about to pass over the Mid Atlantic Ridge and it would be really interesting to see this. But the only place where you can see it is on Iceland and that is one of the reasons why Iceland has so much volcanic action.

Iceland walking through an alley with America to the left and Europe to the right. .

The same reason applies here as I already mentioned for why Madeira is there. A crack in the ocean floors crust which molten rock comes up out of the core of the planet and solidifies as a new crust. The gaps where this material comes up, we normally call Volcano’s as the material tends to pile up in the same way as candle wax settles on the sides of a candle. If the crack moves a little bit, then a volcano goes dormant and eventually the place becomes inhabitable until it blows up again. Mount St. Helens was a prime example of this.

The ridge all the way from Iceland down to the Far south Atlantic.

The cracks in the earth’s crust and the fact that they do not always remain in the same place is caused by the Tectonic movement of the earth’s plates upon which the continents rest.  They are in a continuous if very slow motion and the European plate is disappearing under the American plate in mid ocean. If we waited long enough a piece of material which is going down here at the ridge would come up again somewhere else……………….. eventually.

On average the most active plate only moves a few centimeters a year, so the process takes a while. What we notice is the occasional earth tremor, strong or less strong, when the plate is releasing its pressure as it moves along.

Right below were we are, the crack is quite active and the ocean bottom is full of smokers (small pipes which nature constructs from the minerals which come out of the earth’s core and are cooled down by the water of the ocean. In the recent years it has been discovered that the warmth and escaping minerals have created a complete own and very local biosphere. Regardless of the enormous pressure down there, nature thrives. With modern technology in the form of unmanned subs, we now finally know that a lot of things are going on down there.  It is just a pity we cannot see it all from the ocean surface.

What was visible today, for those who were walking around the ship, was the crew who are forever cleaning, painting and maintaining. This morning there was the strange sight of some sailors with lifejackets on sitting in the Fast Rescue Boat. Always a bit un-nerving: “Do they know something we do not know”? But they were at work and we have the regulation when you are close to the side of the ship, and there is no railing, you wear a lifejacket and a safety line.

The Fast Rescue Boat is an addition to the ships since the 1990’s. For Holland America they appeared with the Vista Class. The idea was, heavily promoted by the Safety authorities (remember my blog from yesterday), that if you had a dedicated boat on board, which you could lower very fast and sail very fast, then you could pick up somebody from the water very fast.   It works quite well for shore organizations such as the lifeboat stations along the coasts but for the cruise ships it is a bit more challenging.

Todays picture of the North Atlantic. Not much mayhem to be seen.

As said the weather is still holding and it looks at the moment even the thunder storms are moving away. We might be lucky.

Another glorious day at sea. The weather is still holding with little chance of bad weather. There is a chance of thunderstorms a bit further down the road but nothing that gives reason for real concern.  So we can happily keep going on and stay on our course towards Tampa.

There are various ways to get to the same position/location when crossing the ocean. On a long distance we have two options; either going by Rhumb Line or following the Great Circle. Because the world is a globe, the shortest route is really a curved line and a straight line is longer as it has to be “stretched out” to fit over the globe. Also due to the curvature of the earth, the Great Circle line going further north as the globe is getting smaller in girth while going away from the equator. But going more north means coming closer to less pleasant weather or at least the greater chance of encountering less pleasant weather than when being further south.

Just imagine folding the globe open and pressing it flat and see what it does with the two lines. The great circle becomes a sort of short cut to the same destination. Constant azimuth means keeping the same course. With the Great Circle you make small course changes all the time to keep the curve.

The Rhumb line provides the most southerly course the ship can take and thus also staying further away from the bad weather up north.  The captain has to decide between the two options.  Shorter route means less fuel consumption but a heightened chance of more inclement weather and the longer route will cost more fuel but might help with finding more reasonable weather.  In our case there was some inclement weather looming after day 3 from Funchal and thus the captain decided to go more south. We will have to travel an additional 15 nautical miles or so but that is much better than bouncing around in a depression. Plus if you are in a depression and the ship starts to bounce then that costs speed as well so it might not even save time.

The sailing of the Oosterdam back to the States coincided this time with a considerable change over in Officers who all joined shortly before the crossing. One lady 3^rd officer was even relieved in Funchal and flew home to Holland via Lisbon. Once we get to the other side, there will be another considerable change over on the 18^th. and the 24^th. and after that date Deck and Engine will not much change anymore until close to Christmas. Now we have 8 sea days to enjoy, it gives an excellent time to refresh some routines which had gotten rusty or which needed some focus as during leave the focus was on other things. Thus we have now embarked on a whole program of trainings, drills and policy reviews which will help to raise the Officers awareness while doing their jobs.

One of the reasons for all this extra focus is the fact that our policies are forever being updated. Where on the shore side a law might seldom change as the political process is either very slow or a large group is against it, at sea things are different. Sailors do not have the option very much to say, this is nonsense, let’s keep it the same as we do not have any political clout. Plus it is hard to go against something that is being sold under the label “it improves safety”.  But what we see going on very much in the industry is consolidation and more detailed implementation. I call it : once we walked around the building keeping to the left and now suddenly we walk around the building keeping to the right. The result is still the same. The ship still sails safely only the routines have been changed.

For the coming winter we will be sailing in the North American hemisphere and this brings with it a whole set of new rules to get used to again. Nothing really new; just different ways to approach an identical topic. It does not really matter if you fight a fire the European way or the American way (metric or imperial) the result is the same but the approach is different. For officers who are new to this or have spent the last few years in Europe and Down under, there is the challenge to get familiar with the new approach. And now we have all those sea days to accomplish this.

What we were really worried about has dissipated to the north but there is still a tail with a lot of rain and thunder and that might not be gone by the time we get there.

So while this captain is dealing with that, captain Kan is dealing with a whole set of regulatory requirements to be fulfilled in order to be allowed to sail into Tampa on the morning of the 18^th.  In the meantime there is also the weather to keep an eye on. Depressions are nowhere in sight for the meantime but we still have a sort of frontal system looming which might bring some thunderstorms.

The weather is holding and the ms Oosterdam is ploughing with a speed of nearly 19 knots through a very calm sea. There is just a little movement caused by the regular ocean swell but the ships stabilizers are taking care of it very well.  Stabilizers can only deal with 90% of a rolling movement so there is always 10% or so left. That is the amount that the stabilizers need to “feel” that the ship is rolling. The gyroscope which controls the stabilizers needs some sort of push or jolt to measure the difference between being completely horizontally and not been completely horizontally before it can do its job. And therefore there is always a tiny bit of movement whatever the situation.

We are going faster than we need at the moment as we need to build up a good amount of reserve time because of the adverse currents we will get once we have passed Freeport in the Bahamas. At the moment we have a little bit of current with us, the equatorial current, which is curving away from the African coast and will eventually become part of the Gulf Stream again and so rotate in a never ending oblong circle. We probably get a 0.25 of knot for free each hour, which still helps if you count the total number of hours we will be under its influence. Once we start the battle against the Gulf Stream we will have at least 2 knots against us for most of the time. Unless the Gulf Stream axis is really well over to the Bahama side then we might be able to use the counter current which runs under Miami and Key West. But we cannot guarantee it and thus we build up a bit of “plus” as we call it and then can make it with the same engine configuration all the way to Tampa.

The top of one of the engines. The cylinders are arranged in V shape and thus the covers are under an angle as well. The red drum at the far end is the Turbo Blower. Most cars have a turbo, the ships have them as well.

Today I did some review work in the engine room of the Oosterdam. The construction of the Vista Class is an evolution of the S class and the R class but with a big step. This was the first class with two separate engine rooms. In the 90’s the regulators were starting to get worried about the size increase of the cruise ships  and having that whole ship rely on one engine room. It would only take a small fire and the whole technical heart of the ship would be out of service.  Thus came the idea to split up the engine room in two parts and have two or three engines in one compartment and two or three in another. As all the new ships were Diesel Electric this was very easy because they did not need a connection to the propeller shafts. Only a few electric cables are needed to go from the engines generator to the transformers and those transformers could be located anywhere in the ship if needed.

The engines run three decks high. This is D deck level. Then the real foundation is another 5 feet down towards the bottom of the ship. The round eyes sticking out were used for lowering the engine into the ship by a crane during the construction of the ship.

The Oosterdam is number 3 of the Vista Class and thus has a Forward and an Aft Engine Room. Forward there are 2 engines with a Gas Turbine engine in between and the aft one has three 3 engines.  Three of them have 16 cylinders and two of them have 12 cylinders. The Gas Turbine was a bright idea before 2010 and they were installed in quite a few ships between 2000 and 2010. The Queen Mary has one as well as an example. The idea was that if you needed some extra speed then you could use the turbine which would have less maintenance and a lot less weight than a normal engine and could produce the same or more output.

On board the jet engine turbine is completely sealed away in a protective housing. It produces a power of 11000 volts and you do not want to get close to that.

At that time the price for the fuel it needed was still low and thus it was economically feasible and operationally a nice perk.  As we know the fuel cost rocketed after 2008 and then jet turbine became a sort of white elephant. The turbine is indeed similar to an airplane engine and thus we call it so. It is hardly used anymore and ships which were constructed with the emphasis on these jet turbines (Royal Caribbean had a few) received additional motor engines to bring the cost down. If we would run it now, then the chief engineer would have to go around collecting money first from the Guests before he could afford to start the machinery up.

The engine is connected by a 12 inch thick shaft to a generator. Which is a sort dynamo and generates electricity.

Each engine is connected to a Generator which changes the shaft movement into electricity and that electricity then goes to Transformers which bring the power down to a current which can be used by a converter and this converter powers an Azipod which pushes the ship forward. Not all the power goes there; some is diverted and used for the ships operation. And when we go in and out of port, the bow thrusters run on electricity as well.

All engines need cooling and these are the 6 feet high cooling pumps for three engines.

All ships are so configured that the average speed needed for a cruise can be handled by one engine less than the total on board and the engine not in use can then be put under maintenance.  THis is done on a regular rotation; varying from small repairs and regular piston inspection, to a full stripping down of the whole engine when the maximum running hours have been reached. We take our cars to the garage after so many miles, a ships engine is completely taken apart while the ship is in operation. New parts come on board beforehand and the old –exchange- parts go ashore for refurbishment.

Tomorrow is the 2^nd day of our crossing and now the question slowly arises what the weather will bring. As always it will all depend if there is no hurricanes coming over and staying south of Bermuda or a depression created off Cape Hatteras decides to drop down, instead of curving northwards and head directly for Iceland.

At 06.00 the good ship Oosterdam was at the pilot station of Funchal and the pilot hopped on board right on time. Then the main discussion was: are we going portside or starboard side alongside? The captain wisely decided to dock with the nose to open waters. Always easier to get out in case something happens un-expectedly and of course it makes the departure time a lot shorter than if you have to swing first. And we are in a sort of a hurry as the average speed to maintain is quite high and for quite a long time we will be going against the current. Especially when we get to the Florida Straits.  Of course we did not sail on time as we had a “short” port call.  All on board was 14.30 hrs. but as it was so short, everybody came back late and then you do not sail on time. Thus swinging on arrival nibbled off some time from the delayed departure.

We had in port with us today the AidaBlu which came in an hour later. She was not on the agent’s schedule so I wonder if she was a late addition or had swapped ports or route. On the dock side stood a very loud (and very intoxicated) German bellowing a warm welcome to his German countrymen. It was 07.00 in the morning but I think for him time had stood still since the night before as he kept yelling Guten Abend (which is not exactly good morning) As he was partly obscured by the bow of the Oosterdam his welcome speech was a little bit marred due to lack of exposure to those on the AidaBlu. He then wanted to walk along side the Oosterdam to reach the docking location of the AidaBlu behind us but for that purpose he had to walk through our security zone and thus he was stopped. Still happily bellowing he was then guided behind the Cruise Terminal and disappeared from view and from ear shot.

We have: Tui, Indonesian Flagm Tui, Tui, RCI, Tui, Westerdam, Aida, USS Taylor, unknown and the ms Nieuw Amsterdam. The crew names are old, as that is not allowed anymore.

Funchal is one of the very few places where they still allow you to paint logos on the dock wall. They even encourage it as long as it has a design and the end effect is pleasing. They only let you paint over old signs if and when they have completely faded; otherwise you have to find a still bare space. Holland America is very well represented and so is TUI, which makes sense as with their “Mein Schiff” fleet (they have just commissioned Mein Schiff 5) they make a lot of calls here as does the Tui small cruise fleet which focuses on the UK market with the ex Holland America Line ships Thomson Spirit and Thomson Celebration (ex Nieuw Amsterdam and Noordam).

The Oosterdam did not undertake a paint project as we were too short in port and opposite our location all the wall spots were already taken. You have to be further inside to find a piece of bare breakwater wall., but maybe next time. At least we could see the Westerdam and the Nieuw Amsterdam proudly in place right across from us.

The ms Oosterdam docked at the S.E end of the inner breakwater.

The port of Funchal mainly consists out of one large breakwater which runs for 2000 feet in an East – West direction and offers place for two very large ships and a lot of smaller ships. The ships dock on the inside and the strong and high breakwater wall keeps the bad Atlantic weather out. The only challenge we have is the North Atlantic Swell rolling into the port. If by chance the swell is from the South East and not the South West (which is the norm) then the waves roll in, hit the island side, bounce back and make the ships at the Breakwater dock surge along considerably. Not pleasant for the gangway, which then moves with the ship, and not good for the ropes which on occasion brake due to the friction on the mooring cleats.  Today it was nice and quiet.

The mighty breakwater as seen on departure. This time minus the shouting German who stood right under the lighthouse on arrival this morning. The Aidablu sailed later.

By 1500 hrs. we were on our way and will now have 8 full days at sea and then arrive in Tampa on the 18^th.  Weather looks quite good at least for the near future with little wind and little swell. There is a frontal system hanging north of Bermuda but we have to wait and see how far its influence comes south. Hopefully only a little bit of swell which can be looked after by the ships stabilizers.

Yesterday morning the Oosterdam was the first ship to enter the port of Malaga and last night she was the last one leaving, at least of the three HAL ships. Then it was pedal to the metal to maintain the schedule for Funchal. The weather forecast for the Mediterranean between Malaga and Gibraltar was spot on, but once in the Ocean there was more wind and swell than initially forecast. Sometimes I have the impression that forecasters fine tune their forecasts by looking out of the window. Something that does not work for the Open Ocean.

The Dutch weather observation ship ms Cumulus. No stabilizers, not nice in the winter. (Photo courtesy Stegro publishers)

In the old days when there were weather ships, you still had a window or a view from the bridge, but those ships are long gone. With that I mean stationary ships, moving explorations ships such as the NOAA has and most navies are still out there in abundance.  When I was at the Maritime Academy between 1976 and 1979 I met officers who did contracts on the Dutch weather ship the ms Cumulus and that happened on a sort of a one by one loan basis from the Merchant Navy. The ship was of course parked where the worst North Atlantic weather could be expected and thus there was little interest for a 2^nd contract unless it was in the summer. The ship did very valuable work and I remember my first captain contacting them directly to ask for the weather in the area. No doubt they provided the answer by looking out of the (bridge) window.

The island of Madeira and the smaller Savage islands to the S.E. The darker the water, the shallower it is.

Now the ms Oosterdam is on the way to Funchal on Madeira, which is the largest island of the Madeiran Archipelago.  The other islands known as the Savage Islands are very small and the preponderance of the population lives on the main island. The island is a bit to the south of the latitude of the Straits of Gibraltar and thus we are steering a SW course of 249o. Which is always good. The further to the south the less waves there tend to be. There lays a frontal system over the Azores (as it does very often) and that is sustaining a swell coming from the north hand which is just touching the 3 meters or 9-10 feet. It is hitting us under an angle and as a result the Oosterdam is not pitching or rolling; it does both but not consistently. Thus we have a bit of a strange movement. The Azores are about 1200 miles to the North West and thus we are very happy that we are not there today.

The North Atlantic Ridge and the boundaries of the most important Tectonic plates. (Somewhere off the internet, could not trace the maker)

The islands are all the tops of Volcano’s which were created by mountains ridges rising very sharply several thousand feet from the sea floor. Thus when we left the Straits of Gibraltar behind, we fell off the Continental Shelf and are now sailing over very deep water. That will remain so until about 2 am. tomorrow morning when we approach the ridge running S.E. of the islands and then it gets shallow quite quickly. Shallow in relative speak, it will still be several hundred feet but with an average depth of several thousand feet it can be considered shallow. Then it does down again to very deep water until we arrive at the pilot station where Madeira itself rises up from the depth.

All these rises and depths (Madeira, Azores, Cape Verdes) are all the results of cracks in the earths crust. The major one is the North Atlantic ridge where the European Tectonic plates (the Eurasian and African plate) are being shoved under the North American plate. Madeira is sitting on the border of the Eurasian and the African plate) where the Earths crust is breaking or cracking up, there are normally fireworks to be seen when that happens but on Madeira things are very quiet. The island itself is a shield volcano, which means the island is part of a Volcano rim. But as it is a big rim, there a numerous small volcano cones near the highest points of the island. They are all dormant and the city of Funchal has been built all over them.   As the chance of seeing the island being blown up by volcanic activity is fairly remote, and Funchal is the most important cruise port of Portugal to which country Madeira belongs. It is situated ideally for trans-atlantic crossings but as it is only one sea day sailing away from the European shores it is also for that reason a nice port to go to, when on a 10 day cruise or longer from a Continental home port.

The plan is to have the pilot on board at 06.00 hrs. tomorrow morning and to be docked before 07.00 hrs. We will stay until 15.00 hrs. and then set sail for Tampa Florida. Madeira has a very temperate climate and tomorrow it will be on the low side of temperate with temperatures of 57oF or 14 oC.

And thus I arrived on the Oosterdam in Malaga.  I left San Diego on the 5^th, and flew via New York to Amsterdam where I arrived on the 6^th in the morning^. Then the late afternoon flight to Malaga which brought me to the Hotel in Malaga just before 8 pm.  I had to wait for most of the day in Amsterdam for a connecting flight but if you have to wait somewhere in some airport then Amsterdam is one of the best airports there is to do so.  Even if you are not a big shopper, there is sufficient stuff to look at to keep you busy for a good number of hours. And the KLM business class lounge is in my opinion the best in the world. You never run out of food or drink and there are always sufficient newspapers to catch up with the rest of the world. Everything is help yourself and that is something I prefer as in other lounges where they have bar tenders, you always get the feeling that they want a tip and sometimes the tipping glass is standing on the bar, quite prominently. I have nothing against tipping but I tipp for service above what can be expected and thus I see no reason to tip somebody who is just doing is/her job.  I had the same last night with the Taxi driver who brought my suitcase nicely all the way to the hotel desk and that deserves a good tip; this morning the taxi driver did not even know where the Cruise Terminal was and thus there was no tip. Taxi drivers in Spain do not exactly expect tips, so there is not much of an argument but I exercise the principle everywhere in the world the same way and then you can have some interesting experiences.   I do not have children but if I had had them, they would have been dead by now (including my parents and my grandparents) if I had to believe the Taxi driver in Alexandria Egypt. He got rather upset when I explained to him the difference between the connection of a tip and service and no service and still expecting to get rich in one day.

I am now on the Oosterdam and hit the deck running as they call it. The ship is on its Trans-Atlantic crossing cruise which started on 3 November in Civitavecchia, Italy. Today is Malaga and then the day after tomorrow we are in Funchal and after that only sea days until we arrive in Tampa on the 18^th. As the ship is coming back from Europe, it will face a very heavy day in Tampa and the captain wisely decided to start preparing for that event as early as possible. There will be a full face crew inspection by CBP, A full USCG inspection, heavy loading & provisioning, fuel bunkering, offloading of recyclables and the start of a Carnival Corporation 5 day audit. And then we also still have to disembark 2000 guests from this cruise and embark 2000 guests for the next cruise which is a seven day West Caribbean.

All the Oosterdam crew except an odd 30 or so who were needed to keep the ship running.

So this morning, the staff Captain called the whole ships complement together in the Showroom at Sea after the General Emergency Boat drill. Most communication in the ship goes by email but that is A. not always conveying the importance of a situation and B. it does not always reach everybody as you depend on the supervisor to pass it on, or on the crewmember to read what has been posted. Most crew never visit the Show room at Sea and thus is it a nice perk to sit on comfy chairs and couches and hear the staff Captain preach the latest “HAL – Gospel”

Staff Captain Jonathan Edwards explaining that nobody can expect a day off during first call Tampa.

The good ship ms Oosterdam (I) is under the command of Captain Robert Jan Kan whom I sailed with the 1990’s and onwards when he joined Holland America as a Navigator. Today he led the Holland America parade into Malaga as behind us are the Prinsendam and the Eurodam. It is very seldom that you have 3 company ships in port and even more seldom that they are docked at the same cruise terminal. Thus I did have to run ashore to take a photo of the occurrence. Unfortunately the cruise pier in Malaga is long and narrow with water on both sides, so I could not walk far enough to get them all lined up in a row.  An angle was the best I could do. Maybe a local newspaper sees the uniqueness of the happening and diverts a helicopter for a few moments.

Ocean Liner row in Malaga. ms Oosterdam, (I), ms Eurodam (I) and ms Prinsendam (II). Also in port but at other docks: ms Amadea and the ms Aegean Odyssey.

Tomorrow we are at sea after having sailed through the Pillars of Hercules & Gibraltar during the late night. The weather forecast looks very good and with that I mean not sun or rain but wind, waves and swell. Those things which makes a ship wobble and the guests unhappy. For the time being it looks very good. The 20 knots of wind we currently have will died down to almost nothing and the waves are not supposed to be higher than 2 meters or so, 6 or 7 feet.  And that is very good for this time of the year.

USA California has a long coastal line and so has Mexico California; and since 2 pm. yesterday we are sailing along it and can see it continuously on our starboard side. Some of it is fairly flat but in some areas the mountain ranges almost reach the water line and then we see high sand dunes which are really rocks covered with sand. We will continue to follow the coast until we reach San Diego, which is about ten nautical miles north of the Mexican Border. From San Diego it would at least be another day of sailing along the coast to get to the northern boundary, there where California meets Oregon. The Veendam will not do this as San Diego is the turnaround port and from there she goes back to Florida.

The Yorktown Clipper a number of years ago. I did not have my camera with me, so I could not take open sea shot this morning.

This is really the start of the winter season and thus I was not so amazed to see a little blue hulled cruise ship sailing by which looked like the Spirit of Yorktown. But I was amazed to see that it was her. The latest news I had read about her was that she had been seized by a bank due to some monetary issues but obviously she is back in business. She is one of those little ships who sail in Alaska in the summer and then sail the Gulf of Cortez area in the winter. Specializing in wildlife explorations. (The Gulf of Cortez is the sea area between the Mexican Coast and the Californian Peninsula)

We had a very nice sunset last night and that brings me back to the need to complete my blog of a few days ago about sunrises, sunsets and twilights. For people ashore the twilight zone is the moment between light and dark, the time of sunrise and sunset. For us at sea things are a little bit more complicated as that time of the day is an excellent moment to take celestial fixes to determine the ships position. We now mostly look at the GPS but the old skills are still important as you never know if some politician might switch the system off. (USA, Russia and the EU all have an independent system developed just because of that reason)

It has nothing to do with fishing but everything with finding out where you are. (Courtesy In-Fisherman)

Twilight is the time of dusk or dawn, when we go from full night to full day or vice versa. The sun is below the horizon but it is not completely dark yet. For the explanation we will use sunset. There are three phases in this period, Civil, Nautical and Astronomical twilight.

Civil Twilight is the period which ends when we humans think: now the sun is really gone. We cannot see terrestrial objects very clear anymore. We can see planets but stars are not very clear. Then comes Nautical Twilight. Now the stars are clearly visible and the horizon is as well. By using a sextant (which measures the angle between a heavenly body and the horizon) we can find our position by obtaining “a fix” of several objects at the same time. 3 observations are enough, 5 or 6 are better. Once the horizon is no longer visible we enter the period of Astronomical Twilight. This is a period when astronomical observations can be made; I am not too familiar with this but as far as I know astronomers need sometimes this period as they cannot do certain observations if it is really night.

Scientists have of course figured about exactly between which angles of the sun, which twilight exists. We at sea do not really care much about those angles. We need the time. We calculate when we can expect nautical twilight and we are already in position with our sextant well before that time so we have the longest period possible to catch those stars and planets which will give us the best fix. So once we can see the horizon or until we lose the horizon we “shoot the stars”. Which is nowadays not so easy anymore as we have closed bridge wings; and thus we have to go to the deck above the bridge and then come down again. Because Navigators are not allowed to leave the bridge, you need other officers to come up and make the observations.

One from the old days. Officers shooting the noon time sun on board the HAL cargo ship ss Arkeldyk in 1950. The officer with the 3 stripes is the later captain H.L. Van Deventer. (Courtesy R. van Devener , son)

Not a bad idea anyway, because by taking multiple sightings, you can improve your final calculation considerably by middling the results and discarding an observation if one is a bit too far out. That was why in the old days all the deck officers would come to the bridge for the”noon time fix”. This is a way to exactly measure your latitude by taking an observation of the sun when it is at its highest point. As the sun is only there for a few seconds, all officers would take a reading and then decide on the correct one. (Most of the time, the one of the most senior officer involved) But that is another story.

Tomorrow we are in San Diego and I will leave the ms Veendam behind, my work being done here. I was Captain on her from 2004 to 2008 and it was good to see her back. From San Diego I will fly via New York and Amsterdam to Malaga and there join the Oosterdam for her Trans-Atlantic crossing and then for cruises from Tampa.

So tomorrow there will be no blog as I will be travelling. Even if I was not, then there would still be no blog as tomorrow I will be 35 years with Holland America Line, so I would have raised a glass to myself in the best Bar on the ship. Now I will find one in an airport .Cheers.

We arrived just after 06.00 with a spectacular sun rise behind us. The weather turned out as expected the only thing which we had not hoped for was that all the fishing boats were assembling just outside the port, to go for a fishing derby. The mother ship was calling out the numbers who had checked in and by the time we drifted by, heading towards the anchorage, the count was up to 139 and still going up. Although the authorities were doing their best to keep all the boats together it was a hopeless challenge and the Veendam had to go very slow, to avoid them all. As was expected and as did happen, there were a few of course who wanted to get out of the way but did so by crossing our bow. At for them a safe distance, but for those on the bridge quite scary as the dead angle of view is 45 meters and most fishing boats consider 20 meters more than enough.

The ship had to carefully navigate its way through quite a few of those.

The good thing about it was that the fishing competition emptied out the harbor and that gave more room for our tenders to get in and out.  So we dropped the hook and just before 07.00 hrs. we were in full swing. Full swing is a big word; we were trying to swing, as apart from the guests on tours nobody was in a hurry to go ashore. My prediction of yesterday that a lot of guests were not going ashore at all came through as it remained quiet. By 10.00 hrs. the Cruise Director gave up all hope of enticing people to collect a tender ticket and then it was a free for all. Which exactly generated one more tender full of guests. No more than half of all on board decided to have a look at Cabo San Lucas.

Not that the captain minded, it also meant that everybody was back on board on time and the ship could leave the anchorage at 14.00 hrs. It is a tight run up to San Diego and there is the additional challenge of sailing around the South point of the Baja California, with is Sunday sailors, sightseeing boats (whales) and fishermen. That can cost considerable time. Then the ship will try to arrive early in San Diego as we are coming from a non USA port and thus everybody has to go to immigration.  An early start is helpful here, especially to get all the pre paper work done.

View from the tender. The port of Cabo San Lucas. This is after most boats went fishing.

In the meantime the four ships tenders kept up the shuttle service with the trainee tender operators running the tenders when empty. Today was a big day as they had to perform under the watchful eye of the officers on the bridge and at the gangway. Tonight they will receive their certificate and on the Eastbound Trans canal they will get a few more tests and then they can be put to work when needed.

Apart from keeping my eye on the trainees, my day was filled with crises management training. When I am on a ship I try to grab the chance and give the Stairway Guides a bit of in-depth training in regards how to handle, obstinate, fearful, obnoxious, scared and panicky Guests in an emergency. We have a few tricks for that, but to get it across some acting is needed and the officers who are normally giving the training are not always comfortable of acting like a fool and getting the rest to act like fools as well. I have no such problems and then the crew is more willing to join in as soon as they see that I am willing to drop my five stripes. And thus we had small far eastern ladies contemplating how to handle big and brawny guests.  If it really would happen then the results will be quite scary for those big and brawny guests………..

Tomorrow is the last day of the cruise and most guests will be packing although there are a few who will return with the ship to San Diego.  I met one family who joined in Montreal, stayed all the way through, will visit friends in San Diego and then sail back to Florida to spend the winter season there. Not a bad way of living if you have the time to do so.

Tomorrow should be another nice day, with similar weather as today, and as today was nearly cloudless we might have a spectacular sun set tonight.

The good weather continues and we had another day in paradise, right here on board the Veendam. Today there was a lot of wildlife around and those who frequented the outside decks could have seen, dolphins, seals, all sorts of birds and turtles. We even had a hawk hitching a ride on the bow. Normally we do not see hawks in open waters but we are less than 20 miles from shore so maybe he/she flew out a bit too far and used us as a resting platform before turning back again. Turtles (or tortoises) are more common and I am always fascinated by them. We literally see hundreds of them and in the beginning I was always afraid that they might be hit by the ships propellers as they are not the fastest of swimmers.

This is the sort we see from the bridge along the Mexican coast

But through the years I kept an eye on them and it looks like that we, at least the bigger ships, cannot do them any harm. With their shields they lay on the water as a cork and they are simply washed away on the bow wave. They might not enjoy the sudden swell rolling by, but when caught they are pushed away a considerably distance. When I follow them I normally seem them 100 to 150 feet away from the ship by the time the stern passes them and they are just bobbing up and down the waves created by the ship. There are a lot of turtles out there but we always only see one sort. A big brown shielded version in size anywhere between 30 and 80 centimeters. (As guessed from the bridge wing)

Tomorrow we are in Cabo San Lucas and then we will see more wildlife in the form of Pelicans and seals which are normally present in large numbers around the port entrance. With so many sport fishermen going in and out of here, there is a fair chance of an easy meal. Then after the departure I have high hopes for whales; some who are here all year around and some who are on the way down from Alaska, as not all Alaska whales go to Hawaii.

Cabo San Lucas has three anchorages. This radar screen shot shows anchorage 2 in the center, we will be all the way to the left. In that direction is the ship/echo heading which is following the dotted line.

Cabo San Lucas is a tender port and the preparations for tomorrow started already a day before. The tenders need to be made ready and the agent has advised us what to expect. We will be the only ship into tomorrow so we can go to anchorage number 1, which is the closest and also the best sheltered from the ocean swell. That saves a considerable time and less tender distance to cover.

Then we have to prepare the operational side of the tender operation as we will be using our own boats. Most of us have all been there but still we take the whole deck department with all sailors and officers through a tender briefing to ensure that the operation is safe but also as efficient as possible. We are in port from 07.00 to 14.00 hrs. which is a short period to get 1200 guests ashore and also back. (Unless a lot of the guests are not going ashore; most have been here already before and will have bought the T shirt)

Bo’sun and sailors assembled in the Bo’sun store listening to the wise words of the First Officer on the left.

Thus today all the troops gathered in the Bo ‘sun store and the First Officer gave his briefing. Route and Safe navigation (the area is normally full of six-pack navigators or worse), Emergency tender procedures, Safe Working Practices, docking, undocking, standby locations, checklists, etc. etc. That takes roughly about a hour, as we want to make sure that there are no glitches. And if there is one, then it is at least not caused by something we could have foreseen.

We will start approaching the anchorage by about 05.30. Have the hook down by 05.45, send our first tender ashore at the same time to collect the officials and as soon as those have cleared the ship, start our tender operation. Hopefully we will be in full swing before 07.00 hrs.

It will be a hot day again tomorrow, with temperatures in the low 80’s and a lot of sunshine. If I was a guest and I had already bought the T short, I think I would prefer to stay on board. I will be up and about early. First to see the anchor operation, and then monitor my school class in helping operate the tender service.

I will continue my story about sunset/ sunrise after Cabo.

For those who are interested I have uploaded the biography of the Master of the Veendam

Captain Noel O”Driscoll under Current captains and their schedules.