Time to go home. I have been three months on the road and my “Senior Management” is eagerly waiting to see me again. I have been on the Westerdam for four weeks and before that on the Zuiderdam and on the Rotterdam. The last three weeks of the Westerdam visit was all about being a teacher, mentor and the “all knowing ships captain” with putting 5 new 3^rd officers on the road towards a wonderful career with Holland America.

Two of the five already have an assignment and will go to the Amsterdam and the Rotterdam. The other three will return home and will wait to be slotted into the schedule on one of the ships. And that might even mean a return to the Westerdam. I know the ship will be happy to have them.

I will be home until the beginning of February depending on the fact that my schedule turns out to be as I have planned it for the moment. If so it will mean a three week period on the Maasdam which will include Brazil and the Amazon and then flying t Italy to help with the arrival of the Koningsdam. I will be there for 2 months so I hope to be able to give a day by day account of what it takes to get the “Koningsdam show on the road”.

But everything is very much subject to change and time will tell if it will go the way it has been planned.

Until that time my blogging will come to an end as I do not think a narration about me in the local supermarket is of much interest.

However you might want to check the blog/site after the holidays as I will start uploading the bios of the current captains in the fleet. I received permission to do so from the company in September and now I will have the time to start filling in the blanks.

I would like to thank all readers for their interest in my daily ramblings and hopefully it was found to be interesting and diverting.

Let me finish with the Christmas message wish which I normally read out on the stage when I am the “captain on the bridge and not the captain in the bar…….or in the training room”:

ON BEHALF OF HOLLAND AMERICA LINE, MY OFFICERS, STAFF AND CREW, I WISH YOU A HAPPY, SAFE AND PEACEFUL SAILING ON THE TURBULENT WATERS OF THIS WORLD, AND MAY YOUR FUTURE BE AS BRIGHT AS THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL.

The ms Westerdam Nautical Excellence Class.

The Weather Gods are not always smiling upon us and today it looked like as if they had taken a break altogether from regulating the weather. On arrival the sky was overcast, it was rainy, windy and bleak. Apart from the wind strength forecast not being in synch with reality even the wind direction was different. Instead of the predicted NE wind (which we like as it keeps the ship away from the island) it was blowing instead from the SSE. (Which we do not like as it pushes the ship towards the island.  

But it was workable thus we dropped anchor and kept one of the Azi pods going to provide a lee for the tenders along the boarding platform and to keep us away from the beach. The weather had one direct influence on the island pattern of the day: drinks were down and coffee consumption was up. Maybe something for market researchers to look into; an increase in clouds results in an increase in coffee consumption. The weather improved during the day but it never became a great day.

The tank as being rebuilt in the luggage area

I still have an outstanding matter to report and that is in relation to confined space training which I mentioned a few days ago. We did our training in St Thomas and for me the challenge was to come up with something realistic. With a confined space the main challenge is to create something which resembles reality, is within in the safety margins and can be built on board. The latter can be an issue as we do not have unlimited materials on board for everything we would like to do.

Air bottles for the rescue team.

But we managed. A combination of luggage bins (tank frame) half size pallets inside (simulating the frames in a tank) and a cover /tarpaulin over it (to make it dark) and we were in business. My main concern was the safety of those going in. Although it was only a mock up, you never know if somebody suddenly discovers he/she is claustrophobic. But we solved that one by using carton for the side walls which we could slide away in case of such an emergency. My class of eager beavers were quite proud of themselves when it was finished.

A tank opening is not easy to get into.

A confined space drill is about rescuing somebody from a tank or other enclosed space. That is the simple part. What happens in real life is, is that a second person goes inside without air supply and suffers a similar fate as the person already inside and who is supposed to be rescued.   Thus the mantra is all the time: first the equipment for yourself and then go for the casualty. We have all sorts of gadgets available for this and today we used it. Hip bottles for air, air bottles on carts with a long supply hose, stretchers, gas meters, checklists, it all came out and it was all used.

Getting the casualty out.

Drills are about learning and gaining experience. What did we learn? First, with a larger tank you need a dedicated (extra) person inside the tank for communication only. Somebody who can narrate to the outside world what the rescuers are doing, how the progress is and who can pass advise back. Secondly that small portable air bottles have preference over back packs. Thirdly that it is not easy to bring out an 80 kg. (160 pounds) unconscious casualty (dummy in our case) if you have to climb over steel frames and have to protect the casualty at the same time. The small “plank” stretcher proved invaluable.

The casualty reaching safety.

It was a great learning experience and the teams involved gained a lot of insight in safely retrieving somebody from inside a confined space. I hope to be able to repeat it on the other ships.

Today is the last day of the cruise, tomorrow the Westerdam will be back in Fort Lauderdale. Weather is supposed to look a lot better than here today with partly cloudy skies and decent temperatures. My class will go home and so will I.  So there will be one more blog to follow before I start enjoying my vacation.

Today we enjoyed a glorious day at sea. Following winds, partly cloudy skies and smooth seas. A perfect day to be on board. The guests had to make the difficult choice between enjoying this outside weather or partaking in the daily program activities, or the Mariners luncheon, or going to the sales in the shops. Not easy, especially not the sales, as we are getting closer to Christmas. Today the focus was very much on watches and related items as it is one of the things which will draw in men as well. As part of the retail experience the hope is then for the flow of traffic to start at those watches and then slowly move towards the more expensive items and ending up in the Mirabella store for the very good items. I have always lived by the 50% rule: I buy a book for 50 dollars and my wife a dress of 500 dollars and I think the shops hope that the couples flowing through live under a similar credo. He gets a cheap watch, she a nice ring.  It does keep for a happy marriage.

Pods are unusual in the way that the propeller is in the front. It pulls the ship forward instead of pushing it as a conventional propeller does.

In the meantime Captain van Eerten had set my class another challenge. Prepare a departure plan for Half Moon Cay and the one who wins will be allowed to “command departure” according to that plan.  The challenge here is to maneuver with the Azipods and that is a totally different ball game than with regular propellers. The way you handle Azi pods has more to do with thinking in handling the outboard engines of a speed boat than the regular way of the conventional ships.

A Pod can turn 360o and provide the same power in each direction. Contrary to a conventional  propeller which has more power to give going forward than when going astern.

The great advantage of an Azipod is the flexibility and easiness of handling the thrust. Rudder, stern thruster and propeller are all combined. The challenge is to have the angles under which you set the pod right to insure the hull is pulled in the right direction and with the right inertia. Figuring out the optimum angles and thrust is the most complicated part of the maneuver.

In principle everybody can pull the handles. Push the arrow in the direction you want to go and the pod will start pushing that way. But only the point where the Pod is attached to the hull will go exactly that way.

The rest of the ship will follow but not as envisioned as there is water resistance, the length of the ship and the forces going through the ship which carry the momentum forward and the final force is not necessary where you thought it would go.

Thus you have to start thinking of the angle of the thrust in relation to the hull to get the required movement of the hull. The bow can be helped with the bow thruster but with two pods at right angles you can often get the correct turning and/or movement just on the pods alone.  Everybody can learn to use pods very quickly; in the same way as steering an outboard engine in a boat is not so difficult either. However to master the perfect use of a Pod, the right thrust with the right angle in every situation is an art which takes a very long time to learn and master.  Even captains who have been playing with Azipod ships for years are still learning new things if they are willing to experiment and look for the optimum.

The bridge conttrol of the pod. The black knob turns 360o for the Pod and the handle provides the amount of thrust.

Thus the team had to prepare a plan to maneuver safely away from the anchorage by having the settings of the pods with the right (read the best) angles. It should result in an optimum turn of the ship to sea while using as little power as possible. So tomorrow afternoon we will have one of the group on the bridge and the others raising the anchor. The better the maneuver is conducted the easier it will be for the rest of the group to get the anchor out of the water and back up on deck again. So there is a little peer pressure involved as well.

In the meantime the ms Westerdam III (our first one sailed for Holland America in 1946 and the 2^nd one in 1988) sailed happily onwards in the sunshine with very little swell around her and thus she was rock steady. Late this evening the set courses will bring the ship between the Bahamian Islands and then tomorrow morning we will approach Half Moon Cay anchorage from the south to drop the anchor at 07.30 to start our tender operation by 08.00 hrs. We are the only ship in and although the island can easily accommodate 5000 people without feeling crowded; being alone is nice as well.

The weather forecast predicts 78oF or 26oC. and very little wind and that should give a very warm day. However there is a good chance of a shower during the day and that will cool things down again.

We sailed into Crown Bay after the exact correct time of 06.00 at the pilot station, first line ashore at 06.30 and being fully docked at 07.00 hrs.  If you are on a regular cruise schedule you can achieve such a routine and through the season a certain competition element comes forward among the Navigators to keep it exactly at the correct timing. When it does not work the whole sequence is carefully dissected to see why it did not work out. I like these sorts of things as it forces the Navigators to constantly review their procedures. Today the pilot hopped on board at 06.02 but the main thing was the ship was in position at 06.00 after having followed exactly the correct & safe routines. It cannot be helped by us, if the pilot had a hard time finding a parking space for his car and thus left the dock too late.  The main thing is the schedule was adhered to, as per voyage plan, and it was done so safely according to the exact parameters laid out before.

I think I am getting old as during this cruise I have being asking the class about why certain things are named in a certain way and “who was John Glenn”.  They knew Glenn Campbell. So I sent the whole gang ashore to visit the little open air museum in Grand Turk dedicated to US space travel (See one of my previous blogs). That filled a gap in culture and knowledge straight away. I do not blame them as I do not have a clue who Taylor Swift is.  We are just different generations.

However the fact that the US Virgins Islands used to be the Danish Virgin Island in the mists of time was something new.  When I first joined Holland America in 1981, the good old Statendam IV sailed to St. Thomas an island I had never heard of before as in Holland the emphasis was on our own islands in the Carib. But when we docked I found out that we were not docking in St. Thomas as such but in a place called Charlotte Amalie.  Not really an American name.  It sounded very European. A quick look in the Encylopedia Britannica (my answer to all questions in life before the arrival of the internet) learned the place had been named after the Danish Queen Charlotte Amalia in the early 17^th. century. Before it had a Danish name in connection to the many pubs the area. (If we would have to rename the town back to that sort of logic I think the new appropriate name would be “Diamond Shop”.)

Thus all the cruise ships are docking in Charlotte Amalie; either at Havensight at the dock of the West Indian Dock Company or at the Crown Bay dock which was developed with Carnival money.  All HAL ships dock permanently at the Crown Bay pier and so do the Princess ships which belong to our sister company inside the HAL Group.  I have not been able to find out yet why this area is called Crown Bay and not something else but it has been called so for a very long time. The US navy occupied the area for a long time and used it as a submarine base and then it was already called Crown Bay; although the locals simply called it Sub-Base. One day I will come across the reason for the Crown Bay name.

Today we were docked in the shade of the Allure of the Seas which is currently the largest cruise ship in the world. But as there are a few more sisters coming in that class, I think those will be at least a few tons bigger even if it was only for P.R reasons.  Crown Bay is already nicely sheltered but being in the shelter of an Apartment of the Seas is even better and thus St. Thomas is our favorite port to conduct drills. This morning we first had a confined space drill (rescuing somebody out of a tank) and then our regular lifesaving drills which involved the Class as they had to do it all by themselves today. More about that tomorrow. We left at 17.00 hrs. after having to wait for a few guests who could not pull themselves away from the shops in town and then we set sail for our next port of call, Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas for the day after tomorrow.

It is always hard to predict the wind and the current. As a rule of thumb the current is stronger when there is a lot of wind in the same direction as the wind gives the water an extra push. However the current can be even stronger when there is not much wind, because something else, somewhere else is pushing the water masses faster than normal. We did not have that much wind yesterday and today but the current in the open waters above San Juan was very strong and against the ship. Not nice as the engines have to push harder to maintain the speed and that costs extra fuel.

When we entered San Juan the current reversed instead of pushing to the West it set the ship to the East. But that can be expected if the wind is less strong than normal. As I blogged last week one of my class would be allowed this morning to sail the ship into port (while standing hand in hand with the captain of course) and the captain had chosen one of my lady officers as she had produced the best passage plan for the approach. The others were good as well but she had also spent extra time on the instruments on the bridge and that gave an extra plus. So this morning she lined up the ship into the leading lights and sailed into the port with the captain approving each order before it was executed.  She caught the different current at once and adjusted the course exactly at the right moment.  It was a Picture Postcard Perfect Arrival. Very nicely done. The men in the team were showing their strong side by the 3 of them doing the work of 8 sailors on arrival. So the team split up to day. Brain and Brawn.

As this is the 3^rd and last week of the training course there is more and more practical things to do. So I have them take over as much as possible from the sailors. It is my point of view that you can only correct people if you can do it better yourself.   One of those things is life raft exchange. All our life rafts have to be inspected once a year. This means they go shore side, are taken out of their container, inflated and inspected and the entire survival inventory inside is checked and if necessary renewed.   While our rafts are going ashore, we receive “loaners” on board until we get ours back again. To switch those rafts is a cumbersome process and takes a lot of time and effort. The rafts are heavy, are located in an awkward location at the edge of the ship and are stacked two high. How to do this properly and safely is something you have to learn; So move in the Dream Team.

All Ft. Lauderdale morning and afternoon the five of them were pulling out the rafts, lowering them to the dock side and getting the replacements back up again. Normally this is done by 3 sailors and takes all day, now there are 8 in total available and it was done in a much shorter time, even while there was no experience. On their first ship it could be more or less their first job off the bridge as the whole fleet is going through this life raft exchange program around the same time.

Lifting the heavy containers requires careful maneuvring and the use of block and tackle. The men are still wearing helmets as they were going to pull the container under the crane. Close to the side of the ship a safety harnass is required for everybody. (Photo courtesy 2nd officer Martijn Schultz)

Today in San Juan we were docked together with the Aida Vita which we see every 14 days, the Carnival Breeze which does almost the same cruise as we do but has Miami as a home port and the Celebrity Silhouette which we see every 14 days as well.  The Aida is always in early but the Westerdam, Carnival and Celebrity follow each other in with about 2 hours in between in the early afternoon.  That makes life easy as there is no pushing and shoving at the pilot station.  We went down with one of the ships tenders for some fun and games, called maneuvering.   We can have a later arrival as we stay until 11 pm. for our evening call. San Juan is a perfect place for this as the old town is right across from the ships dock.

Tomorrow we are in St. Thomas again and as this is a 7 day cruise it will be the same time, the same dock, the same location and the same weather. (And the same shops) Only our guests will mostly be different although we have about 20 back to back guests on board who decided to go around a second time.

The weather is holding and today was a real nice “Caribbean” day. Although we are not in the Caribbean yet but half way between the Bahamas and San Juan.  We were in port again with the Carnival Breeze which arrived at 09.00 hrs. For our operations this is a real inconvenient time as the pier is closed for all traffic for about 20 minutes. It is not safe to be on the dock when the mooring lines are coming out and are being pulled tight and thus the gates on the shore side are closed and the ships gangway as well. 09.00 is for us a prime time for guests going ashore and when we stop the flow – even with announcements made –  everybody still tries to come down the staircases and in the elevators  and this can clog things up considerably. So we always hope it can be avoided but we all have our own operating schedule. We just hope that the linesmen will be working fast and the delay is only of a short duration.

I was requested today to give training to the engine crew about Enclosed Space Entry. This basically means “getting into a tank and getting out again; alive, well and safe”. As this was also of interest for the class it was nice to combine the two.

Next door to us in the Hudson Room (I was in the Half Moon Room) were two shore side trainers with a large group of crew for Crisis Management Training. We train on board ourselves in how to handle crowds as well but we are also required to have 5 year refresher courses and they have to be conducted by specially accredited people from the shore side. Holland America is using a legend in the industry. Beau Altman. You might not know his name but everybody who has ever flown has come across what he invented a long time ago.  He is the man who came up with the idea of having no text in the emergency instructions in the seat bag in front of you in the airplane but only drawings and pictograms. It completely took away the language problem and any confusing way of writing which might occur in a text manual. The idea was adopted by the airline industry and is now standard on every airplane. You would think that after such an invention he could have retired and live off the royalties but he is still out there and we are the better for it.

Bottom tanks which are not opened often tend to be very low on oxygen as the rusting process consumes oygen.

But for our group of engineers, cadets, fireman greasers, wipers and day service machinists it was enclosed space. It is the number one killer in engine room work and probably also beyond. The industry has strong rules of how to go about entering a confined space in a safe way and Holland America has set its standards even higher with making the regulations even more severe. The problem ashore and at sea is adhering to those complex regulations. Things are forgotten and or not executed due to complacency or sometimes laziness. The main danger of an enclosed space is lack of oxygen; and as you cannot see this gas (or the lack of it) people tend to forget about the danger. If you do not get enough oxygen, you do not notice it yourself very much as you get a bit drowsy and then loose consciousness. It does not hurt, you just fade away.  Very dangerous.

This might not be so handy. Alone entering the tank and apart from a helmet I do not see much equipment to protect this person.

We have forms and checklists but nothing beats understanding the issues and training the routines.  It mainly goes as follows: Once a tank is safe to enter (tested for safe air with sufficient oxygen) an Entry Permit (= Checklist) is filled out and signed. The team involved is briefed about what needs to be done, who does it, who does what and how do you get out safely again.

Titles vary in the world but the purpose of supervising personnel remains the same. This is Australia.

Personnel involved:

The Entrant (s) = the person (s) who will be working inside.

The Attendant = the person on watch outside who monitors who goes in/out and keeps constant contact.

The Entry Supervisor = the person overseeing the Entrant and the Attendant.

The Responsible Officer = the officer in charge of the operation

The Authorizing Officer = normally staff level who allows the whole operation to take place.

Each has a duty, each is responsible for part of the operation and the whole layered setup has one goal. The crewmember who went in, will come out again in the same way he/she went in.

Today we did an hour long theoretical material and a table top. In two days’ time we will do a practical and for that I will build one of my special mockups.

Tomorrow we are in San Juan were we hope to arrive at the pilot station at 10.45 am and to be docked at noon time. Weather is expected to be hot and balmy and if the rainclouds drift over from the Rain forest we will have an occasional shower was well.

Today we are at sea and after a bit of a wobbly night, courtesy of that rainy weather front of yesterday, things settled down in the morning. The sun came out and it turned into a beautiful sea day. The ship is now doing what it should do to be a sea ship: move gently.

I have blogged before extensively about this area before so I wanted to go back to yesterday and the question how do all those ships get in and out on schedule and no conflicts. Apart from the cruise ships there were also another 5 or more cargo ships going in and out. Cruise and cargo and almost all of them at the same time and all through that single small entrance. Port Everglades is not really a complicated port to get in and out but everything happens around the same time. The cruise ships are on a day schedule and cargo ships like the same as overtime for longshoremen is expensive.

Thus there has to be a well-oiled machinery to make it all possible; safely and timely. It starts about two years before the actual call. The Head Office makes reservations and submits the sailing schedule. That is for the regular companies not much of a problem as we have our own docking pier. It is getting more complicated if two ships of the company are in on the same day. Then you might be banished to a dock where nobody really wants to go. (Read: too small a dock, not enough space for everything)

For the Westerdam it means – in principle Pier 26, every Saturday and similar with the other docks for RCI, Celebrity, Princess and Carnival.  If the regular dock is occupied with one company ship, then the other one is accommodated somewhere else even at a cargo berth if needed.  In that way Port Everglades has been able to get 11 cruise ships in on occasion. Mostly around Christmas when the ships suddenly go to a 10 and 11 day cycle to get Christmas and New Year scheduled at sea.

A busy day in 2008 with 8 cruise ships in, including 3 Holland America (pier 26, pier 20 and pier 21)(Courtesy www. airliners.net)

When the day of the port call comes closer, the Captain sends his ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) at the pilot station to the agent and often also to the pilot station itself. The ships agent talks to the harbor master and the ETA is either approved or has to be amended. If there would be 11 cruise ships expected then the Harbor Master starts deciding the arrival times of the ships. With the best pecking order to ensure that all ships are coming in, in the most economical way. It does not make sense to have a ship for pier 26 docking after the ship at pier 25 as the pier 26 ship then has to pass that earlier arriving ship. Together with the pilots the intervals between ships are figured out as the pilots will have to bring more than one ship in. If there are 5 pilots and 6 ships then pilot 1 needs some time to get from ship one to ship 6.

If this situation occurs, the harbor master does not approve an ETA, he/she dictates a time. This often gives a lot of noise from unhappy captains but the grumbling is mostly low key as they understand the reason very well.

Another consideration, which came into play yesterday, can be the weather. Yesterday pier 26 was empty but Pier 24/25 was not. Pier 26 is also further up the Intra-coastal waterway necessitating a longer distance, backing up in a small fairway. Thus for the Westerdam it was much faster and much safer in the prevailing wind to go to Pier 21. Easy to dock at and plenty of space if you would blow away. Also on departure it is a dock which basically only needs a full ahead and hard a sb. and you are gone.

Yesterday morning all the cruise ships came in between 05.00 and 07.00 with 20 minutes in between and once they were in it was the time of the cargo ships. As Pier 19/20 was empty, it was occupied by a container ship as it solved that issue of going up the Intra Coastal Water Way.

Tomorrow we are in Grand Turk Island and the weather calls for Partly Cloudy skies, 83oF / 28oC and a gentle breeze. We will be joined by a Carnival ship later on in the morning so the place will be heaving.

Last night after I finished my daily blog we had a little Dutch gathering to celebrate “Sinterklaas”. It is a feast from where Santa Claus originally came from. What is now standard for Christmas in North America was once imported in the 17^th century from the Low Lands in Europe. It started in the ancient days when Nicolas of Smyrna (located in nowadays Turkey) became the patron saint of the sailors. There is a large St.Nicolaas church in Amsterdam which still recalls those days.  The same patron saint was also taken over by the Spanish and thus for most of the sailing community St.Nicolaas was somehow located in Spain.  Slowly but steadily this whole thing became a Children’s thing and involved getting presents. This tradition is still a very big thing in Holland, where on 21 November St. Nicolaas or Sinterklaas arrives by steamship from Spain. It is broadcast live on Dutch Television and the biggest presenters vie to narrate and present it. From the 21^st. onwards the children are supposed to put their shoe next to the fire (or the Central Heating as this seem to work as well) with a little gift for the horse of St.Nicolaas. He rides a horse over the roofs and then comes down the chimney (or through the Central Heating pipe) to visit each house each night until December 5^th.

How more dutch can you go? Sinterklaas on a drawbridge with a windmill in the background. This was arrival in the town of Leiden.

The next morning there is then a small gift in return for the shoe owner; and the carrot or bit of hay are gone.  Slowly this builds up for the child until December 5^th. which is the day before St.Nicolaas his official birthday. But as he is a holy man he does not expects gifts, he hands them out. On the 5^th. there might be a chance that St.Nicolaas will visit your house.  If so, then it is a day of reckoning because if you have been bad you go in the bag and Black Peter, the Saints assistant, will take you back to Spain. If you have been good then there will be presents.  All around this core happening, there are songs, special cookies and chocolate.  The shop keepers normally have a grand time as the result of it.

Big steamships are hard to find. Towns with canals normally have a restored steam tug or similar available. Here is the bow full of assistants called Black Peters.

The next day it is all over and the Saint disappears back to Spain. As far as we are concerned he then changes uniform, flies to the North Pole (at least for the North Americans, according to the Dutch he lives in Lapland) and remorfs into Santa Claus.  Then the shopkeepers have a 2^nd bonanza as they try to convince the Dutch to give presents again for Christmas. For that purpose they have a legion of willing ambassadors; basically everybody under the age of 15 is firmly in favor of getting presents twice and as a result we have in Holland a sort of double shopping whammy.

For the grown-ups it is more of a party and the ones I like are the ones where we draw a name. Then we have to make a poem about something that happened in the previous year to the person’s whose name we drew, and buy a present which relates to the contents of the poem (Cost of the present is normally limited to about 5 dollars.) and then we have a hilarious evening when the “victims” recite their own mishaps and light embarrassments.

Here on the ship it was more of an impromptu affair with one crewmember dressed up as Sinterklaas and one as Black Peter and a group of Dutch speaking officers for a bit of laughter and fun. I did not stay that long as I cannot stand loud music but my class  enjoyed it and that is what it is all about.

Today we have a rainy day in Ft. Lauderdale. A very rainy and very windy day and one has to hope that it will get better when we go south. We had the K-9 dogs on the pier today, to sniff all the provisions and even they looked miserable. This is not the Florida that we see on postcards.

The good ship Westerdam will sail the same route again, Grand Turk, San Juan, Charlotte Amalie and Half Moon Cay. It is also the last week for the school class. Next time Ft. Lauderdale they will go home or they will join their first ship. One has already an assignment for the Amsterdam and the 2^nd one might stay on the Westerdam. We will see. Exciting days for the team.

For a moment it looked like as if we might have had an exciting morning or no morning at all as it was blowing over 25 knots when the Westerdam approached the anchorage. Luckily it turned out to be a last minute squall and once the ship had settled at the anchorage the wind dropped and we observed a normal weather pattern.  Although Half Moon Cay is a wonderful place to call at it remains fully exposed to the vagaries of the weather and a ship at anchor can only take so much before it has to abort the call.

Holland America investigated in the past the option to build a dock here. In the same way as Disney has a dock at their private island. The challenge in our case was the steepness of the rise of the island out of the deep. There is hardly a 1000 ft. of distance between the beach and the plunge into the abyss. Most of the time the bow of the ship is 30 to 40 feet  above the sea floor but the stern being 800 ft. towards open sea is already above a 1000 ft. of water. To get a dock in it meant digging into the land to get the docking area so far towards the land that it would be possible to find a foundation for the dock pilings which had to hold the stern.

HMC. Just before the opening of the first season. The dredger is still in attendance.

Everything is possible but it would have meant an enormous upheaval to the island and not very good for conserving the nature of the area.  Thus it was deemed better to be at anchor and accept the occasional chance of ships having to cancel the call. The artificial harbor which was created instead could be located in a corner of an out cropping which was basically waste land as it did not affect the ocean floor or the flora or the fauna.  Then slowly but steadily HMC was developed ensuring that all the buildings were and are kept on a narrow strip between the beach and the Nature Reserve around the lake further inside the island.

Because we can control what goes to the island we can also control what comes off the island. Thus everything that we bring ashore for supplies is either used or comes back again. The island is left as it is and was. Clean and pollution free. The only thing which does not come back are the bales of hay and straw for the horses. The ships load these on a regular basis in Fort Lauderdale and after an overnight run to HMC are then landed ashore.  Horses are great recyclers and we do not have to take anything back.

The one item we cannot deliver is the minimal amount of fuel supplies which the island needs. Mainly for the generator and for the few people who live here permanently. These are gas and oil deliveries which the cruise ships are not allowed to take on board and carry. For that purpose a little local tanker pops up on occasion, makes a sort of beach landing and pumps the required amount of fuel into the holding tanks.

Although Holland America is the owner of the island (or better said the enduring lessee) it does not have jurisdiction to keep everybody off the island. And thus we had a visitor today, a small sailing yacht which arrived just before we did; crossing over from the Eleuthera Island side more to the West.  I suppose we would have more sailing yachts coming in if the island wasn’t in such a remote spot far away from anything which attracts a lot of six pack sailors, or gin palaces coming in and dropping the hook in order to show each other their latest Rolex.

By 14.30 I had the whole team forward for raising the anchor, with my main duty being to keep the sailors who make up the regular anchor party away from trying to take over from the Ladies. They tried the other day and today they tried again.  But as the Ladies get equal pay, they will also do equal work and the sailors were told to go back and sit on the bench. In the end they starting messing around with the fresh water hose in order to do at least something. Next cruise when the team is on stations again in the morning I will ask the Staff Captain to let the sailors sleep in. I am very sure that that will make them happy.

Tomorrow we are back in our home port Fort Lauderdale. We will not be docking at our regular dock nbr. 26 but at Pier 21. We have a number of mega ships in and thus the Harbor Master has reshuffled the berths a little bit. Expected are tomorrow: Oasis of the Seas, Independence of the Seas, Island Princess, Celebrity Infinity and us the Westerdam. Weather: a big chance of showers and temperatures round 79oF or 26oC.

The weather on the North Atlantic looked threatening for a moment, at least on the weather forecast yesterday but it all fell apart and today we have a nice smooth ride towards Half Moon Cay. It is windy out here but it is coming from the stern and as the ship is going full speed, the relative wind has been reduced to just a gentle breeze.

Something which is seldom highlighted in the world is that the cruise industry is a very safe industry. In a similar way as the airline industry. Although the whole world takes notice when an airplane crashes or there is a mishap with a cruise ship, but in percentages it is much safer to make a cruise than to cross the road in an average city.  That safety comes from the quality of the people on board but also the self-controls each respected company imposes upon itself.

Parts of those self-controls have to do with safe working while on board. We want each crew member to come out with 10 fingers and go home again with 10 fingers as well. And there is plenty of opportunity for it not to happen, as apart from the normal dangers you would have ashore, there is also the extra danger in the fact that our work place moves. The deck is always in movement (even if it is only a tiny bit) unless we are docked in port.

To achieve this Holland America has put in place a whole string of precautions and requirements to which everybody has to adhere to before any work takes place. If a job has to be done, then there is first a Risk Assessment process which identifies how it has to be done, what could go wrong and what is needed to avoid it from going wrong. Either the work itself or the consequences for the person carrying out the work, or the people in the vicinity. And as we are a cruise ship there are always plenty of people around and quite often in locations where they should not be.

The next thing is to explain to the crew member and if needed give training about how the job needs to be done.  Then there is the equipment and finally the securing of the area so the job can be carried out in a safe way for everybody.  This can be a lot of work but it needs to be done and it works.

The challenge lies in carrying out jobs which are repeating itself as there is the chance, almost the certainty, for complacency to creep in.  The human mind is forgetful and if nothing went wrong during the last 50 times then nothing will go wrong the 51^st. time and thus a little deviation from the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) will not do any harm. But it does. To mitigate against this danger we have these SOP’s so we can train and drill fleet wide to the same standards.

Our biggest challenge lies in the fact that most of our crew come from countries where the safety standards are ……..let’s say flexible. Then they enter our culture and suddenly they are involved in a lot of fussing about something nobody at home would even think about. They learn of course and the apply the knowledge and the routines but we sometimes see that after a vacation a lot of that carefully cultivated safety culture has slipped away again. And thus we start anew.

To keep the routine ingrained and the focus sharp we have two standard routines. It is the 15 minute trainer whereby short (less than 15 minute long) instructions/trainings are given to a target group and we have tool box discussions which takes place before a job is carried out.  Safety at work is by far the most important thing we have on board as it touches every routine we carry out. I consider it so important that each of my students has to do a 15 minute Train the Trainer in rotation in front of the class and explain one element of all the safety issues out there. It helps with public speaking, it helps with understanding the equipment and it ingrains from the start that safe work starts with thinking about it.

Tomorrow we are in Half Moon Cay. We are supposed to have nice weather with a gentle breeze and we are the only ship.  Last week the weather was not that good but I think tomorrow I will send the class to the beach to observe the ship from the island side for a while.