Because the nights are getting longer we arrived in the dark at the Westside of St Thomas although pilot time had been set for 06.00 hrs. Only a few weeks ago we arrived at the same time and it was still full daylight. Now we only managed to dock during daylight as the sun slowly rose above the horizon just before 07.00 hrs. Departure in the dark is not much of an issue but arrival is preferred during day light. Not especially for the navigation but for the docking procedures. It is simply easier to see where the lines are going, if the linesmen ashore have caught the heaving line and if the mooring rope is sitting nicely on the bollard. Although the docks are normally floodlit during the night, the lamps are not always specifically aimed at the edge of the pier, berth or dock, where our interest lays. Quite often the design is to spread light over the dock area and not necessary over the rim of the dock where we have the bollards and the fenders. Thus we prefer day light.

The whole team was present this morning at 06.00 hrs. to observe the Bo ‘sun and Sailors in action during the docking procedure and this evening  my five students will let go all the lines by themselves and operates the winches etc. It is the next step in becoming proficient on the mooring deck. My task will be to ensure it all happens safely but also to keep the sailors away from helping. I have two female officers among the five and somehow the sailors find it difficult to let the two handle the ropes and do real sailors work.

The lifeboat docked at the tender platform and the Diningroom Manager (lifeboat commander) is starting the embarkation process.

We had another interesting item today, something the guest seldom sees.  All guests who stay on board in port during a drill will have come across our training drills. Either by announcement or by being removed from the deck area where the drill is taking place. Something the guests do not see is the lifeboat loading exercise. Filling the boat up with a full complement; as we do this while the lifeboat is in the water.  Our winches are made to lower a lifeboat with 150 people on board into the water but they are not made to hoist 150 people back up again. Thus we park the lifeboat somewhere and march 150 crew into the lifeboat and train the commanders in getting everybody seated in such a way that the 150 really fit in. this exercise was an initiative from the cruise industry itself under management from the CLIA. (Cruise Lines International Association).

“Are you all having a good time ?”. The Training Officer giving some extra instruction.

It is a valuable exercise for the lifeboat commanders as this would not be easy to do in a real emergency. The lifeboat could be filled to capacity if all beds on board would have been sold (which is seldom the case) and then everybody has to sit exactly in the assigned spot, for the loading of the full complement to work. Normally a lot of our upper /bunk beds are not sold and this would provide some extra leg room in the boats. But we could have a full house and to ensure we park all 150 occupants in the boat, there are 150 black spots marked in the lifeboat so everybody has a little place to sit.

Maritime law, SOLAS, requires a lifeboat to be in the water, fully loaded, in 30 minutes. The clock starts ticking the moment the Abandon Ship alarm is given and it stops ticking the moment the lifeboat sails away from the blocks. That does not give us  much time and thus a good training here is of the essence. Today we did it in 20 minutes but that was including getting some stragglers and prima donna’s in who really did not want to sit in a warm lifeboat. Not counting those it would have been 15 minutes and that is a good time. Leaving 15 minutes for getting everything in motion including swinging out of the boats. Lowering only takes 30 seconds and this final action has little impact on the total time.

Tomorrow is a sea day and it might be a wobbly one. A windy system is coming towards the area, or at least close to us, and it might result in a similar day at sea as we had last cruise. But it all depends how the system develops overnight and where it moves to.

Sailing down to San Juan from Grand Turk Island is one straight course once you have cleared the Turks and Caicos Islands.  You keep this course until 3 miles north of the entrance and then turn to 181o which are the leading lights. The most important happening is, whether the pilot will join in open sea or will join in the lee of Morro Castle. The San Juan pilot boat is seaworthy but not made for boisterous seas, nor do the pilots have any inclination to get sea sick. We like it that way as it is much safer to board the pilot inside as you can main your preferred approach speed of 12 – 14 knots without having to slow down for the pilot and then speed up again once he/she is on board.

What makes me write this?  Well my team was this morning on the bridge to observe arrival. Captain Rens van Eerten had set them a challenge. The one who writes the best approach – voyage- plan, will have that plan approved and adopted and next cruise it will be used to sail into the port. The winner will give the orders and with the captain as an approving filter between the winner and the executing bridge team these orders will then be carried out. Heady stuff when you are just starting out.

This morning we went through the whole arrival sequence and I pointed out where I would ask the nasty questions a captain would ask to test your knowledge.  Most items they had already under control, the rest was noted down for further incorporation.

As mentioned in one of my previous blogs, San Juan has officially 4 docks. Numbered from West to East. Number 1 takes the small cruise ships, Number 2 has been gone a long time and is now only a small ferry pier, Number 3 takes the mega liners such as the Oasis o/t Seas and dock 4 takes anything which fits alongside.  The Westerdam docks standard at 4 West and with our length of 960 feet we fit in with still a little bit of room to spare.

While coming in, I was thinking about when I came here in the 80’s and 90’s with the N ships. They always docked at Pier 1, preferably at the East Side, so we could let the wind blow us against the dock. The N ships had very weak thrusters and going against the Trade Wind blowing straight over the pier did simply not work. If I had to dock at the west side then I would wait until the ship for the east side had arrived so I could come in using that ship as a wind breaker.

The N.A (III) docked at the old Pier 3 East side. A Carnival ship is docked at 1 West.

The amazing thing which crossed my mind was that all the HAL ships from those days still sail, except for the ss Rotterdam (V) which is now a museum ship, but the rest Noordam, Nieuw Amsterdam and Westerdam eventually all ended up with Thomson Cruises. This is an English holiday company although it is part of the German operator TUI which is part again of Royal Caribbean. Thomson is what we call in England a “package holiday” company providing a lot of all-inclusive vacations both ashore and on the ships. Quite often wine and beer are included as well. (Except premium spirits of course) In the States they would call the product “mass market” such as Carnival Cruise Lines. I call it “Bob the Builder” cruises. Not meant in a negative way but marketed towards hard working people who go on a cruise and want to enjoy themselves without any fuss. And they are very successful so our old Hal ships keep going.

The Thomson Spirit ex N.A. III. Seen here docked in Mahon, Menorca. Not much changed except for the hull color.

The team spent the afternoon exercising with the lifeboat. Today it was bringing the lifeboat back under the fall blocks again for pick up, so they know how to do it, and tomorrow they have to talk the lifeboat back while sitting next to another driver. Something they will have to do in real life as well as it is the only way of training new lifeboat commanders. Communicating is not easy and the results are sometimes quite funny. I once ended up on the other side of the harbor when we did the first run. The trainee “instructor” was sitting with their back towards the bow, facing the driver and got port and starboard mixed up all the time.

We sail tonight at 23.00 for Charlotte Amalie, Crown Bay, St. Thomas. We will be docked by 07.00 hrs. ready to send 1900 eager shoppers ashore to empty out their wallets. The weather looks reasonable, chance of showers and a warm day with 83oF and 29oC. It might be the case in the days after as well.

So with the road getting smoother and smoother the good ship Westerdam made its way to Grand Turk Island and was docked by 08.00 hrs. . We shared the berth with the Carnival Sunshine which was originally built as the Carnival Destiny and the first 100,000+ ship for Carnival.  She is easily recognizable as she has an enormous water slide behind the funnel. I do not know if the other Carnival ships have them the same size but somehow with this ship it is really an outstanding feature. I wonder how it works with a rolling ship. You cannot fall out as the slides are tubes but it must be a completely different sensation than being ashore in a fun park.

On board we created our own fun today as we held the mass casualty drill. I always offer the option to organize one as it takes so much time for the ship to do it and the Westerdam put it at once on the safety schedule. And thus the race was on to evacuate and save 35 casualties from a collision and the resulting fire. The 35 were all volunteers from among the crew and they put on a very nice performance. Everybody likes to be a drama queen once in a while. The main challenge of such a drill is always the coordination of the transport. We have man power, we have equipment, and we have the leadership but those three things need to be coordinated to get the casualties to the right location.

The Red triage area. (Normally called the Queens lounge and which just happens to be red) Medical is overseeing the stretcher teams bringing in the wounded.

For that purpose various public rooms are assigned; Red room for survival possible, Black room for beyond hope, Green room for walking wounded, Yellow room for those who should be seen after the Red room cases. The medical team (and we only have 5) can then rotate from room to room and sort them all out. Sometimes we have (still practicing) medical professionals among the guests on board and then the Captain can decide to make an announcement to enlist their help.  But for drill purposes, our focus is on the organization of making 2 + 2 = 6.  Or better said: help to increase the output of those 5 ships medics.  All that kept us happily occupied up to just before lunch time.  In a few days we will have a debriefing and in the mean time I will spend some time collating all the observations to create a debriefing to learn and improve. Luckily I had my 5 “spies” available and they were everywhere to photograph, make little movies and observe. Next time they will be on the other side of the fence.

Our Lady 3rd officer applying a “stopper rope” to the mooring rope. Once there is slack in the rope the other officer will wrap it around the bollard.

At 13.00 hrs. class continued for them and we are focusing on items they do not learn much about at school. They learn about mooring ropes and winches and docking etc. but they do not learn about keeping oversight and having a good situational awareness of what goes on when four winches are going at the same time and 8 sailors are jumping around with the ropes.  So we watch and observe at departure and I ask nasty questions. A little practical item which I teach them is how to put a rope on a ships bollard and not to keep it on the capstan.  With our mooring deck configuration it is sometimes not so easy to do and the sailors are very quick in saying “no can do chiep”.  What can you do then if you are just starting out as a brand new third officer?  Only one thing, do it yourself. Show it and then there is no argument from anybody.

The weather turned out very nice today and approx. 5000 guests, coming from the two ships, enjoyed the resort and the greater island. When the ship docks on the North side of the pier, its bow is almost onto the beach and it gives the navigators a very close up look of what goes on below. Sometimes we complain as captains that the navigators look too much in the radar and not enough through the windows to the outside; today this was absolutely not the case. A “good lookout” was kept at all times.

By 15.00 hrs. the ship had sailed again heading full speed for our next port of call San Juan. Here we will make our approach at 10.30 am to be docked by noon time; for a long stay until 23.00 hrs.  The weather looks like regular Puerto Rican weather. Partly Cloudy with a chance of showers and temperatures of 89oF or 25oC.  I hope it will work out as I want to go down with a lifeboat to train practical boat handling.

In the early morning we sailed through the southern tip of a left over wave field which caused the ship to move about somewhat, but by 10 am we saw the waves go down and the ship settle down as well. Now we are back to the regular “motion of the ocean” which is always here even when it is or has been perfect weather for a few days.

As we are now sailing above the Bahama’s and calling at ports in the area I wondered just how long Holland America has been visiting this area. Grand Turk where we are tomorrow has only been on the cruise map since we have a dock there. Before we had a few attempts to go at anchor and tender but the percentages of cancelling were very high and we all gave up until the Pier was constructed. Half Moon Cay has now been with us since before 2000 and also before that time we did not go there as we ourselves had to build the location first.

Closer to Florida we have Freeport and this port has been on the map for a longer period. As a cruise ship destination it gained real prominence as an alternative for Nassau.  In the good old days when the ships were small and it was not a real mass market yet, the docks in Nassau could handle most of the time 10 ships. In the mid eighties this started to change and slowly the ships got longer and the Pier that before could handle two ships, could now only accommodate one ship. Much of this was caused by Carnival when they introduced the Ecstasy Class.  With the arrival of this class the company greatly expanded and filled double berths. At the same time for the large number of 3 and 4 day cruises Nassau was not enough anymore and the eye was cast to the other side of North West Providence Channel where there were docks as well at Freeport.

It started out with a very ramshackle dock just inside the entrance and I remember going there with the Westerdam (II) and thinking: “if the wind picks up and blows against the ship, the ropes will pull all the bollards out of the dock, it was sometimes very marginal”. The 2^nd thing I remember were the very loud and obnoxious cab drivers who tried to pressure the guests into their taxi’s as it was the only way to go to town. It gave ship’s management the headache of choosing to either advise the guests to stay on board and then get the complaint “why are you going there”, or advising them to go ashore and then get the complaint “why don’t you do something about these guys”. But things have improved greatly. There are now nice docks and transport has been sorted out and the Cab drivers now provide a professional experience. Freeport turned from a back water port for laid up ships (Our Rotterdam V was laid up there from 2001 to 2011) to a prominent port with a large container terminal and the Bahama dry dock company where nearly all the cruise ships go that are dry-docking  during the winter period when sailing in the Caribbean.

More ships in port but with a lot less guests coming off.

That leaves Nassau and this port has always been an important cruise port. Already before 1900 there is a mention of ships calling there during “excursions” as cruises where called in those days.   Holland America came a lot later as our first cruises went to the Holy Land and only with the down turn of the US economy which really impacted North Atlantic travel after 1929, the company sent its ships on more cruises.   It was the Veendam (II) that called in 1929 during voyage 50 at Nassau as part of an Around the Caribbean cruise from New York. The Captain was Reinier Braun and the cruise lasted exactly a month.  As the guests seemed to have liked the port there was a steady increase in visits and by 1936 Statendam (II), Veendam (II) and Volendam (I) had the port on their schedule. After World War II, the pattern continued until in the 1970’s and 1980’s with Nassau a standard port for the company. Then the big boys arrived and we slowly moved out. Now we still call there but with less frequency. However recently for the Zuiderdam it was the last port of its trans-atlantic crossing.

A well known photo but an unusual scene. The ss Rotterdam (V) normally docked at Nassau but here she is at anchor. It must have been a really busy day.

On these Westerdam cruises we sail by far to the North on our way to Grand Turk Island and that is where we will arrive tomorrow morning. The weather should be good but with some thunder storms in the area. If they stay away from the island area then we will have a partly cloudy day with a gentle breeze and temperatures around 80oF or 27oC.  We will be in with a Carnival ship again and the exciting part of the call is (at least for the navigators) we are docking at the North side of the Pier instead of the South Side.

As was to be expected, disembarkation took a lot longer than normal with such a full house. Nothing the ship could do much about as it all depends on the speed of the immigration process in the terminal. On a holiday weekend like this the CBP is very hard pressed. Their own people want a weekend off and the cruise lines are asking for more help as their ships are fuller than normal. Both sides try their best but something has to give and that is the dis-embarkation flow. Normally I am the last one off the ship, to show my face and to help with the zero count and most of the time I am through around 09.30 or 09.45 hrs. This time it was 11 am before the last group was called off the ship shortly after followed by me, happily waving my custom declaration with nothing on it. But protocol demands that I have one and thus I do fill one out.  This time I was not the last one, they found 19 people still hiding on the ship and they had to be flushed out by the ship’s crew.

So by 11.12 am it was “zero count” and me back on board by 11.25 am when embarkation started again for the next cruise. A late disembarkation finish does not unduly affect the ships operation very much as long as the guests are willing to leave the cabins timely. Holland America allows guests to wait in their state rooms (we are one of the very few companies which have that perk) and mostly the cabin stewards can work around it. It is very unusual for a whole cabin section to have the same disembarkation time and as everybody leaves in staggered groups, the cabin stewards can follow that pattern with cleaning. Then there is the strange phenomenon of impatient people leaving the cabin anyway. The closer it comes to their time of scheduled disembarkation or the time beyond that point, the more guests are moving out. It almost seems that there is a sort of subconscious desire to “push” the process along by first moving to a public room and then closer to the gangway. I suppose a psychiatrist would have some sort of explanation about this. The cabin stewards don’t but they still make use of it.

The Westerdam is sailing on the same schedule again for the coming cruise and she will keep doing so until January when there is a Music Charter cruise in between and for that cruise the ship will also call at Key West.  But we will have a repeat of our last cruise again. It suits me as I can plan in advance and also repeat something if it went wrong the cruise before.

For the ship it was a reasonably quiet call. Also the sub-contractors and other Very Important People, who otherwise Have to be on Board are nowhere to be seen because of Thanksgiving weekend. It will be busy again next week.

My class is moving into the 2^nd week and more and more own work is being assigned. This week they will have to start to give presentations about Safe Working methods on board, they will have to review arrivals and departures to identify the most critical points where it can go wrong———- and what to do when this happens and they have to start taking over work from the sailors on arrival and departure. The latter is done to ensure that the necessary skills are present so they can correct the sailors when the time as a supervising officer comes.

This morning they followed the Safety Environmental and Health officer to learn about waste streams and recyclables going ashore………… and the pile of paperwork that goes with it and then this afternoon it was half of the group on the bridge and half of them on the aft mooring deck.  Tomorrow we will have a theoretical day again.

The weather is improving; most of the nasty bumps from the day from before yesterday are gone and the swells have subsided to less than 10 feet. We will still feel a few bumps as with the disappearing wind, the old swell is having longer waves and the Westerdam will have to go against it. Luckily we are doing only 15 knots and this should make it not so bad. The winds are returning to strong Trade Winds and all will be well again in the world.

We had a very stormy night with winds blowing up to 75 knots. Luckily they were half on the sb. beam and thus it affected the ship less than it could have. If we had had it on the bow then we would have been really moving. Still the ship was quite lively until in the early morning when it came under the lee from Long Island and later Cat Island. Then it was quiet until arrival.

The positive part of this storm was that it blew the rain away and we had a sunny day with only some rain clouds in the distance. When we arrived at the island it was still breezy but it was in the parameters of the ships capabilities and thus the captain could decide that it was safe to make the call. Unfortunately this could not be said for the local tender that is being used to get the Bahamians who operate all the facilities (except food and drink) from Eleuthera to Half Moon Cay so none of the Shorex Excursions could operate during our call. Except the horse riding as the grooms live on the island with the horses.

But the sun shone and the ship emptied out for the beach. When I went for lunch at noon time, there was hardly anybody less than 75 years left in the Lido. They had either been there & seen it or thought it was too wobbly a tender ride to go ashore.

A nice bit of water pouring through. We built the wall on the outside deck for the water to disperse easily.

In the meantime I got the people in the Emergency Functions excited. In my blog from a few days ago I announced that we would have a Damage Control Drill. That was supposed to have taken place yesterday but due to a scheduling conflict it was moved to today. The purpose of an actual Damage Control drill is to repair a hole in the ship’s hull and stop or reduce the ingress of water. As we cannot make a real hole in the hull it is not easy to do something that resembles reality and have the crew learn something from it. Thus enter Yours Truly with his box of tricks into the equation.

The Attack on the holes. The teams protect themselves with a sheet of plywood to be able to work at the holes.

So a few days ago I built a vertical wooden wall with a cadet and two sailors. This morning we rolled it into position, secured it and put four fire hoses with 9 bars of pressure on it. (That is 130 psi of water power) It simulates very well water pouring into the ship.  And then the challenge was to plug the holes. For this purpose we engaged all the emergency teams.  The engine teams take the lead here as they are the experts with pipes, water and steel and the rest gives support. As it is important to bring as much material to the location as possible, the more manpower we have the better it is.

Support teams coming in with equipment and wooden beams.

There were four large holes and if not plugged they would have brought about 1500 tons of sea water into the ship each hour. Our pumps can only manage 150 tons an hour (That is still 3 swimming pools full) and thus the primary task is to reduce the ingress of water to such an extent that the pumps can handle the flow. After that we then have time to find a more permanent solution.  It took the teams exactly 23 minutes to reduce the flow to nearly zero and that is a pretty good result. The engineers were quite excited as well because it is not every day that you get the chance to really practice something that could really happen.

Once we were done all the equipment had to be hosed down with fresh water as sea water is very aggressive and then stored away again. My Dream Team of trainee’s were then tasked to take the wall apart and return the hoses to their Fire Hose Lockers as safety equipment has to be ready at all times. It is always nice to spend a morning messing around with water, especially as it is for a good cause.

The solution. Three main plugs with wedges and towels. The water still leaking through can easily be handled by the pumps.

By 1500 we had all the guests back from the island and after turning the ship around we could set sail for our final port of call. This is the last day of the cruise and tomorrow we are back in our home port Fort Lauderdale.

The weather does not look too exciting. It will be one of those partly cloudy days, where it is only partly cloudy if there are no showers.  And it will be breezy with winds going up to 25 knots or more but there might just be a dip when the ship arrives. Still it will be warm enough with temperatures around 79oF / 26oC.  I hope that the guests had a nice thanks giving cruise, even if the last 24 hours were a bit boisterous. But the ship made Half Moon Cay and that should account for something.

And then it got more bumpy than expected. Cape Hatteras is a sort of depression producing factory in the winter time so about every three days it presents a new creation. It is quite far to the North from where we are and normally those creations go straight across the North Atlantic to Europe and the southern part of the North America does not notice it much. On occasion however the path of a new depression, while going east, follows a bit of a curved route with the curve to the south and then it affects the area above and over the Bahamas.

Shades of green indicate wave heights between 12 and 18 feet. (Photo courtesy of www. Stormsurf.com

Today we were enjoying that “curved path”. A long running swell came in from the North West and then slowly shifted direction to the North East as the depression was moving along.  In the early morning the waves started to build up slowly from 10 to 14 feet with the occasional extra height of 18 feet.  As swell keeps building up on the passing wind we will keep them until we arrive in Half Moon Cay.  We are now right in the middle of the wave field and the ship is moving quite a bit. The problem is it is not a regular rolling pattern with a regular sway but, what I call, a jittery movement. It moves it bit to port, it moves a bit to starboard, then it takes a sudden shudder. All caused by the fact that we have old swell rolling in from the North West and new swell rolling in from the North East.

Apart from the swell there is also the weather tail lying over the area and until the early afternoon we had grey clouds all over the place with the occasional rain showers. Late afternoon it cleared and we even had a tentative sun peeking out.

Whether it affected the guests, I really cannot tell. With a full house of 2150 on board and with large families all over the place it is hard to tell if there are guests “under the weather” or not. It cannot have been many as the public areas were as full as ever.  A major attraction today was the shops who were celebrating “Black Friday” sales by clearing out the store rooms. Then in the afternoon everybody started to gear themselves up for the Thanksgiving Dinner on board. Either by getting all dressed up or by having a casual dinner in the Lido. What I find very nice to see is that the children are often better dressed in formal gear than the rest of the family. For some of them it is even a bigger adventure than just going to a special dinner.

The Pinnacle Grill on board the ms Westerdam. Stock photo Holland America Line

We have of course also Non North Americans on board and for them thanksgiving is not such a big thing.  If you are religious you might go at home to the midweek thanksgiving service for the harvest but it is not a special feast.  If you are not, then the day passes by without any special meaning. Quite a few, especially the Europeans, grabbed the chance to go to the Pinnacle Grill tonight which is our specialty restaurant. The special menu is different from the normal fare and even tonight there is no turkey on the menu. A special restaurant in formal atmosphere makes for a nice ending of the cruise.

The ship will continue to wobble until tomorrow morning 06.30 we turn to the south and sail into the lee of the island of Little San Salvador as Half Moon Cay is located on the south west side. A good thing as well, as on the North side waves of up to 16 feet are expected. But as we will be in the shelter of the island it should not affect us.  How it will be for the rest of the weather is a different question. It all depends on how this depression system will continue to affect the rest of the area. The Bahamas and Florida.

Currently we are expecting a very windy day with winds over 20 knots, even in the lee of the island and a fair chance of showers. Even the temperatures are down to 25oC or 77oF.  I hope the rain will stay away so that the children will still have a nice beach day. One little toddler I saw today had invested in a new bucket and spade in St Thomas and was all ready to dig a big hole in Half Moon Cay beach. I hope he is not going to be disappointed. When I saw him he was in training by trying to dig up the Lido deck but was not getting very far.

Nicely on time we docked this morning at the Crown Bay cruise ship dock at 07.00 hrs. As explained last cruise all HAL ships use this dock instead of the Havensight dock opposite the downtown area of Charlotte Amalie. It was a full day today with all the docks occupied. If there had been more ships then they would have had to go to the anchorage.  Next to us we had the Allure of the Seas who came in a little bit later in the morning. At Havensight we had the Carnival Splendor, the Disney Fantasy and the Regal Princess. If you only count the number of lower beds on the ships then there would have been in port today 12,800 guests. It being a Thanksgiving cruise means that a lot of the upper beds must have been in use as well, so my guess is that the shopkeepers could say hello today to at least 15,000 guests, and then we are not counting the crew. The Westerdam has a lower berth capacity of 1916 and we have 2150 on board this cruise. I expect the other ships are in a similar situation.

Today was a busy day on the Westerdam. With all the guests going ashore the Staff Captain lined up all his 18 sailors for a major chipping project on the under decks of the ps. lifeboats.  St. Thomas is about the only day when nearly all the guests are gone and you do not inconvenience anybody if you rope off one side of the ship. I just hope nobody wanted to sleep in until after 09.00 hrs.

Then at 10.30 there was the monthly General Emergency Drill; where we go through the whole alarm cycle as if it is a real emergency and not a training drill. Our biggest challenge here is to ensure everybody is accounted for. If the ship sinks we can always buy a new ship, Mr. Arison is rich enough, but we cannot buy a new guest or a new crew member. No one will be left behind. Today’s focus of the drills was how to get guests and  crew to their muster stations if they were wounded, confused or unwilling to go.

For that purpose I had enlisted my team of trainee’s.  There were two with a broken leg laying in a crew area, one Drama Queen who refused to leave the cabin and two obnoxious guests who were acting as if they did not believe it was real and did not want to leave the public area they were sitting in. To discern them from the real guests, they all wore a white helmet.

To identify / find these people we have three main teams, the Passenger Assist Team who evacuate all the Guest Cabins, the Passenger Sweep Team who clear out the public area’s and the Crew Sweep Team who evacuate the crew cabins and crew areas.

Once they were given the order to start their sweep, it took only 5 minutes to find them all. Then the stretcher teams and the wheel chairs had to be brought to the location to get all “the helmets” safely to the muster station. This takes a bit longer as in principle we also simulate that the elevators do not work. Although in a real emergency we normally have at least 4 in working order as those 4 receive their power from the Emergency Generator.  This counting and coordinating of missing people on board is done by Muster Control. This is a group under the leadership of the Hotel Director who coordinates the whole process and ensures we get 100% of everybody at the Muster station.

As we are an operational cruise ship not all crew participates as the Lido still has to open for lunch on time, the bridge and engine room still have to be manned and also security cannot leave the gangway. But we try to use skeleton crews there and have at least 90% of the crew partake in the drill. Then this 10% crew will attend the next drill.

In the end all who were involved were accounted for except one. The only one who was missing was ….me. I was sitting in the front office observing the accounting process and thus I never made it to my muster station. But I was reported so I would have been found.

We left Crown Bay nicely on time and tomorrow we will be at sea, heading North West towards Half Moon Cay. This is a tight stretch in our schedule so the ship is going full out. We have wind and current with us and that means we should easily make it on time.

I almost thought we were the biggest ship in port today but it was not the case. When we docked we had the Seabourn Odyssey next to us and an old Seabourn ship, which is now sailing for WindStar, at Pier 1.  But then at 14.30 the Celebrity Silhouette arrived and that ship is with 122,000 tons considerably larger than our Westerdam.  I was working with two sailors and a cadet on deck when I saw an ambulance waiting at the empty dock nbr.3. An Ambulance is normally a clear sign that a cruise ship is coming in and yes shortly after it came around the corner.

This afternoon I spent some time rigging up a wooden wall for a coming damage control drill. The Vista Class is different in layout than the S and R class and it means I cannot use the aft mooring deck but had to create something on a passenger deck. So today I designed a rolling ships bulkhead with holes, which we will roll into position when it is time for the drill on Thursday. You will see the results then on Thursday         ………..probably photos with a lot of very wet engineers.

My class was being indoctrinated at the same time by the Safety, Environmental and Health Officer. Every crew member has to go through basic environmental training about recycling, conserving energy, working safely etc. etc. The higher the ranking is, the more training there is, and the more complicated it becomes.  I make sure my students get the chance to do this during their period with me so it will not conflict with their working or rest hours once they are on their own ship.  After the training course the S.E.H was taking them on a tour of the ship to explain a bit more about the history of all the improvements which we have made in becoming more and more environmentally friendly and what we are still working on. Some of that is software (training the crew in procedures) and some of it is hardware.

Without going into too much technical detail, the system is simply a washing system working on sea water and nothing goes over board but is collected and stored. (Courtesy www.Motorship.com

The HAL fleet is currently busy with installing scrubbers which reduce the emissions of the ships. A number of years ago we made the change from regular fuel oil to sulfur free fuel oil. This was a big step as all the engines had to be adapted to be able to burn sulfer lean fuel. This made the emissions of a ship a lot better. Now the next step is to clean out what is still left in the exhaust gas. With a simple description we call it “particles”. Most of those particles you see on deck as soot.  As I am not an engineer at all, I describe a scrubber as a sort of washing machine which uses sea water to wash, scrub, and rinse out all the soot particles.

Here on the Westerdam they are in the final testing phase. Installing it on a car (a catalysator) is much easier than doing the same on a ship. A car just drives down the road. A ship bounces and rolls down the road. With the ships movement there is always a little variation in the engine output, the outside temperatures varies greatly from day to day and also the fuel which we bunker is not always exactly the same. Ashore when you tank Shell V- super (I do not know if you have that in the States but it is a premium petrol option) then you get the same quality at every pump, wherever you are. Not so with ships bunker fuel. What you order is in compliance with the standards of the type of fuel requested but as those standards are not that tightly defined you do not get the same in Piraeus as in Amsterdam.

Eventually it will mean that all Holland America Line ships will have solved both the issues of pumping things overboard, and puffing things in the air. For a few years now we have had Zenon which cleans out all the grey and black water and now we will also have nice and clean exhausts. Apart from those ships that run solely on gas turbines (which burn gas oil) we will have the highest standards in the industry.  Next step will be the arrival of more and more ships which run on LNG and that does not have any exhaust at all. The first cruise ships with this system have been ordered and no doubt more will come.  It is an exciting time to be an S.E.H Officer.

Tomorrow we will be in St. Thomas and we might be lucky again. During the day here in San Juan the rain stayed away and the sun caused a nice and warm day, and it looks like  in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas that it will be partly cloudy / read partly sunny with temperatures of 84oF / 29oC. That might cause difficult decisions to be made by the guests. Do we take the children to the beach, or do we go shopping??

I normally go for breakfast at 06.00 in the morning as it gives me an hour to review the class material for the day and when I went up to the Lido the weather did not look good. Dark clouds were gathering over the northern part of the island and there was rain in the distance. But it turned out well as shortly after, when the sun arose above the horizon; all the dark bits disappeared overseas. The sun came out and although it was sometimes more cloudy than sunny, it was a perfect day for the beach. We were in port together with the Carnival Dream and once both ships pushed out the gangways a relentless stream of happy guests rolled ashore and a lot of them straight onto the beach.

I took this photo last cruise, as today this welcome sign was obstructed permanently by the continuous flow of many guests between ship and shore.

I did not have a camera with me so I missed a priceless opportunity of taking a unique photo.  At about 9 am, while there was still a wave of guests coming out of the ship, an old Gentleman with a Rollator was slowly making his way towards the beginning of the pier with the duty free shops. Because he was going so slowly and the rest was going so fast, the overtaking guests passed him on both sides. It really looked like a stone in the water and seeing a strong current rippling passed it on both sides. It did not deter him in the slightest and he kept his slow but steady pace towards the terminal.

That was about all I saw from the outside world today. I have taken over the Training Room on board and that space is located on A deck which is the highest crew deck and also the deck where the Tenders are leaving from. It has a small porthole but it is always closed as otherwise you cannot see the screen with the power points.

The numbering of the decks on our ships sometimes  gives reason for confusion. In the old days the decks only had names and the crew decks had letters. With the arrival of the more modern cruise ships we also numbered the decks but the names still prevailed. Then it became compulsory (starting with the Rotterdam in 1997) to have the decks numbered and the cabin numbers correspond to it. This resulted in 4 digit cabin numbers.  What was on the S class cabin 103 now became on the R class 7103. Seven being the boat deck and the 7^th deck above the lowest crew deck.

With the arrival of the Vista Class, the emphasis came on the number and less on the name. This made sense as most guests could not remember the names of the decks anyway and went up and down in the elevator in the same way as ashore.  Nowadays even the crew members do not always remember the names of the decks. If they live higher up in the ship, they live on deck 7 or deck 8; they will seldom say Rotterdam Deck or Navigation Deck.  Again it is a little thing where modern regulation has pushed company tradition a little bit to the side.

I was bumped up for the coming three weeks from an outside cabin on Main deck – Deck 1 – amidships to an inside cabin on Rotterdam deck – Deck 7- ps. Aft.  I do not mind what sort of cabin I have, as long as it has a good bed, a shower and no singing neighbors. A large cabin is not always an improvement if you are working on board.  I once ended up in the ships Penthouse, which is very large, very luxurious and very impractical if you are working. It already takes you 5 minutes to switch off all the lights before you go to bed. Too many lights, too many options and too many hotel switches. (If you switch off something with one button, it comes back on again with another button)  This time I have a very quiet cabin; to my right is the steward station and to my lift is the emergency staircase. And as long there is no emergency, it is very quiet in that staircase.

The team had engine room familiarization today, courtesy of the Staff Chief Engineer. This consisted of a march through all the spaces with all the safety features being pointed out. In the coming days we will review those systems in theory and then later on they will all get the chance to push buttons.

Tomorrow we are in San Juan, so at 3 pm the Westerdam put the pedal to the metal, swung away from the dock and raced back into the North Atlantic. The Carnival Dream was still trying to get the last stragglers from the beach back on board and missed her planned sailing time.

We expect to be at the San Juan pilot station at 10.30am and to be docked just before our official arrival time of 1200 hrs. Weather: Scattered Thunder storms, 86oF / 30oC. If we send out sufficient positive vibes then those thunder storms might stay over the Rain Forest and not come too much to the North and over the port.