Livorno (or Leghorn in some languages) is one of the most challenging ports to go into. Even on the nicest day of the year with no wind or any other distraction one has to really focus to make sure that all goes well.

All ships have to enter from the south then swerve around the breakwater to a northerly course. If the big dock is not available you have to go in the smaller Y  (on its side) shaped area below.

Main reason is the small entrance in the breakwater and the sharp turn just behind it before you can sail into the port proper. The breakwater has been there for a long time and must have been the best thing since sliced bread in times gone by. But with the ships getting bigger, the breakwater and the space behind it remained the same.  The second problem is the North Entrance which is not usable at all. It has completely silted in and all traffic has to go through the South Entrance. Why the authorities do not want to dredge out this north part, I do not know, as it would make the arrival and departure from Livorno a lot easier and safer. Two entrances mean you have a plan B but now there is only a plan A and not much else.

Today we were at least lucky that we were the only ship in. Then you automatically get the easiest docked allocated.  When there are more ships, the largest one goes to the easiest dock and the smaller ones are relegated to the old inner harbor. There is enough room there but going in is through a small opening.  You back in (go astern) to make sailing out easier but on a windy day going astern into the hole is not so pleasant. If the North entrance was still available then you could at least sail in, review the situation on the spot and if you did not like it, sail out again through the North Entrance.  Maybe that is the reason for not dredging, it stops you from leaving. You have to commit, you have to go in.

Livorno is quite a large port and cargo ships sometimes have to sail deep into the industrial port to find a berth. They try to keep cruise ships near the front, so it is easier for them to keep their schedule taking the arrival and departure times into account. and it is also easier for the coaches to get in and out of the harbor. All the ferries (most of them those famous MOBY boats with the cartoons on the side) also dock in this little area that is called the old harbor.

While the guests went ashore to see the sights, the ship was busy as well. We had divers today for propeller cleaning. This happens about twice a year. Divers go under the hull and scrub and clean the propellers and often parts of the hull as well, to remove the marine growth. Although we have polymer paint on the hull which should avoid marine growth attaching itself to the hull, this never works completely and thus we get a regular clean by divers. That is not cheap as it is highly specialized work but it pays itself back very quickly with a reduction in fuel.   So bridge officers and engineers kept a close on the proceedings to make sure that the divers were safe and supported in the best way possible while they were doing their work.

Hotel was not without work either as it was heavy loading today. Heavy means that the major storage and provisioning took place today. In ports along the cruise we can then stock up with smaller quantities and that we call light loading. Today 58 tons of supplies were taken on board and that will last for at least 14 days. We use Livorno as it can be reached quickly from the Netherlands where Holland America has a depot where a lot of the provisions come together to be packed into containers. Livorno is North of Rome and that is not an easy town to get around for the trucks so Livorno works a lot better.

We will leave from here at 19.00 hrs. to cruise westwards to reach Monaco tomorrow morning.  We will dock there and that will make it very easy to get ashore. Next week, when we are back we will have to anchor and that is a lot more complicated.

Weather for tomorrow in Monaco, Sunny with temperatures around 67oF or 21oC. and little wind.

We never saw the rain except high up in the mountains and that made everybody happy. Those rain clouds did bring some cooler air and that brought perfect sightseeing weather to the port. Sunny but with temperatures around 24oC. And with a little bit of a chill in the air it never felt too warm while walking around and about.  In all words, a perfect day which started at 10 am. when the Rotterdam approached Ajaccio for an 11.00 gangway out.

I think the port of Ajaccio holds the record for the fastest arrivals and dockings. We were on dock nbr 1. and that meant straight in and hard a port to turn 90o to the north and put the brakes on.  Dock nbr.1 is right inside the breakwater and thus there was no sailing in. The pilot could barely make it to the bridge before the ship was sticking its nose inside the pier. A captain can only wish for more of these ports. If one just thinks about Tampa which has a 3.5 hour sail in & out, then this is heaven.

A much more simpler port for an approach is not there.

The only drawback is that the port is fully open to the elements from the SW, south and SE side. One big open bay and no protection from the elements what so ever. So when it blows then you just have the hope for the best. At least when you get close to the port you know that it blows as hard at the pilot station as it will at the dock and that helps making up your mind about going in or not, a little bit easier. What you see is what you get and no interpretation by the pilot is needed.

Today we did not have that issue. There was a gentle breeze blowing which just lifted the flags (Beaufort force 2 to 3) from hanging completely limp. It did not affect the sailing and it kept the outside temperature very nice.

Ocean liner row Corsican way. The ferries are docked stern in for the car deck ramps.

Ajaccio is a fairly simple port in the way the docks have been laid out. It looks a bit as Ocean Liner Row in the New York in the old days with all the docks nicely in a rows and all perpendicular on the shore and the city. And it looked a little bit like Ocean Liner Row today as well, or maybe better called Cruise & Ferry row. With us in port were two ferry’s, One based in Marseille and sailing for the French side and one based in Ajaccio and sailing for the Corsica side. The fact that Corsica is part of France does not matter very much as a lot of Corsicans believe that France belongs to Corsica and not the other way around. They gave Napoleon to France and the mainland should be forever grateful for that.

Around 12.30 the Horizon of Croisieres de France came in. This ship was built in 1990 in Papenburg as the first of the new builds for the revitalized Celebrity Cruise Lines, which was based on the traditions and experience of the Greek Chandris Shipping Company. When the ship became too old she was pushed on to new markets and now it serves the French Cruise Market. The French are a little bit more reluctant to cruise than the Germans; hence there are a lot less cruise ships dedicated to the French Market than to the German market.

You cannot park much closer to the city than this.

Ajaccio is walk-able, the town/city is built up against the mountain ridge which provides the boundary of the harbor and the view from the ship is one layer after layer of apartment buildings. All nicely painted and giving the impression of a contented Mediterranean life.

The good ship Rotterdam had to get all its contented guests back on board by 6 pm. as we then started to  make the hop to Livorno about 180 miles away. We will be arriving there before 0700 hrs. in the morning as the full day tours for Florence and Pisa have to leave on time.  We have a lot of guests who want to see the leaning Tower of Pisa, as you never know whether it will topple over the next day or not.

Weather forecast for tomorrow: The expected rain has been moving north quicker than anticipated and now we are expecting a dry day, at least after 8 am. with temperatures of around 20oC / 68oF.  Good weather for looking at leaning towers.

Today we are at sea, sailing between Malaga and Ajaccio on  Corsica where we will be tomorrow. We are happily moving along with a speed of around 17 knots and that is the fastest we have been going for a long time as the previous ports were so close together that we basically had to put the brake on the moment we left. Navigational highlight of the day was passing at 6 pm. Mallorca at a distance of about 7 miles on our portside. The whole route is made up of two straight lines, hence being 7 miles south of the largest of the Balearic Islands. The straight line simply caused that distance to occur. Then at 8 pm we should be abeam of Menorca a little further to the north and passing it at a distance of about 6 miles.

Cruising towards Ajaccio. This depth chart. the deeper the blue, the deeper the sea.

We still have some traffic around us; tankers and containers ships that are coming and going from the Strait of Gibraltar and also to and from ports on the North Western side of Italy. Ships from Marseilles and Barcelona are mostly sailing between the Spanish main land and the Balearic Islands, staying on the other side of Mallorca and that makes the life of the navigators a lot quieter. Everybody converses at the area I described yesterday.

Although are still having a gentle breeze blowing, it is now indeed a South Westerly wind and we saw the sky go brownish, a clear sign that there is sand in the air. I heard the Bo ‘sun already cursing as it means more deck cleaning and this very fine sand is not so easy to get rid of as it has a high “clinging” factor. A changing wind is the first sign that the weather is changing but as we are sailing east and the change in weather comes from the West, it will take a little time before it is catching up with us.

Behind us things are already happening and to the north of us as well. There was rain today in Malaga and on the south side of France they had torrential rains, causing severe flooding with several fatal casualties and there is the danger of more to come. For us the wind seems to be reasonable but Ajaccio is forecasting chance of showers and Livorno is looking like rain all day as of this moment. When I think about it, every time I went to Livorno it either rained or it was sizzling hot. So people saw the tower of Pisa in the rain or they wished they could have seen it in the rain as it was so warm.

Although I do not have much of a chance to look outside as I am mostly cooped up in the ships training room, there seems to be more wild life out there. For years the Mediterranean Sea was considered a Sea devoid of much life but now I see lots of porpoises or dolphins and I think I even saw a fin whale yesterday or a whale with a similar dorsal fin and that would mean that the Med is getting cleaner again.

We have West Med. Cruises and we have East Med. Cruises. What is missing are pure Centre Med. Cruises.

A long time ago the area was dry land, when the west side near what is now the Strait of Gibraltar was closed off. When the sea water finally spilled in, it had a large area to fill as the dry land was criss crossed with deep valleys. The average depth of the Med.  is 1500 meters (4900 ft.) but it can go much deeper. In the Ionian Sea near Greece the Calypso Deep is located which measures 5,267 meters (17,280 ft.) I wonder what that would look like if it had still been dry. Quite a deep valley to drive down to with the car. (And then having to go that 170000 ft. back up again)

Take the whole Mediterranean layout into a cruise perspective and we see that cruises follow the contours of the Sea. West Med cruises take place in the ports of the West Basin and East Med cruises take place in the East Basin. I have not yet seen a cruise which just circles the Ionian Sea which is the 3^rd basin in the middle although it is not officially named so.  The Ms Rotterdam is doing the same thing. Until October 16 she remains in the West Basin area and then after the 16^th. she moves south and will eventually end up in Istanbul and beyond.

Tomorrow we are in Ajaccio, the capital of  Corsica. We are scheduled to dock there at 10 am. and then stay there until 6 pm. Weather will be a bit of luck on a string. Pull and it might rain all day, do not pull it and it might be sunny all day.  It all depends how fast this extensive rain system over Western Europe moves and whether it will tip more to the north or not.

With a 23.00 departure and a 06:00 pilot for Malaga, it was a short night for the Deck department. Even with the short length of sailing, the ship did not have to go that fast as Malaga is just around the corner. What made it seem longer was the fact that we had to go around the long way.

Red is what we like to do but then we come across opposing (pink) traffic, so Green is what we have to do to make it a lot safer.

It looks strange if you look at the chart but it makes sense as it avoids ships crossing in front of each others bows, while using short cuts along to coast to save mileage.  Although the lines are clearly drawn in the chart, there will always be naughty boys and thus there is a radar station on the coast which keeps a close eye on everything. You have to call in when you approach the system and then you are being monitored all the way through and you receive information about who is also in the area. It adds some miles to the journey but it is much safer.

The Malaga Cruise Terminal under construction. It is now completed but still very bare. No trees to bring color.

Malaga is an important port for container traffic and a ferry terminal with regular services. It is also an important cruise port and has recently constructed two new cruise terminals with long docks so also the big boys can come in.  Then there are a few other docks which are cruise ship friendly as during the cruise season 4 or 5 ships are no exception and they can easily put 15000 guests ashore.

What do all these people cruise people do? If they stay in Malaga they can visit the Picasso Museum, its cathedral and it also has the best preserved city walls / citadel in Spain. Going out, Granada and Cordoba are very close and many tours are offered to take you there; same for Mijas, also known as the white city, which has a lot of Spanish country life on show. This city you can also do on horseback but our shore Excursion Forms do warn that the horses cannot take more than 100 kg. or 200 pounds. Cruise Guests who enjoy the good life on board too much might have to be disappointed.

Because of its location the Phoenicians were here and in the cellars of the Picasso Museum you can see part of their old city. When the Phoenicians went, the Romans came and when they went the Muslims came and they stayed for several centuries given us such cultural highlights as the Alhambra in Granada. Plenty of things to go ashore for.

We all stayed on board as the deck team was spreading some culture as well by means of Lifesaving Training. On a monthly basis all the crew has to go through at least one training and a drill and to make that feasible we have 25% of the crew attend on a weekly basis. When the whole cycle is completed after some weeks we hold a General Drill and everybody then has to attend at the same time.  To cover all the topics the crew has to know and understand, and to make it a bit more interesting, we try to tell something new each time so that the crew does not get bored with the same story or too much information during each drill.

To experience this I had my team of Trainees on deck. They have all been on board for a year and have thus observed it as a cadet; but now they have become licensed officers they have to start doing it themselves. So today the order was: observe what the more experienced officers are doing because next week it is your turn and I will be watching. Well they paid attention as during the debriefing they had a lot of comments. Observations about good things but also what could have been better. So the challenge is there………… you have seen it, now follow up on your own observations.

The cruise terminal is located right inside the breakwater and when you enter the port the only thing you have to do is put on the brakes and give the mooring lines ashore.  Because of being so close to ‘the exit” the captain decided not to turn around on departure but just go straight astern for half a mile and turn outside the port where there is much more room. Cruise ships can sail astern very well and if you do not go too fast you can steer with the bow thruster and keep the ship perfectly on course.

Tomorrow we have a sea day as we are heading for Ajaccio on Corsica. So we will be crossing the Western part of the Mediterranean Sea. Thus far the weather has been great, little wind, plenty of sunshine and pleasant temperatures. Now it will slowly start to change with more wind coming from the south and South West. That means that we might see some brown haze in the air, sand from Africa. Tomorrow the winds should only marginally increase but the day after it could be more.

Gibraltar is only a short hop away from Huelva and therefore the captain decided on a slightly earlier arrival. If the sailing speed between two ports is very low then you either have to float, go to anchor or run on one engine to maintain the schedule. Anchoring and floating is not much of an option, as wherever you go in this area, you are in somebodies territorial waters or you are in somebodies way. Very slow speed is not good for an engine, it gets dirty and uses more fuel and with our diesel electric setup running on one engine is not so easy for the system. So if you arrive a bit earlier then the average speed goes up and you can find a better engine configuration. And the guests do not mind it either…… more time to spend ashore.

Sailing through the VTSS under Gibraltar. All the yellow dots are ships.

Getting to the place itself is more of an effort, especially when coming from the West. To avoid accidents again the area is regulated by means of Vessel Traffic Lanes. Coming into the Med. You are in the south lane sailing north of the African continent. Gibraltar is in Europe thus at a certain moment you have to cross the north lane, south of the rock (leading traffic out of the Med) and then enter the bay next to the rock. This morning we were quite lucky. Only a few slow tankers around us but a large gap in the west bound traffic and thus the ms Rotterdam could just slip through without having to slow down or take any other avoidance actions.

With Gibraltar we are in the peculiar situation that the Spanish are convinced that the rock belongs to them and there are squabbles over it on a regular basis. Still the cruise business does not notice it very much as we happily sailed from Huelva to Gib and tonight from Gib to Malaga.

Although Gibraltar is not much more than the Rock and a small bit of land around it, it has a very thriving harbor. There are the docks to support the place itself but also dry – dock and repair facilities for ships, there is a lot of bunker activity going on and various cargo ships call for crew change and provisioning. Then there are the regular calls of the large super yachts. That might not seem so important but they generate a lot of income for the port as they always require a prime spot in the harbor and that means prime docking fees. Today we had a blue one and a white one coming in but they were too far away to read the names. But both were very big, more like small cruise ships.

Gibraltar from the air. the cruise ship dock is at the far right, where the white (cruise) ship is docked. (Photo courtesy Gibraltar Port authority)

The main reason for Gibraltar being so popular with the shipping world is its location. Just inside the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea it is the ideal place for stocking up before a crossing or to stock up again after a crossing while going further afield. Then there is a 3^rd reason and that is for ships to use the sheltered anchorage while they wait for orders and take in fuel oil at the same time. All in all it is a busy place and I spoke to one gentleman today, who was staying in his deck chair near the railing –all day- as he found there was more to see through binoculars than there was to see when going ashore. His (British) wife had gone ashore to visit the local supermarket which is operated by a very British chain called Morrisons. Makes for a happy marriage I suppose. I know they will make lots of extra money today as the crew was descending in force upon the shop.  It even got my trainee’s excited and it also made them be in a hurry as they wanted both to go to the supermarket and to the top of Rock. I just warned them about the monkeys. When I was here last time one of our guests with beautiful long blond hair, got a monkey on her back and did not enjoy the experience. Guess what the monkey was doing.

We will sail tonight at 11 pm. and then just go around the corner to Malaga where we are going to be docking at 0700 hrs. Weather is supposed to get a bit more cloudy and windy, but I think for tomorrow and the day after we are still going to be ok.

After an hour forward, as we are back in Spain, the ship arrived in the morning at Huelva. Although we really did not arrive there as the town is about 10 miles from the port. The port is a natural river which is still in the same place as a long time ago, as a narrow strip of land, which separates it from the sea, is heavily sealed in by rocks and now forms a sort of natural breakwater which stretches for miles upriver. That meant when the ship entered the river, which looks quite wide on the surface but is quite shallow under the surface, we only saw sand, sand and more sand. The port is quite busy as it serves the industrial hinterland and thus the docks stretch all the way along the river further inland. What I call the river, is a merger of the river Odiel and the river Tinto which together supply sufficient water to create a large estuary with sufficient depth in the fairway for larger ships.

The Radar/Chart gives the best idea how peculiar this port is located behind a bank and sandbar.

Huelva (pronounced as gHwelav) is located just east of the border with Portugal, same as La Coruna in the North. Therefore it has always been a mystery to me why Portugal has to be on a different time zone than Spain. But they are, hence the hour forward last night.

It is still a long way to go upriver to the town itself but luckily the port laid on a good shuttle service.

Due to its natural river estuary this has been a port for a very, very long time. The romans have been milling around here for a long time and before that the Phoenicians. But the town came only to prominence in the 19^th. Century when the mining started and still continues to this day. As a result Huelva is mainly an industrial town but it has some interesting old stuff as well, including “The English quarter” called the Queen Victoria district, where there is a section of houses that could have looked good in any English Garden City.  Then there is the connection with Columbus who came here to get political support to start his project of finding a new way to India. (He never got there but instead discovered America).

The Cruise Terminal. The crew is busy hooking in the ships long gangway which is normally stored on the Forward Deck.

So for the whole day to day we docked in the middle of the desert where we could smell some burning wood fires which made it slowly into the ship A.C. system and for a while I thought we were all back out there with the boy scouts.  Our guests were shuttled to and from the town but a large number went on excursions to more interesting areas away from the industrial part.

Huelva is not a really logical port to go to. Mainly because of the distance from the port to the city. Although there were the Shuttle Buses but still it was 10 miles or 30 minutes just to get somewhere. So we do we go to places like this? First of all there are forever more and more cruise ships coming and they cannot all go to the same ports; secondly and that is a Holland America reason, our guests keep coming back to us time and time again and they want to see new things. So the fact that a city or place of interest is not directly on the door step is something that is part of the equation. For a quick “walk-in-to-the city” the guests have to wait until tomorrow when we are in Gibraltar. In principle you can walk the whole territory if you do not mind climbing the rock but to get to town is only a short walk. Most of the crew are looking forward to this as there is a large supermarket nearby so they can just run ashore during their break and also do not have to spend money on taxi’s to go somewhere.

The crew has another highlight today or better said this evening: A Crew Party. About every two months, we throw a party for the whole crew. Lots of food (all Indonesians are looking forward to eating steak) and then a disco. We normally hold those parties in the Oasis which is the open area above Club HAL, the children’s’ area. We currently have only a few children on board who will be in bed by the time the party starts. There are no guest cabins nearby so the crew can make as much noise as they want. My whole group of Trainee’s will be on the first row no doubt, and I have given them a late start tomorrow as this cruise is more or less their final hurrah before the real & serious life of a deck officer begins.

Tonight at 9 pm. we will swing the ship around on the river and sail back to open sea again. Then it is only a short hop to Gibraltar. Basically we just have to pass by Cadiz and then line up to pass through the Pillars of Hercules, turn to the north keeping the Rock to the East and dock around 10 am.

Weather for tomorrow:  same as today. Partly Cloudy 26oC / 78oF and no rain in sight, which is a bit disappointing for us, as you expect better when visiting Great Britain.

And thus the good ship Rotterdam sailed south towards Lisbon. It takes a bit of time to get to Lisbon itself as you have to sail up the river Tagus for about 90 minutes before you even get to the city proper. The Tagus has a very wide estuary which is very shallow with only the central part being deep enough for ships navigation. But as it is so wide and nothing else can happen to you but running aground in the soft mud, there is not pilotage until you come to Belem Tower.

Belem Tower. The pilot station is just next to it.

So the Rotterdam sailed up river conned by the ships navigation team itself. There is some help in the form of a very strong Leading light system consisting of two red lights above each other (if you are on course) and that makes it somewhat easier to stay in the middle of the channel. Local fishing boats and sometimes the Portuguese navy make it more difficult again but as it was still dark at 05.30 in the morning, both groups were not very active yet.

By sailing up the river with about 12 knots and a strong current against us, we reached Belem Tower by 7 am. to pick up the pilot. Belem tower has been since times immemorial the pilot station and it still is. From the pilot station we passed under the singing bridge and docked at the new passenger terminal which was built recently and is still being improved upon and extended. As we were sailing against the tide, the ship docked portside alongside, keeping the nose in the current. It is much easier keeping the nose in the current and the ship in position (little kick ahead on one propeller) than to try to do that by having to give astern speed to keep the ship still while the ropes go ashore.

The new cruise dock with three large berths. We were at terminal 3.

By 8 am., the gangway was in and everybody could stream ashore for a full day of excitement. The weather was really nice today, sunny but with a cool chill in the air caused by a gentle breeze coming from the sea side. Warm in the sun, cool in the shadow. Nobody should have been able to complain about today.  Even for those who stayed onboard Lisbon is a nice port as it is built against a mountain ridge and there is plenty to look at. Look at the multi colored houses and apartments or look over the river as it is quite busy as all sorts of ships come by.

Eventually the barren concrete surface is supposed to look like this.

One of those ships was a little cruise ship which I had not seen in a long long time: The Ocean Diamond, better known from the past as the Song of Flower. In the 80’s we saw it very often in the Eastern Caribbean. As it was a converted cargo ship she had and has a very distinctive profile of two stylized funnels side by side near the stern; and hanging over the stern the ships tender which was then called  “Baby Flower”. Since then I have heard about her on occasion but as she sailed in different area’s than most of the HAL ships, I did not see her any more,  so it was interesting to see that she is still going strong after 41 years, having been built in 1974 and converted into a small cruise ship in 1986.

The old Song of Flower now the Ocean Diamond and pictured here as Le Diamant. She now sports a blue hull. Note the cruise tender at the stern.

Lisbon is a city where you can easily get lost in for a few days and on some cruises our ships stay overnight here, but not this time. We sailed a 5 pm. under clear blue skies, back down the river to open sea.  We have quite a distance to go to the next port, and as we are returning to Spain we will go an hour forward tonight. Bringing us back on European Time. Tomorrow we will be in Huelva and that is going to be quite interesting as it is a new port for me.

The weather is expected to be the same as today, sunny but with a gentle breeze from the south west.

After coming around that corner guarded by our Roman built lighthouse, we followed the coast straight down to the Leixous pilot station.

Leixous port without the new cruise pier.

Leixous is an ancient port and although it now has a very modern cargo port, parts of the old breakwater are still in place.  That breakwater guards a larger inner basin with docks at either side but the real port is more land inwards. A port basically constructed by building docks on either side of the river which flows into the sea at Leixous. This river is called the Douro and further inland is the city of Porto or Oporto.  It creates sometimes the same confusion as we have in Florida. Is the ship docking in Fort Lauderdale or in Port Everglades? It is Port Everglades but as the larger city of Fort Lauderdale is next to it and has the airport, most people talk about taking a cruise from Fort Lauderdale. Here it is the same. Porto is the main attraction and the signs on the shore side even say Porto Cruise Terminal, but it is not correct, we are in Leixous.

The new cruise pier with the Queen Victoria alongside. (Photo courtesy CruiseEurope.com)

Fairly recently they built a cruise pier inside the south breakwater. Basically nothing but a straight pier sticking out from the shore which can handle 1000+ ft. cruise ships. This cruise pier was today occupied by one of the very big ships of P&O and thus we were relegated to a smaller berth up the river, where we just fitted in.  Because we docked on the river, there is no room to swing so the ship was turned on arrival and went astern upriver until it could go sideways to the berth. By the time we were docked there was not much room left between bow and stern, but we fitted in, and that is what counts. For the guests it was better, as here at least you could cross the street and be in local Leixous while at the cruise terminal there is nothing unless you take a very long walk.

The ms Rotterdam docked exactly in the gap in the pier at the right hand side.

The challenge with the berth we docked at today is the tide. The sea pushes deep into the port and up the river and there is a tidal difference of about 12 feet maximum but today it was about 9 ft. (roughly 3 meters) and the water that brings that difference in height pushes straight along the ship, both when ebbing and flooding.  Thus when the ship enters the port and it has to swing around, it has all this tidal current moving around the ship and pushing in all sorts of directions. You need to adjust for that, while at the same time you go astern up a fairly narrow river with cargo ships at either side. The P&O captain was the lucky one today; ours had to work hard for it.

The current was also detrimental to me today, as I had the plan to lower a lifeboat into the water and to let the school class play. However with a strong tide running it is not really safe to come back under the blocks to be picked up again and thus I had to defer it to another day. We kept the boat on embarkation deck and explored the mysteries of the lifeboat inventory.  The trainees have studied this stuff at school but what they do not learn is how to train the crew of the lifeboat in these things and how to answer unusual questions.  As most of our hotel crew are not sailor’s per-se, you do get questions which a mariner does not expect as he/she is already trained.  A standard one is: where is the toilet…… ? Well there is no room for it as it is an emergency device but you have to be ready for these and other questions and that forms part of the training. (Another good one was from a lady working in the shops: do you have a power socket in the boat, so I can charge my cell phone ?……………)

Most guests went 10 miles upriver/ inland to see Porto which has a lot of history and a complete historic area (the Ribeiro) which is listed on the UNESCO world list.

With everybody on board we sailed at 5 pm. and now we are heading for Lisbon. Again straight down the coast following another Vessel Traffic Separation System which consists of an outer and an inner part. Because we are sailing from one Portuguese port to another, we are allowed to take in the inside / coastal route. Had we been coming from a foreign port, then we would have been forced to take the longer route. Why? Basically because the Portuguese only like vessels that have been cleared already by them in their territorial waters.

Weather for tomorrow, about the same as today. Partly Cloudy but clearing to blue skies in the afternoon. Temperatures should reach the low 70’s oF. or mid 20’s oC.

As predicted we had very nice weather today. So sailing in was over a nice and smooth sea with no nasty waves to make the ship go up and down like a jojo.  As shown yesterday in the chart sailing into La Coruna is quite simple as it mainly consists out of one 90o turn from a nearly southerly course to a nearly westerly course.

Docking in the inner basin of the harbour.

The only item that made it a little bit more complicated was that the regular cruise berth was occupied by the Oriana of P&O and the Rotterdam was assigned the North dock in the old basin. That it was the old basin was easy to see as the Southside of this basin is where the fishing fleet docks.  Their warehouses look from a distance like a row of garages all with the same blue color. Today there was only one lonely fisherman at the dock so the rest of the fleet must have been at sea.

Thus our dock was a cargo dock but it did not matter that much as it was nice and clean and spacious enough to park all the tour busses just outside the gangway. A shuttle bus moved all the guests between the gangway and the Main Gate and that solved the location issue as well. The port is trying very hard to be a good cruise port but they are very reliant on the summer months due to the nastiness of the winter weather in the Bay of Biscay and the building up of these high swells outside the harbor entrance. (There are some spectacular clips on You Tube.)

The “Torre de Hercules”. It is not exactly clear what Hercules had to do with this tower but it is a nice name. (Photo courtesy Wikipedia)

Why do people go to La Coruna? A lot of guests want to go to Santiago de Compostela to see the Cathedral and the Pilgrims coming in and going out. If one stays in town, then there is the largest Shopping Centre in Spain to visit (which I suppose is on everybody’s bucket list) but the city also has some fine Museums and the seafood is not bad either. From a nautical point of view the most interesting item is the Torre de Hercules, the local lighthouse which was built by the Romans in the 2^nd Century and which still stands.  It was built in the 2^nd century so it is now 1900 years old and as it is still in use, it is the world oldest still operating lighthouse. Experts think that this lighthouse was built on top of an even older Phoenician one and thus this area had a lighthouse for a long long time. Understandable as the coast is very treacherous with strong currents and the bad weather winds all blowing in the direction of the land and rocks.

Just after 5 pm. we sailed and once outside, we sailed through the area which is guarded by this lighthouse. A wind force 6 to 7 from the north east greeted us and which kept the waves down but also those very low hanging clouds away that sailors do not like. Here we have warm air going over cold water and that creates fog on a regular basis. Cape Finisterre is not too far away and as was called Finis….. as the Romans thought that this point was the end of the world. Beyond it nothing but fog and bad weather. In the winter time you could believe it.

We will not have that problem tonight when we sail down the Portuguese coast on our way to Leixous. Although a Leixous is a town in its own right, a lot of people talk about Oporto or Porto as that is the major city nearby and a lot more famous.

We are scheduled to dock in the inner port which is nice for the guests as you can walk into town, just by crossing the street. It is not so nice for the Captain as it is a much more complicated maneuver to get to the dock compared to the cruise pier which is located right behind the breakwater. More about that tomorrow.

The weather should be good, partly cloudy skies with temperatures around 20oC or 66OF.

I said yesterday that it was more or less a straight line to our next port of call at La Coruna. For that one you have to put the emphasis very much on the less. A straight line would have been possible if the western part of France, consisting out of the Normandy and Bretagne, would not have been in the way.  But because it there, is the ship has to make a major course change once west of France and then it can sail on a straight line down to the North Coast of Spain.

Our route to Spain.

This run between Southampton and La Coruna is for the Navigators very interesting as it goes partly through one of the densest Traffic Areas of the world. Once out of Southampton and clear the Isle of Wight, the ship joins the Vessel Traffic Separation Scheme VTSS)  for a while, following the South Westerly flow of ships coming from the Dover Channel. Then it has to cross this flow and join a new VTSS for a while, the one that curves around the west point of France. Also here a VTSS has been created to guide the flows of traffic coming and going from Portugal, Spain and the deeper Mediterranean?

The VTSS off NW France. A Vessel Traffic Separation System keeps North going ships apart from south going ships and reduces dangerous situations and collisions. There is an outer zone/lane system for transiting ships and an inner zone/lane system that can be used by Coastal  traffic.

This West point we passed at 11 am. this morning and then we arrived on our final straight course down to La Coruna across the Bay of Biscay. On this course we are not deep inside the Bay of Biscay but stay more to the North Atlantic Ocean side. So we will observe more of the regular weather for the North Atlantic than anything else.  That weather is today in our favor. The wind comes from the land side, so it blows against the waves and that keeps the ships movement down. Wind against wave’s means they cannot continue to build up as would be the case if wind and waves would go in the same direction. So the waves are relatively low and the wind force 6 from the continent side to keep them that way. As a result the ship only slightly moves and that is for sailing in the North Atlantic at this time of the year really good.

The water in this area is very deep, up to 2000 meters or so and that also helps with keeping the waves under control. Deeper into the Bay when coming closer to the land in the area of the French/Spanish border it becomes very shallow and then the waves can build up strongly and crash with a gigantic force onto the coast or onto a ship if it happens to be there during a severe storm.

Why do the storms get so particularly bad here?

First of all, most storms come from the west and they have a lot more open sea area to play with and to blow over than when crossing more to the North and hitting the British Isles. Secondly it sits in a near perfect area to have the maximum influence from the weather systems developing over the Azores and low pressure systems over Iceland. Then when a storm arrives it is slowed down to a certain extent by the landmass of France, so it has even more time to intensify.  Altogether it can turn the Bay of Biscay into a real cauldron of very nasty weather which has caused many ships to sink when a storm came in a bit un-expected. On shallow water the waves get higher and higher and that makes it even worse.  Reason for all sailors to be very respectful of this area and to stay in the North Atlantic if the ship does not have to go to any of the ports in the Bay of Biscay area.

We have to go to La Coruna which is fortunately located on the very western edge of the Bay of Biscay. Also with today’s wind opposing the sea, the waves remain a lot smaller than otherwise could have been the case.

The port lays deeply in a sheltered Bay and the Cruise Terminal almost in the City.

We are supposed to be docked by 08.00 hrs. tomorrow morning and as La Coruna is located in a sort of Bay, which it has to sail through, the ship will make an early approach. Once inside it is a very nice and sheltered harbor, and the dock is located almost inside the city itself.

Weather for tomorrow, Partly Cloudy 75oF / 24oC with a gentle breeze from the North East, it should be a nice day tomorrow.