From Piraeus to Venice the ship has to sail around the Peloponessos. The big land mass located south of Athens. Not only the Veendam has to do that but every ship that is too wide or has too much draft for going through the Corinth Canal. Not only Venice – Piraeus traffic but basically all the traffic between the East Med., Turkey, the Black Sea and the West Mediterranean. As a result the shipping lane at the south point of the Peloponessos can be very busy. All traffic tries to go through a 5 mile wide strait called the Steno Elafonisou located between the Peloponessos and the island Nissos
Kithiron. Going around this island is also possible but it is a 5 mile longer journey. The issue with going through this strait is that you have to make an almost 90 degree course change around the top of Kihiron and because the island blocks the view, you can not see what comes around the corner. Thus a situation where the captain has to be on the bridge.

The officer of the watch keeps doing his job, but I am there for extra oversight and a second opinion if needed. The traffic in the strait is not regulated, so basically it is a free for all. Most ships do the sensible thing. West bound traffic hugs the North side of the strait and East bound traffic hugs the South side. However there is always one there, who does something different. Thus we have to be very vigilant.

A great help nowadays it the AIS system. Automated Indentification System. Each commercial ship over 300 gross tons has a little transmitter on board that transmits information about the course and speed of the ship, what sort of ship it is and where it is going to. This shows up as an icon on the bridge radar and by clicking on the icon we can read all the information on the screen. It helps greatly in a situation as in the Steno Elafonisou, where the island blocks the radar waves from detecting ships on the other side. Course and speed are automatically entered into the AIS but some other info is not.

Information such as the destination, the sort of ship, plus the sort of activity where it is engaged in (sailing, underway, dredging, at anchor etc.etc) has to be entered by hand and that gives sometimes the most peculiar read outs. Ships traveling at 20 knots, as still being listed “at anchor”, or as “afloat”, or having arrived in a port 14 days ago but is still going there. One ship had entered as a port of destination, “going home”. No doubt great for the people on board but useless for the rest of the world. Or a local ferry, who had entered going from Island X to Island Y, “twice a day”.

With a cruise ship doing a regular cruise and running on a fixed schedule, there are some strange coincidences as well. Thus we met for the 3rd time, going through the strait, the MSC Armonia. Everytime around midnight and everytime on an opposite course. We are doing 10 day cruises, so she must be doing something similar but on an opposite cycle.

This time the traffic behaved itself and we could sail through at full speed and where out at the other side within an hour. I just made it to bed by midnight.