Well, the charter cruise for Olivia is coming to an end with a final day at sea and an early arrival in Venice. Although not as early as planned, as due to port congestion, I had to put back my pilot station time by an hour. The season is now in full swing and the port full with cruise ships. The Monet and The World were docked in downtown. They were in port because the Venice Art Fair was going on and at the regular berths were the Legend of the Seas and the Brilliance of the Seas. Plus my berth was taken by the Crystal Serenity who had a departure time of 3 pm. As the Venice authorities do not allow two big ships in the Laguna at the same time, I had to arrive an hour later so we could pass each other in open waters near the sea buoy.

The whole day was very hazy, with visibility dropping down to two miles at times, which was not pleasant as there were a lot of grey and white hulled fishing boats around which were hardly visible in the haze. We had to make some drastic course changes to sail around them as for some reason the biggest groups were sitting right in the regular traffic route. Maybe the fish knows where the big ships are normally sailing so they try to hide in the shipping lanes. At the moment I am training up three fourth officers, who each run an independent two hour watch, abeit under the watchful eye of the master and a good experience this was for them. Evaluating the traffic information on the radar screen, making a decision and then having faith in their own decision made takes some time to get used to. When having to make a decision about a course change, or a speed change, there are basically only two criteria that are important. 1. Is it safe decision. 2. Will the other ship understand what I am going to do. Each action taken has to have the desired effect and taken timely so that the other ship can see what is happening. The latter takes the most time to learn as you have to try to see the situation also from the perspective of the other ship.

We passed the Crystal Serenity right at the pilot station, and the pilots directly transferred from one ship to the other. They were all excited about this Venice Art Fair. There were a lot of expensive, very expensive, private yachts in port and a whole gaggle of celebrities had been sighted. As they had seen a flotilla of speedboats full with paparazzi clustering around one particular yacht, they were hoping on the way in to see Naomi Campbell. She was supposedly on board. When I told them that I was not impressed as I had 1023 ladies on board this cruise instead of one, they looked a bit flabbergasted. When approaching St Marks square there was indeed a whole fleet of speedboats sitting next to three big yachts but no celebrity in sight. Somebody must have forgotten to tell them that the Veendam was coming by.

We squeezed our way in, between the Legend and the Brilliance, and docked at our regular berth. The Ladies were having a night on the town and then disembarking early tomorrow morning. Final act of the cruise was to send the quartermaster to the radar mast to lower the rainbow flag that we had been flying all cruise and to return it to the owners. The Ladies had a great cruise and were very happy with the service provided by Team Veendam.