It was not really the plan to do a blog today as I did not expect much excitement apart from sitting on the Hop on Hop Off bus. That excitement died away quite quickly as the Hop service only runs when there are cruise ships in port. Today there was one cruise ship in port, the Seabourn Ovation, but she is smallish and thus they ran the service only in the morning and not at times that I was going to be about. But the excitement returned as the Seabourn Ovation belongs to our sister company Seabourn so I can get on board with my corporate ID. And that was a chance not to be missed. On top of that the captain was Andy Pedder who had been my chief officer back in the Veendam days. Good reason to have a look, plus a sudden opportunity to talk a bit of business as well.

The harbor of Stavanger is in the middle of the old town and because it is deep the cruise ships really park themselves in down town. So when the big boys are in they really tower over the area. If it is not for the fact that Stavanger is built on the rocks on either side of the port, the cruise ships would completely dominate the sky line. Now at least the hotels and apartment buildings on the hills to the East are still a little bit higher.

The ms Seabourn Ovation. She only came in service recently.

The Seabourn Ovation is not that big but she still dwarfed the downtown port. Which was buzzing as there was some sort of local fair going on. The whole area around the water was taken up with little stands selling local produce and delicatessens and lots of food and drink. Slap bang in the middle was a Dutch cheese cart, manned by Dutch cheese sellers. With their van they travel all over Europe attending these sorts of happenings. Something they can easily do as Norway is part of the European Community as far as open borders and free trade is concerned. They do not have the Euro as a payment but kept the Norwegian Kroner and are thus an associate member.

The Dutch Cheeseman. And they were really Dutch. As you can see, the Stavangernerians like Dutch Cheese. It gave me a very homey feeling to see this.

With the Ovation, (40,000 tons and 600 guests) being brand new, the captain has plaque exchanges in every port, as each port in the coming months will be a maiden port call. Some ports have given up doing this due to the large number of new cruise ships coming in but traditional seafaring countries of which Norway is one, Stavanger is a very important port, and still honor the tradition.

Plaque Exchange. Mr. Anders Bang-Andersen, Director of Cruise Development for the port of Stavanger, Captain Andrew Pedder, Master ms Seabourn Ovation and Mr. Odd Bjorn Bekkeheien CEO of the port of Stavanger.

The size of the Ovation is similar to our ms Prinsendam but where Holland America operates in the 5 star Premium Market Seabourn in the 6 star Luxury segment. Which means a higher crew to guest ratio and nearly everything included in the price, except shore excursions and premium wines and spirits.

By the time I left, the area around the ship was heaving with people who were having a great time at this local fair. I walked backed through the old town and the shopping area to my hotel. While doing so I came through the park and although I am not often around children, I think this is quite unusual; little lawnmowers as toys; what a way to get kids into gardening while they are still young. They are just plastic toys but with a little gadget inside that gives a lawnmower noise when you push it.

Future Gardeners in training. If you give them a fire engine, they want to become a fireman. If you give them a lawn mover then I suppose cutting grass is the only future there is.

Our guests do love Stavanger when we call here, the old town, the petroleum museum, the country side. But not only our guests also those from  other cruise company’s and thus Holland America Line cannot get every ship to go there as the port is sometimes fully booked with 3 or 4 ships inside and sometime they are not the smallest ones.

Tomorrow the Koningsdam will arrive at 08.00 hrs. and I will join around 10 am. to see if I can start spreading “my wisdom” as I have just done on the Oosterdam. The city of Stavanger is having a few very nice days and also tomorrow it should be sunny without a cloud in the sky with temperatures of around 21oC / 70oF.

One more photo of the Ovation. the midships pool area, looking aft. Very quiet as all the guests were ashore. The round blue thing in the top middle is the sky light of the Main staircase. It runs through all the passenger decks and ends up with a glass roof. The Ovation has nearly all the public rooms aft, around this staircase and all the suites more towards the middle and the bow.

The weather front was much slower in passing by than had been forecast and the rain predicted for the very early morning hours was still lingering over the sea when we approached. All the dark clouds did disappear very quickly though while we were docking and the remainder of the day was sunny and very warm. Not so bad when you are on tour but a challenge if you decide to walk through the narrow streets in the old city. For the rest Naples was itself today with a lot of city noise, caused by cars and mopeds but also by the Neapolitans themselves who only seem to be able to communicate at the top of their voices, even when having a normal conversation. They say the people of Napoli live on the streets and I can understand why; the wife kicks them all out of the house as they are making way too much noise.

It is traditional that the ships dock noise out in Naples. On arrival in the morning it is normally wind still which makes it much easier then for departure to get out of the port.

I was forward with one of the cadet this morning. In the past few days I have guided both of them through anchoring, docking and undocking. The last few ports were simple ones, straightforward with the mooring lines and the only thing he had to do was passing on the right information between Bo ‘sun and Bridge and monitoring the safe working practices of the sailors. Today the challenge was upped a little bit here in Napoli. Because we are much too big for a cruise terminal (constructed for the “large” ships of the 1930’s) and because the Norwegian Epic had the long berth on the East side, we were sticking out by about 50 meters. That meant that all the lines were running aft to the dock and to get the lines ashore you get a local line boat. We do not like all our lines running aft as it means that there is nothing to hold the bow if a cross beam wind would suddenly blow up. Our plan B is then to drop the anchor and/or call a tugboat.

The Ormeggiatori, or linesmen using a powerful skiff to bring the mooring lines ashore.

Thus this morning the cadet had to keep oversight, communicate, direct the lines, yell at the Ormeggatiori (linesmen in the boat) and ensure that the sailors were not doing things too fast. Not easy if you have to do this without any previous experience. Luckily the Bo ‘sun is an experienced man and as backup I was hovering “benevolently” in the background. The tricky thing in this port is that the lines are very long as we are hanging over so far. So we have to pay out a lot of rope; rope that is then pulled ashore by the lines boat. If you do not pay out the mooring line fast enough, the linesmen will yell, if you pay out too much (too much spaghetti in the water), it slows down the boat and the linesmen will yell, and if you have not set things up properly, the sailors will yell. (Naples is a real good port for yelling…… ……. Everybody does it.

This was the end result. Six long lines which are normally running forward as head lines and two spring lines (not visible) which were running their regular way. We normally call this 6 and 2. Now it was more 0 and 8, but then there was no other option.

The solution to the challenge is, to first instruct the deck team in detail what is going to happen and how you want it done. Invite the Bo ‘sun to give his input as he has a lot of experience and then decide on the plan. 2nd step is to run out the ropes on an even pace that can be handled by the lines boat and also works for the sailors who guide the ropes of the mooring drums. In the meantime you have to keep up your reports to the bridge as they want to know what you are doing and how you are progressing. The bridge can see where the blow ropes are going but not the status of the belaying on the mooring deck.

This is one of the more dangerous moments during docking. The belaying of the “extra rope” on the capstan. An extra rope does not have its own mooring drum and is handled completely by hand. As it can slip from the capstan, the guiding work is done by one sailor while the rest keeps out of the way until the rope is tight and safe on the capstan.

In the end it was real team work, the cadet communicated, the Bo; sun kept the oversight and I did the yelling. When we came back upstairs to report back to my colleague, he paid the cadet a compliment because it went so smooth and so fast. (It was of course the yelling that did it but we did not say that…..)

This afternoon the good ship ms Oosterdam sails for Civitavecchia. This is a regular port of call tomorrow and not a turn around day, which we often have here. Nearly everybody is on some sort of tour, either to Rome or in the area around the port. I will be leaving the ms Oosterdam and fly from Rome via Amsterdam to Stavanger to join the ms Koningsdam. I will join on the 20th. so for two days there will be no blog. I have to wait a day for the Koningsdam to catch up with me; but I have a hotel in the center of the city, opposite the cruise terminal, and there is a hop on / hop off bus so I will be set.

The route from Katakolon to Naples takes us straight to the West across the Ionian Sea, then south of Italy into Messina Strait, then into the Tyrrhenian Sea and from there up the coast past Capri. We were very fortunate with the weather today as it was very calm and the Oosterdam provided a smooth ride. Navigational high light of the day was the passage through the Strait of Messina. Last cruise at the early time of 0500 in the morning, today it was at the more decent time of 1600 hrs. in the afternoon. A good excuse for an early cocktail hour. The EXC team provided a commentary about what was there to be seen and the Oosterdam raced with the great speed of 14 knots through the strait.

The Strait of Messina. Sicilia to the left and the Italian Mainland to the right. The purple lines are the safe boundary’s of the strait, and the red lines our intended path through the strait. As we are going north we try to hug the starboard side of the strait as much as possible; pending pilots agreement.

Pilotage here is compulsory, not so much for the sailing through as that is very straight forward, but to deal with the ferries which are constantly crossing from the Italian Mainland to Sicilia and back again. Then there are the fishing boats, the other deep sea ships and the six pack navigators and all together it is enough reason for pilotage to be compulsory here. The pilot knows exactly what the ferries are doing and the ferries are not worried as they know that the pilot will do the right thing. Rules of the road do not always work out of here to achieve the fastest crossing solution and so sometimes the ferries cross the bow of the ship and sometimes they go astern. And as long as the ship in question does not do something erratic then it is a safe operation. And the pilot ensures that.

The Messina Strait pilot boat at full speed. This is also the speed they make when they come alongside the ship.

I have yet to meet one captain who is not very happy with the way the pilots come on board. In most ports there is always a fuss about slowing down, making a lee way and once done, the pilot boat skipper changes his/her mind again. Not here; just keep the speed steady and pilot hops on board whether we are sailing with 12 knots, 14 knots or 16 knots. I once did it even with 18 knots. I wish we could send all pilot boat operators for some lessons to Messina. The secret in them being able to it with such high speeds lays in the fact that once going fast the ship creates its own smooth water boundary around the hull. The water that flows away from the bulb is smoothed out and there are no waves, only a bit of swell.

One of the car ferries. As you can see they also have an outlet village in Sicilia.

Also today the pilot raced on board; explained to the captain that the ferries were still going from one side to the other and back again………. and that this would not be a problem. And with that wise information we raced through the Strait. And yes the ferries crossed our bow and they crossed our stern. On the Sicilian side they all dock in Messina or just outside the City border and at the Calabrian side at the town of Villa San Giovanni. Different ferry companies provide nearly the same service. Some of the ferries carry cars and pedestrians and some of them are train ferries which connect the Sicilian railway system with the mainland. That is why the railroad ferries are our biggest worry as they are on a “railway timetable” and therefore do not change course or slow down. Hence the pilot anticipating the schedule and sailing around them. The car ferries have it a little bit easier and those we see slowing down once in all while. (Not too often……………….)

A Marlin hunt in full swing. The harpooner stands on the bow and the skipper and two spotters are high up in the lookout and steering cage.

We had a nice show today with a Marlin fisherman in full operation about 500 feet from the ship. The guests at the starboard side got a real crash course in Marlin fishing. Marlin or Sword fishing is done by a fishing boat called a passerelle and it is not really fishing but a sort of hunting. Therefore the boat has a spotter; he is standing on a 30 meter high pole and looks for the marlin. Now with the modern boats they also have moved the skipper upstairs with the controls of the boat. Sticking out from the bow is a 45 meter long bridge or “passerella”. Here is the harpooner standing. The spotter with the skipper brings the harpooner right above the marlin and that makes the catch easier. The harpooner is standing so far away from the boat to ensure that the marlin cannot hear the boats engine. The average price for one Marlin is between $400 and $500 and that can make you a good living if you are skilled enough to find them and to catch them.

The harpooner with the harpoon ready to throw as soon as he is maneuvered above the marlin.

40 minutes after the pilot came on the bridge he left again and the ship continued to Naples. Around 18.30 we will do a quick sail by the Volcano Stromboli but although the Volcano is always active it is seldom active in a spectacular way. Hence we do not know if we will see something.

Tomorrow we are in Naples, together with the Norwegian Epic, that is that NCL cruise ship with the black shoe box on top of the bridge. We will follow her in and we should be docked just before 08.00 hrs.

Weather: sunny again 28oC / 82 oF and very little wind. There is supposed to be some rain during the coming night and that will help to freshen things up before we arrive.

The spotters and the skipper on the boat controls. 30 meters above water so not good if you have high anxiety. I also wonder if you get sea sick from the pendulum motion as the skipper is cutting the corners as tight as possible to get lined up behind the fish. And I also wonder if that guy climbed that steel lattice tower with his bare feet as I do not see shoes anywhere.

Katakolon, (The Greeks translated this into English as Katakolo) is located on the southwest side of the Peloponnesus and nicely tucked away on the inside of a mountain ridge; sort of in the same way as Sarande. Only here the natural bay it has created is much deeper and provides much more shelter. But because it is away from any major sea route it has never been a really important port. Only what was needed to reach Olympia from the sea would call here. And for a long long time it were only fishermen who used the harbor here while the town itself was focusing on tourism coming from the Athens and other larger cities. For Katakolon that resulted in being the end terminal of the first long distance railroad in Greece. Something they are very proud about and which has been running until the current day. The town itself is still small with no more than a 1000 real inhabitants but local tourism must provide work for many more. We were indeed the only cruise ship that came in this morning and thus we had the best spot in port, Berth 3, which causes us to in push our nose almost into the boulevard. With the port security that we have since 2001, there have to be fences and with that comes a large open area. If we would not have had that, then the restaurants would be been built up all the way to the gangway.

Sailing into Katakolon with the little port nicely tucked away behind a mountain ridge.

The port can take 3 ships alongside: Berth 1 is inside of the sea wall and a long way from downtown. The berth 2 is opposite of us, and the same pier but is slightly smaller than berth 3 where we are. Then you can have one or more large size ships at anchor. Which happens on occasion but as the town is so small and there are a lot of regular tourists as well, one ship is enough to keep all the shopkeepers happy.

It is amazing what you can find in the internet. Your own ship alongside. Note the pier construction. To save money it is made up of 4  platforms sticking out from the earlier pier. The south side, pier 2, can take a long ship as well, but it will be overhanging past the piers end.

Yesterday the focus was on the beach but today most of the guests went tour. I counted about 30 coaches lined up outside the gate and 30 x 50 guests mean 1500 on a roll and going somewhere. Most of them to Olympia, Delos and the Corinth Canal. When the ship does the East Med cruise to Piraeus, then we run the same tours from Nafplion located on the east side of the Peloponnesus. Now we are running the west Med. cruise to Barcelona and then we use Katakolon. For those who stayed behind, Katakolon offers a nice and intimate Greek experience with all the small restaurants along a boulevard which starts at the cruise terminal and ends at the marina. In between small fishing boats tie up to the water’s edge in front of the restaurants. It is very touristy but somehow not spoiled. Fishing is still a “one man happening” here and this morning around 09.30 we saw a whole slew of them coming back. I do not know if they catch much in the area here but the boats looked well maintained so there must be money in it.

Katakolon is very small. Basically only three streets. The boulevard, a street with shops and then the last street with a museum and some regular houses. No big hotels or anything else. So once the day tourists are gone it returns to being itself.

I mentioned yesterday the sulpher smell and yes it was there this morning. Very distinct and very nasty to inhale. Luckily the Oosterdam has its main gangway amidships where it is less prominent as the earth fault lies close to the shore line, there were our bow was. Katakolon Mountain is an ancient volcano nearby and its old volcanic ash has ensured that this is a very fertile area for farming. But the cracks in the earth crust which once let the lava through are still there. Only now it lets water in, which gets warmed up and which then returns to the surface with a lot of nutrients only they are acid nutrients. Among them sulpher gas which once released by the water gives the port of Katakolon its characteristic smell. But that is as dangerous as it will get here. The local pilot (You will find him mentioned in previous blogs since 2007) told me once that they did not want volcanic action here as it was bad for business. So I suppose the local chamber of commerce has outlawed this from happening.

. On the bridge he still tells the captain the same thing; if you go here and if you go not too close to there, you will be in good shape. For the rest of the day he runs his restaurant on the seafront but I should say it is operated by the family. As mother is in the kitchen and daughter and son are serving at the tables.

Tomorrow we are at sea, sailing north towards Naples were we are on the 17^th. It means sailing south of Italy and then going through the Strait of Messina. The marine weather forecast predicts with 90% accuracy that it will be another warm and sunny day, with temperatures in the high 80’s or high 20oC and a moderate breeze. As we are moving back to Central European time, we will have an hour back, which is appreciated as Today was a 13 hrs. day, spent on teaching the cadets to supervise sailors and mooring ropes on arrival and departure and a regular day in between.

Sarande is a resort town in Albania just north of the Greek border. When are in the port you can see an island straight across the bay / channel and that is Kerkira / Corfu which we visited last cruise. The Albanian spelling of the name is more like Sarande with “.. on the top. As a lot of languages do not have letters with ” .. on the top it is often written as Sarande, Sarandes or Sarandee. The name in the navigational chart is spelled as Sarande and that is what we go by. The area has a long and troubled past and it was not until 1945 that a permanent own state was founded by communist freedom fighters of the 2^nd world war.

The Resort -port of Sarande. At anchor the expedition yacht Axantha II. Available for a weekly charter of somewhere over 100,000 euros.  But is at least a yacht that can take some bad weather.

It remained communist and very much isolated until 1999 when it opened up more to the west. Since then going to Albania on a cruise has become more acceptable to travelers and now Sarande is considered the port that takes the overflow from other ports in the area. With the expansion of the cruise industry it will not be long before it is a full-fledged cruise call for many a company. Because of its ancient history and being a resort there is more than enough to do for every sort of cruise guest and that has been upping the guest ratings year by year, ever since we have been coming here.

The deep water anchorage at Sarande. We anchored as close to the deep water edge as was safely possible. The first yellow blip upwards of the ship is the yacht Axantha II as seen in the previous photos.

But it is still an anchor port. The water is deep and becomes shallow very quickly once past the small cape which is the end of a mountain ridge that protects the Bay from winds from the South West, up to the South East. It is just a pity that the afternoon winds and swell comes in from the West, and can freely reach the anchorage. To mitigate this they could built a dock here but it would mean a considerable re-organization of the port as the current small dock area (in use for Hydrofoils to Greece / Corfu and small coastal cruise ships) would have to be extended and then a 2^nd pier constructed in the shallower area further inside the bay, to help the now displaced ferries and cruise ships and I do not see that happening very quickly.

It leaves every larger cruise ship (with a draft of more than 5 meters) anchoring right on the edge of the land and thus out of the protection of the mountain ridge. We did as well, and anchored today in 40 meters of water, what is deeper than normal for cruise ports, but we could not go further in the bay. Every ship likes to be deep in the bay as in the afternoon the wind normally breezes up, only to die down again after sunset. Also today, it became quite choppy in the afternoon and the captain had to keep a good lee by having the port side anchor down and pushing the stern towards the wind to keep a lee for the tenders. So one Azipod was continuously pushing & holding the stern against the wind while the por tside anchor prevented the bow from moving. Ashore there was no issue as the mountain range kept all the wind away from the dock area but also from the town.

That made it “nice & toasty” in port and my initial resolve of exploring Sarande dissolved quickly and I made a quick U-turn when I walked between the first houses. I knew that white paint reflects the warmth of the sun but I can now confirm that yellow paint does the same.  My next “resolve” will have to wait until a spring or autumn visit. Many of the families we have on board opted for the beach but quite a few of them (often urged by their children) came back after a few hours as it was “too toasty”. The kids had already figured out that being on a cruise ship gave them all the same beach fun but with the option of running back into the A.C coverage when needed.

Our “swimmer” who thought it was a bright idea to swim between the tenders to the ship. This photo was taken from the tender platform alongside, so he came quite close. I could not get a tender in the photo to show you how dangerous it was, as our well trained tender operators kept a safe distance and waited until the swimmer had a bright moment and recognized the peril he was exposing himself to.

The local boats, large and small where not exactly in compliance with the Rules of the Road and we even had suddenly a swimmer near the ship, who had come from the beach to have a look. The lunatic did not understand how dangerous it was what he was doing as there was some swell so he bopped in and out of view all the time and the tender drivers cannot see everything around their tender. Thus the helper inside has to keep a good lookout as well. Which one helper did in the most admirable way; by climbing on top of the tender, keeping the person continuously in sight and at the same time made his feelings crystal clear. I do not know how much Indonesian the swimmer would have understood, but the guests in the tender were quite impressed. After we drew the attention of the swimmer to the fact that there were two propellers under each tender, he got the message and swam back to the beach.

Tomorrow we are in Katakolon, which is just a bit further to the south. Here we will dock and right through the port/docking area runs an earth fault line. Not a fault line which causes earthquakes or volcanoes, but water that comes welling up with a large sulpher content. So the first impression of the guests walking off the gangway is often the smell of rotten eggs. After that it gets better quite quickly.

According to the latest cruise schedule we should be by ourselves but things do change. The weather won’t. It will be Sunny with 32oC / 89oF, no wind in town and zero change of rain.

Today we called at Dubrovnik although we are docking a far distance away from the city itself. This area is called Gruz and it is where most of the cruise ships go to. Here were originally only ferry docks but the pier has been extended and can now take three medium sized cruise ships. (If there is no ferry) There is also room for a small one on the river embankment. Then in front of this dock are three anchorages. Plus there is space at an anchorage just outside downtown. In the not so distant past, there were sometimes three cruise ships at anchor there and sometimes they were not very small. Now the downtown anchorage has been dedicated to small cruise ships only such as our Seabourn ships. Anything larger has to go the Gruz docks or to the anchorages in front of it.

This is what is all about. The old town of Dubrovnik also called Stare Luka. the anchorage is to the left and the dock of Gruz about 20 minutes to the right. The ancient walled city is quite compact and thus has a limited capacity of visitors it can handle

Anchoring at downtown is nice but there is not much space, if you are a larger ship, and the anchorage is not sheltered at all times. So there have been fun and games in the past. Holland America has always followed the (safety) lead of the captains and had their ships docked at Gruz. That means that we have a shuttle service running today which departs and arrives every 30 minutes. Which works out well as a lot of our guests are on tour. To go into downtown Dubrovnik is wonderful (it is a UNESCO heritage site) but the surrounding area has so much to offer that many guests opt for tours that combine both things. Today there were only two cruise ships in; us and the MSC Poesia and that only brought about 4000 guests ashore. There were days in the past that there were seven or eight ships in port. Three alongside, three at anchor and one or two at the downtown anchorage. As mentioned in a previous blog, Dubrovnik is really suffering under its own popularity with the influx of ships, shore (by car) and air tourists (Those that come in on package holidays)

The Town leaders are trying to regulate all this traffic a little bit and thus far their emphasis has been on regulating the number of visitors by spreading the volume out and to try for the same numbers every day. If I look at the cruise schedule for this year; it looks as if they are succeeding as most days there are only two ships in and never more than three.

I pulled this photo from the internet as it shows the curving hills which cause the funnel effect. Three ships at the dock. Forward is a Holland America Line S class, 2nd one I can not recognize and the 3rd one is a Cunard Vista Class size. On the river berth the little cruise liner Dalmacija. (Thanks the unknown photographer who posted this)

Docking at Gruz has one big challenge: The River. Right in front of the dock, there is the river Rijeka Dubrovačka. Although officially it is called a Ria. A water way carved through high mountains on either side. A sort of Canyon. It ends up in the sea here at Gruz. Because of its high sides, it can act as a real funnel and it does that on a regular basis. If a high pressure system is building up over Bulgaria and it is lying under the right angle towards Croatia then a strong wind will develop and once it reaches the Ria it gets compressed between the walls on either side. Then it really increases in velocity and strength. Most of the time the pilot receives advance warning and can tell the captain to wait near the anchorage or go at anchor and run a tender service.

This morning we swung the ship around while in the river /Ria mouth and then went astern to the dock. If the wind would have come down, we could simply have kept the nose in the drift, so there would be no drift, and waited until it all had “blown over”.

I had the experience twice. Once the pilot did receive advance warning and gave me the option; wait or anchor. I decided to wait for 2 hrs. as the Bora normally does not last long, then docked and simply stayed two hours longer to make up for the lost time. (If you have the luxury of that option in your cruise schedule) The 2^nd time, the pilot did not know and there was also no general advance warning out. I think it was not expected that Bulgaria would “pressurize” itself that day. Thus I happily came in with the ship, wind still, and the moment we sailed past the west bank of the river, we saw the wind coming down. It looked like a sort of sand storm moving over the dessert only in this case it was water vapor pushed up by the wind. Then the only option is, to react quickly and the turn the bow into the river; meet the Bora head on and wait until the wind dies down again. And that is what I did. Apart from a number of caps and straw hats lost there were no issues. If you do not react quickly then the 50 or 60 knot impact full on the beam, pushes the ship very quickly to the other side, a side where is no sand but rocks. Very nasty.

But today all was fine, although the total lack of wind made for a very warm day. We will sail around 18.00 hrs. or as soon as all the guests are back and then tomorrow we are in Sarande, Albania. Here we have to anchor as there is no cruise dock. But same as in Nafplion last cruise, we will tender straight into town.

Weather tomorrow: Sunny all day 90oF / 32oC and no wind. Another very warm day. Luckily I will be sitting in the tender with the door open so I will create my own breeze while examining my 2^nd group of Tender operators.

Today we cruised through the North Adriatic Sea. The name of the sea comes from the old word Adria which means water, so today we were sailing on the water sea. A water- sea which was as smooth as a mirror. It almost felt as if we were committing a sin because the ship was cutting through this mirror with its bulb and was causing the only rivulets on the water. Completely wind still weather is normally not so much of a problem as the ship creates its own wind. They only thing was, that today the ship was not creating much wind as we were only doing 10 knots. Dubrovnik is not that far away but to make it in one night you have to leave Venice early. On an embarkation day that does not work and who wants to leave Venice early if you can have the most romantic sail-away possible? And beautiful it was as the thunder storms had nicely departed and it was dry, cool but not chilly; a perfect temperature to stand outside and watch magnificent scenery.

Approaching St Marks Square. Sunset was at 20.59 hrs. and thus the sun was still casting a red glow against the horizon.

And most guests were outside with a camera, cellphone or other recording equipment and most of them stayed until we came to the pilot station at 22.15 hrs. It was just too nice to leave. But all humans are different and the sailors who were handling the ropes on departure could not wait to get inside. For a very urgent reason to watch the semi finals of football with England against Croatia. Although Indonesia did not make it into the world cup, most Indonesians are football mad and do not want to miss any game. Their allegiance is mainly for English Clubs if there is no Dutch Club playing but tonight it was more “may the best one win”.

Diner and partying in St.Marks Square. A wonderful thing to do as long as you wish to pay the prices.

Most of the deck officers are Dutch but we have one from Belgium (very depressed at the moment, as losing is ok but not from the French) and we have two British and one from Romania.  The two English guys, as most of their country, were convincing themselves that England would win the World Cup and were thus fully focused on the game. As the whole game was played while were leaving port, the ship had a good connection and the whole game could be followed on a screen in the Bo ‘sun store. The best team won and today we had two more depressed officers, namely our English friends. A very quiet and reflective day on the bridge so to say.

A quick look into the Grand Canal. Boats keep going day and night as it is the only means of transport for most of the city.

What is not widely known is that there is a considerable amount of oil and gas exploration going on in the Adriatic Sea. Not on the scale of the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico but a large number of oil wells have been drilled and the tops of these wells are sticking out above water. We sailed by them for most of the day. Some of them were just the end of the well with inspection housing but some of them have a helicopter platform as well and are a little bit bigger. Most of the wells we saw today are in the Economic Zone of Italy but the former Yugoslavian countries such as Slovenia, Montenegro and Croatia are starting to explore as well. More oil is still being found and I have been given to understand that Croatia is handing out concessions further south of the country.

The red dots are the wells. Either Gas or oil.  We kept them all on our starboard side while sailing south towards Dubrovnik. (Thank you to the unknown website that posted this)

I hope the companies that will go for these concessions will have their house in order as all the countries surrounding the Adriatic Sea have very strict anti-pollution rules. Those apply to the cruise ships as well and thus the Oosterdam runs its cruises here on MGO instead off on bunker fuel. In a port such as Venice, the only thing we are allowed to do is a little bit of cleaning but no painting and no major hosing down of the decks. (This was fine with the sailors as the only thing they wanted to do was watch football) A number of years ago most countries around the Mediterranean realized that the Med. was nearly dead. Because it is basically an inland sea, there is not much circulation as the only flow through is from the Strait of Gibraltar to the entrance to the Suez Canal and the Black Sea. Thus what went into the sea stayed and could not break down by regular circulation. By taking draconian measures everybody was kicked into shape and now things are slowly improving again. (If you ever are in Italy or Croatia or Turkey do not wash your boat or paint it. The fines go up to $ 40,000 for each offense)

Tomorrow we are in Dubrovnik and we are docking in the outer port. The weather should be warm again with a full day of sunshine, temperatures of 85oF or 29oC and a gentle breeze blowing. Our only concern is, if the Bora would start to blow through the river valley near the dock. If so hopefully we are docked before the wind comes through as otherwise we have to wait until 11.00 hrs. or so before it dies down again. But we do not know and we cannot plan for it; we just have to wait and see until we get there.

Overnights in port are always nice as they give most of the crew the chance to run ashore for a few hours before change over day starts the next day. There is a metro station right outside the door which takes you to the west corner of old Venice. From there you can walk further into town or take the Vaporetto which goes all the way –clockwise –around: “the Rialto route”. Next to the ship there is a Vaporetto stop as well (on land you call it a Bus- stop, so is this a Boat –stop?) and that takes you clockwise around: “the Lido route”.  Cost is about 8 euro’s and if you connect the two routes together you can make a full circuit of the outer canals of Venice in about 80 minutes.  I had this on my plans for today but I was wise, knowing my 2^nd hand book sellers, and made a telephone call first to find out if the bookshop of my focus was open in the morning; it was not. So I stayed on board. Original plan had been to go ashore after having conducted my end of cruise ritual, moving cabin.

As you can not use a car in Venice and private water taxi’s are very expensive and difficult to book: You have to plan this as an expedition. Walk to the vaporetto station, hop on for 42 minutes and then zig zig through the narrow streets to the bookshop.  (Courtesy of Google Maps)

There is always a cabin reserved for me but it is up to the Guest Relation Manager to decide if I get that one or another one. So she makes the guests happy first and I get the cabin at the end of the pecking order. Through the years I must have made a lot of guests happy by giving up the initially reserved cabin and they never knew it.  Now I am in an outside cabin with an obstructed view and that normally indicates that a guest did not want an upgrade. People do not always realize this but a lot of guests do not like upgrades, either free or for a fee. They want their preferred cabin. Sometimes because it is close to an elevator or to the gangway; sometimes because they do not want a bath and sometimes because they simply like inside cabins. Whatever the reason, I have now a cabin with an excellent view of the bow of Tender 13.

Because we are staying until 21.00 hrs. embarkation was slow today as a lot of guests first went into Venice before boarding. So we had a lot of puzzled cabin stewards who were all geared up for delivering suitcases and those suitcases were very slow in arriving, at least during the first two hours. I do not know what those guests did with their suitcases while ashore but they did not arrive early. Luckily because we are sailing late, we have ample time to get them on board.

The coming cruise. voyage 657 of the ms Oosterdam. I will stay with her to Civitavecchia and then fly back north again. (Map, courtesy of HollandAmerica.com)

This cruise the ship will return to where it came from, Barcelona. When I joined her she was eastbound and now she is westbound. A westbound route with a large loop around Italy and calling at Croatia and Albania. The call at Albania is a destination in development. It is still not so long ago that it emerged from Stalinist autocratic rule and it is now slowly becoming part of main stream Europe. That means that all facilities that cruise guests are used to, are not yet fully developed but on the other hand, guests will visit a port which is still very authentic.

Another port which is more unusual for Holland America is Toulon. And with that I mean we are not calling here that often, often compared with visits to the ports nearby. Toulon is the French Navy port, located to the west of Monte Carlo. It is not a port name that stands out as a must see highlight but from there the company runs excellent tours which give a very good impression of southern France, especially the region between Marseilles, Nice, Toulon and Monte Carlo.

We will sail at 21.00 hrs. and hopefully we will have a nice sail away. Thunderstorms were gathering in the late afternoon and thunder and lightning was seen over Venice. But it might be all gone by sailing time. The sun will just have set by that time, so we are sailing out at dusk, followed by nautical twilight. The sun will not be in our eyes and the lights of Venice will just be starting to come out. Once out we will sail south into the Adriatic Sea and have a sea day before we reach Dubrovnik.

While sailing over an Adriatic Sea that was a flat as a mirror, we approached Venice pilot station. As we were entering the port at 11.30. it was a very decent time for all the guests to be up and about and to see Venice in all its glory. And I can only advise all the guests to do so while they still can.  Sometime in the future there will be a channel dug or enlarged (there is already a channel system coming to Venice via Maghera where the shipyard is) and all the cruise ships, at least the big ones, will go via this channel to the cruise terminals.

The Electronic chart overview of Venice. To the west is all shallows, interspersed with small rivers. One of rivers will be enlarged to guide large ships directly to the terminal without sailing through Venice as we did this morning.

Although it will be a pity that the guests will be deprived of one of the more spectacular sailings in and out of a port, I can understand the concern of the local authorities of having these ever larger ships coming through what is basically a fairly narrow fairway.  What size ship will still be allowed to come through, I do not know, there was talk about 90,000 tons and if so then the Vista Class ships will still go through. Wait and see, nothing has been decided yet.

Approaching the centre of Venice. The tugboat has made fast to ensure we will change course to port on time and not go straight ahead into the Grand Canal.

To mitigate the danger of a large cruise ship missing the turn when curving past San Marco’s square it is now compulsory to have a tugboat forward and a tugboat aft. They both make fast with a towing line on deck and if something would happen, they would be able to stop the ship (the aft tug) or to keep it on the intended track (the forward tug). I was forward again with the cadet and I took the opportunity to refresh the sailors mind about how to receive a towing line and later on to safely let it slip through the Panama chock back to the tugboat again. As the Oosterdam has so much maneuvering power, we seldom use tugboats and the experience gets a bit rusty then. This evolution is not so simple to do and to do it safely needs some coordination.

The sailors in action. They are just putting the tug rope onto the bollard.

The line is pulled on deck with the winch and then the eye has to be lifted over the bollard on deck so the tugboat can pull. This means: one sailor on the winch, one sailor guiding the messenger line over the capstan of the winch, two sailors holding the rope or wire when it comes on deck and two sailors for guiding the eye of the rope over the bollard. The dangerous moment is when two sailors have to keep the rope in position so the other two can lift it over. If the rope would slip out of their hands it might cause an accident to the two holding the eye. Thus the two holding the eye will handle the eye of the rope with “open grip”; e.g.  they lift the rope up but their fingers are not going around the  rope. So if the rope would “jump up” it slips out of their hands without damaging their fingers. So we did a little exercise first and then under the guidance of the Bo ‘sun it went perfect and very safe.

Although it still looks busy. This is a quiet day in high summer for Venice.

Today we had a wind less approach to the dock and the tugboats were not needed to guide the ms Oosterdam through the Lido or into the berth area. We were the only one at the cruise terminal which made everything a lot simpler. Once docked we could look to the South West and see the Nieuw Statendam taking shape in the distance.  More about her in the autumn when I will be on board to help starting her up.

The Nieuw Statendam at the Marghera Shipyard. When she comes to Venice, she will have to go to open sea and then come in through the regular entrance to the East of Venice. A direct channel will come, but is not there yet.

For the guests it should have been a good day, today, as it was not that busy in Venice. If there are more cruise ships in port then it gets busier of course but the city itself attracts so many visitors that one would almost expect that it would sink into the Laguna under all the weight, cruise ship guests or no cruise ship guests. Most of the visitors are all milling around San Marco square and do not venture that deep into the city itself. Which is a pity as the architecture and little piazza’s that you can find add a lot to a good understanding and enjoyment of being there. One advise, make sure the cell phone is on a map or navigation system so that you can find your way out again as all the islands (and there are more than a 100 which make up the cluster of Venice) are all densely built up. This makes it is hard to see the sun or any other landmark. To give you a good reason to go a few streets away from the main square and the area around the Grand Canal:  at San Marco’s square a pizza costs 50 euro’s. Two streets deep into the city behind it (where the locals live) it goes down to 9 euro’s and they taste as good, if not better.

The entrance to the Grand Canal. A wonderful area to get lost in. And if you have the time, then it does not matter as eventually you will come to a canal and then there is always a Vaporetto stop nearby to take you home.

We will remain here until tomorrow afternoon 17.00 hrs. and then start our next cruise which will bring us to the West side of Italy and beyond. The cruise will end in Barcelona but I will be leaving in Civitavecchia to join the Koningsdam so I will take you back to the Norwegian Fjords.

Weather for tomorrow: Sunny again but with 40% chance of a thunder storm. That will bring the temperatures down to about 28oC or 82oF and that is cool compared to the last few days.