20 September 2013; Passage to Canada.

We had a very quiet night tucked away in the Behm Canal. The ship slowly steamed up and down, making a run every four hours. A bit boring for the pilots and the navigators but everybody was just happy to be in the lee of the mountain. In the morning the wind started to pick up as the direction of the wind flow shifted more to the south. That was good news as it meant that the weather system was moving to the west. Time to come out of hiding and go south.

It was still very windy when I disembarked the pilots, nearly 50 knots full on the bow. The agent in Ketchikan had sent out a strong tugboat for the pickup as the regular pilot boat was not deemed strong enough. We made a nice lee to be out of the incoming swell and both pilots hopped safely off the ship. Then we turned south. As we were not calling at Ketchikan I had a lot of extra hours on hand and that gave the option to sail very slowly.

That was good, that was very good. The slower the ship goes, the better it will ride the waves. We cannot go that fast so we can “water plane” over the waves and thus going slow is better. It makes the bow gently rise on the waves instead of smashing into it. The weather was expected to improve dramatically in the course of the afternoon but in the morning we still had some high waves. However the slow speed ensured that the ship was riding very nicely. The dramatic change indeed came in the early afternoon. The wind suddenly dropped from 50 knots to 18 knots and the high waves came down from 14 to 5 feet, as if somebody had turned a switch.

During the windy weather period I had kept the doors to the outside decks closed but now they could be re-opened giving the guests the chance to catch a breath of fresh air. We never have that many guests who want to walk around outside when the ship is sailing but the moment they hear that the outside doors are closed, everybody suddenly wants to go outside and they keep asking when the doors will be re-opened again. Then when the doors are opened, only those who had being doing it before will go outside and the rest will stay inside as normal. No doubt a psychiatrist could write a dissertation about that.

Tomorrow will be the last day of the cruise, another sea day and we will have concluded a very unusual cruise. It was supposed to be 7 days with 2 real sea days, Glacier Bay, and then 3 ports. In the end it was four real sea days as the only port we visited was Skagway. Not only the Statendam was in that situation but also the Zuiderdam and the Oosterdam. Both also missed two ports for the same reason. The company realized that and reviewed this rather strange situation and decided that some appreciation was in order.

Officially cancelling ports for bad weather is an Act of God and does not require compensation. On the other hand Holland America is very service orientated and wants to show its appreciation for those who sail with the company. Thus I had the happy task to announce that each guest would receive a 15% future cruise credit. Very nice I thought and to celebrate the good news a glass of champagne was served during dessert as well. I just hope that not everybody runs down to the Future Cruise Consultant desk and tries to get a deposit put down as he will never manage 1200 guests in one day. Anyway I heard that most guests first had to go home, review their plans for next year and then decide what to do. Most were saying that the plan was to re-visit Alaska in the near future and heavy discussions broke out about when was the best time of the year. Referring to a previous blog I can only say that each time of the year has a certain advantage, it all depends what you are looking for and expect out of it.

Tomorrow we will sail first through Queen Charlotte Sound and then Johnstone Strait on our way to Vancouver. The weather is also rapidly improving in that area and I expect that we will have a transit without too much of a wobble. Then by tomorrow evening the wind is supposed to pick up again with the next weather front coming in. We had a perfect summer, but it looks like it that autumn is coming early.