Another day in (Danish) paradise. Today it was nearly windstill and the temperatures crept up to the very high 70’s. No other cruise ship came in and thus the guests had the whole city to themselves. It made me wonder therefore, why the harbormaster had parked us all the way forward at the Lange Linje…   read more of “29 June 2010;…”

From our last point of “mayhem” last night it was a quiet run through the Kattegat. That body of water where Sweden and Denmark are starting to come closer and closer. Here the traffic routes ensure that nearly all the traffic is following the same pattern and that makes navigating easy. I had planned to…   read more of “28 June 2010;…”

The weather forecast was partly right. It was a nice day but the predicted poor visibility due to low hanging haze, never materialized. A good thing as well, as the whole day we had to dodge traffic. Especially the fishing boats were a curse. I think there is a Fish quota opening going on at…   read more of “27 June 2010; the…”

There was a spot of bad weather somewhere over the United States and that got our Air/Sea ticketing department all excited. Even to such an extent that they were asking me if I could delay the departure time, if necessary. That decision involves looking at a large number of things. The most important ones: One;…   read more of “26 June 2010;…”

After a good nights sleep, and an undisturbed nights sleep on top of that; I woke up to a beautiful wind still morning. For once I was the one who could stay in bed while others, who normally have a regular working day, had to get up in the middle of the night. As today…   read more of “25 June 2010;…”

The approach to the estuary of the river Thames is something that would give a computer a headache. Ships are coming and going to and from every direction and they all descend on a little area called NE Spit pilot station, to either embark or disembark the pilot. Then there are numerous ships, such as…   read more of “24 June 2010;…”

Mother Nature behaved it’self and it was not until 0700 in the morning, that a certain haziness descended over the North Sea and the world became decidedly limited in its outlook. At least the guests had had a good night before I started pulling the ships whistle. The North Sea leads to the busiest waterway…   read more of “23 June 2010; North…”

We approached Bergen from the north and that meant a 0500 pilot for a 0800 docking. As it had been sunny in Bergen yesterday, it was very hazy near the pilot station, but visibility was still good enough to see more than 3 miles and thus we did not have to use the whistle to…   read more of “22 June 2010;…”