Roland,

As per your request for the blog, here is a photo of the our crew downing the Sympathy with the Devil cocktail.

On Sunday we had the first of probably several pre-cruise planning parties. We served up the Holland America specialty drink, Sympathy with the Devil. As you can see from the attached photo, the drink was a big hit!

We all had a good time planning lodging, transportation and the early discussions of shore excursions. Even though the we are scheduled to sail on the Eurodam on March 28, the general feeling is “Let’s go tomorrow!” We are looking forward to sailing on the newest of the DAM ships amidst all of its splendor.

Bruce and Crew

Here’s the cocktail recipe:

1/2 oz vodka, gin, rum, tequila
1/2 oz Tia Maria, Grand Marnier
Cranberry juice
House sweet & sour mix

Serve in a pint glass with no garnish.

If you like, you can top it with beer.

Today we are at our private island, Half Moon Cay, so named after its gorgeous half moon–shaped beach. It is charted as Little San Salvador and lies to the east of Eleuthra Island and to the west of Cat Island.

As with most islands in the area, it has a steeply shelving (aka vertical) wall and then a gently shelving beach. There is no berth, although over the years there have been attempts at drawing plans for one. The challenge is that there is no perfect place for a berth, taking into account prevailing winds and the depth of water involved, a pier would need to extend into water far too deep to be feasible.

Mooring buoys were discussed too, however, captains were hesitant to tie up to these, considering the fickleness of the weather and the possible necessity of having to move away from the beach in inclement weather. So, we anchor. I let go the anchor with 10 metres (+30 feet) under the bulbous bow and then work the anchor cable west, so that it lies along the 10-metre shelf. Our stern incidentally, is in water over 60 metres (200 feet), so you can see how quickly the depth falls away.

I have pasted a snapshot of our radar this morning. The two dotted blue lines are our PIs (or Parallel Index) and are centred on ‘lonesome rock,’ as I call it, an outcrop of rock near the marina entrance. The PIs give the officer of the watch an immediate indication of any dragging of the anchor. If we move, the PIs move with us, thus indicating dragging. The light blue is shallow water, less than 10 metres, (although the chart symbols superimposed on the radar are not accurate to the consistency we desire and should not be used for anything other than a rough guide. We use accurate survey charts for our purposes).

Just to the right of the ship outline is a small ‘anchor’ symbol. This is where we let go our anchor and ‘worked’ our way west, paying out chain as we did so.

The marina channel can be seen as a dark line to the right of ‘lonesome rock.’ The lagoon, where we have our stingray experience and water sports, can be seen as blue area, at the 3 o’clock position.

True wind is shown on the circular indicator, centre right.

Here are the pictures that you would normally see!

Eurodam News Blog is taking a well-deserved break over the four-day Thanksgiving holiday observed in the United States. We will return Monday, Dec. 1, with more news and info about Eurodam, its guests and crew.

Hello,

We just sailed on the E from Nov.15-22. This was our fourth cruise with HAL and wanted to say how much we enjoyed the new ship and her crew. I’m up early this morning because I missed the wonderful beds and the elegant bedding that tucked me in every night. HAL in my opinion is top of the line and is worth every penny.

Have you guys ever thought of staying over night at Half Moon Cay? Most passengers like me think this island is the best stop of all you have to offer! I think an overnight stay with a huge beach party at night, leave the next afternoon would be wonderful! Or make two trips to Half Moon and leave off one of the other ports, one stop going and one stop back to just relax.

To all the wonderful crew we thank you and will be returning. You need to contract Dr. Justin Miller for as long as you can, the man is a genius!

Youvonna, Michael and Josh Bowman

Burlington, North Carolina

We are now safely docked in this beautiful natural harbour, nestling under the ‘heights’ on which stand the Spanish fortifications and the ‘old’ town.

We have, in terms of weather, had an eventful 48 hours since leaving Port Everglades on Saturday. Having docked in a ‘nor’easter’, it had shown no signs of abating on departure, and our ‘Thanksgiving’ guests experienced the motion of the ocean as soon as we started our transit of the Straits of Florida.

This week has seen an unfortunate combination of weather patterns — a high-pressure area building over the southeastern U.S., a low-pressure area over the eastern seaboard and another low-pressure area over the Tropical Atlantic.

The combination of the three has resulted in our weather being more than one would wish for. The high pressure and the Atlantic low combined to give us very strong northeasterly winds and the eastern seaboard low is responsible for a steep Atlantic swell of around 12 feet. As most of our courses towards Grand Turk and later, San Juan, are generally southeast, this resulted in both wind and waves being on our port beam and our stabilisers having to work overtime.

Despite my optimism, the weather had shown no signs of abating when we arrived off Grand Turk Monday morning. A massive swell was funnelling down between Grand Turk and the islands, and the wind was blowing — 40 knots on average — although we experienced gusts nearer 50 knots.

During our calls at Grand Turk, I have experienced a drop or shift in the wind when nearer the pier itself and to this end, we made three close ‘passes’ of the pier. ‘Close’ being a prudent distance off, the sight of the surf and swell, breaking on Grand Turk itself and the shallow reefs to the south, was enough to keep any mariner wary of getting too close.

After two hours of waiting off the island, in the hope of an easing of the conditions, I reluctantly made the decision to cancel our call. If you read the blog regularly, you are aware of the ‘E’s parameters for wind, and this was way more than anything she could handle.

As we made our way around the north of the island, my time was taken in making reports to our corporate office and speaking to our agent in San Juan. It was my intention to dock there as soon as possible, rather than wait for our scheduled arrival, the reason being two-fold. A guest needed medical attention and although our excellent medical staff are extremely capable, this was a case that needed equipment we do not possess, and secondly, I had no wish to subject our guests and crew to the movement we were experiencing any longer than was necessary.

So we wound the ‘E’ up and, making over 21 knots, (in the weather conditions I did not want to ‘open her up’ as that would have been more uncomfortable), headed for San Juan.

The wind only abated when we neared the approaches to the port and even then was still around 25 knots. The swell and conditions were such that I advised the pilot that I would embark him inside the harbour, trying to do so outside would have been unsafe for him, so he boarded as we entered the buoyed channel, under the lee of the Old Town and El Morro.

So, at 2:30 in the morning, we docked at #4 pier west. Medical teams and an ambulance were there on arrival and we disembarked our guest to the hospital.

The Customs and Border Protection officers had kindly allowed us to conduct this exercise without going through clearance procedures and having done so, we ‘shut up shop’, closing our break doors until later that morning, when they would formally clear us and our guests could go ashore and enjoy Puerto Rico. Just as importantly, my officers and crew could get some rest, as they had had a busy few hours.

Dee Ann Nevares (Mariner #009874348) and husband of 41 years, Alberto C. Nevares (Mariner #009874330), sent us this photo and note:

We sail Nov. 29, 2008, with HAL again! Twenty years ago we started on the Noordam in 1988, and our 18th cruise will be on the new Eurodam. We have enjoyed this journey and hope to spend another 20 years and 18 cruises with you.

Captain Mercer sent us this picture from Grand Turk of Friendship 7, astronaut John Glenn’s space capsule from the Mercury Space Program. Glenn, the first American to orbit earth, splashed down in Grand Turk waters Feb. 20, 1962 — back in the days when spacecraft returned to earth via parachute. In those days Grand Turk had a strong NASA and Air Force presence and he was brought to the island for a medical checkup and post flight debriefing.

In the early years of the space program Grand Turk was a major missile and space tracking station supporting the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs. Glenn’s three orbits of the earth were tracked from Grand Turk, and information was sent to Cape Canaveral, Fla. The Grand Turk Island tracking station officially closed down Feb. 29, 1984, becoming obsolete due to advances in space technology — something the station actually helped to achieve — and was replaced by data-gathering satellites.

Although Eurodam was supposed to call at Grand Turk today, we just heard from Captain Mercer that the ship was unable to dock there due to 40-knot-plus winds and a Force 8 gale.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Mercer

Third Officer Martyn Kelly looks through the binoculars while transiting the ‘Narrows’ in San Juan.

Our vacation is all about Jeroen tackling “The Honey-Do List,” as Captain Mercer calls it. These are all of the retrofit home enhancements that need to be done in the house but not necessarily all projects are at the request of “the honey.”

Moreover, in a house less than a year old, we are attempting to get it ready for the Dutch family members that are flying over for Christmas. I am so fortunate that Jeroen is not only a navigator, he is the electrician, the plumber, the tile setter and the IT techie with about five projects going on simultaneously.

Jeroen took a break from his tools to help with a project that was not on his Honey-Do List and not something that he was overly excited about, unlike myself. Carving pumpkins has always been a fun family project for me growing up, but for a Dutchman who has hardly ever carved pumpkins, the thought of removing pumpkins seeds and stringy pumpkin guts was not his idea of a fun pre-Halloween evening.

I started carving using a traditional knife, cutting out the top, then the eyes, etc. Then I heard what sounded like a drill noise coming up from the basement and becoming louder as he approached upstairs where I was pumpkin carving. With a revving electric drill in hand he started to “drill-carve” his own unique pumpkins! I exclaimed he was a “cheater,” albeit I have to admit it was far less arduous than my manual work and safer, too, as six small knife cuts on my hands testified.

When we finished carving and drilling, we placed the finished jack-o-lanterns on the front porch and lit them up with flameless candles that have the same effect as real candles, flickering and all. They were quite a hit with the trick-or-treaters and the neighborhood kids.

As a Dutchman living in the U.S., and celebrating traditions he is not accustomed to, I really admire Jeroen for approaching our strange customs with his Dutch gusto and his American drill!