Another Albert Blog

We spent a week in September cruising the Inside Passage from Vancouver to Alaska on  MV Volendam, a Holland America Line ship. It was a brilliant cruise and part of a trip of lifetime.  We stopped at Juneau, Skagway, Ketchican and had a cruise into Glacier Bay. With visits to glaciers, waterfalls, whale watching and a trip along the White Pass and Yukon Route railway into the Klondike it was full of memorable events. Later I will post about some of our experiences, but this post is essentially about the ship.

Volendam at Juneau

Volendam in Skagway

At around 60,000 tons, 780ft length and 105ft beam, Volendam is not a large cruise ship, by modern standards but she does carry around 1400 passengers and 650 crew. I was impressed how she was navigated into some of the tight channels in the Inside Passage and spun arround at the head of Glacier Bay. This led me to explore the Holland America web site for details about the ship and crew, particularly our captain who had the distinctive name of Captain Friso Kramer gezegd Freher.

It was then I discovered that their senior captain Albert Schoonderbeek, blogs under the tag Captain Albert's Blog about his colleagues, their backgrounds and his role in the company's safety procedures.

What is particuarly fascinating, to me, is his description of navigating the Canadian part of the Inside Passage. Just how you take such a large vessel around some of the "tight bends" is impressive . When the Volendam went through this section, in not very good weather, I was as able to watch navigation from the "Crows Nest", an area directly above the bridge. On occasions I was mystified as to the direction the channel took and the "bank" appeared not that far away.

I can recommend a look at our namesake's blog. I aim to check it our regularly to see how their voyages progress.

Leaving Glacier Bay