Holland America Blog
Safety Officer
Holland America Blog Has Just Posted the Following:
And then we had a bit of excitement after departure. A small cargo vessel had caught fire and thus the Prinsendam went to the rescue. Luckily by the time we arrived the fire had been extinguished by the crew and thus the only function the ship had to perform was to coordinate a salvage tug with the local authorities. This was not so simple because when the fire started the cargo ship was in Greek Waters. So the Bridge called the Greek authorities using a Greek 2nd officer who we have on board. While this conversation was going on the little ship drifted into Turkish Waters and the Greeks did not want to know anymore. Thus a casino employee was called to the bridge and then she could tell the Turkish locals that it was time for them to do something.* So after a 45 minute delay we were on our way again. The ship had put on a special Holland America Line dinner by using a menu from the ss Rotterdam from the early sixties. In those days most of the entries were described in French and thus we had that tonight. It was quite interesting to hear the Indonesian Crew taking and repeating the orders in French. Most of them did not, so chicken soup remained chicken soup however hard I tried to get them say: Bouillon de petite Marmite. The weather for today had looked a bit iffy to say the least but on arrival in the Dardanelles it was dry and the sun rose as scheduled, so the guests had a good look from 06.00 hrs. onwards. We in the Western world tend to think of the casualties sustained by the Allied Forces but the other side suffered as much, maybe even worse and for that side there are memorials as well. One of them we passed around 0700 hrs.* Luckily most sights are on the left bank when going north and thus the sun shone the right way. By 08.30 the ship was in the Sea of Marmara heading full speed for Istanbul. We […]
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And then we had a bit of excitement after departure. A small cargo vessel had caught fire and thus the Prinsendam went to the rescue. Luckily by the time we arrived the fire had been extinguished by the crew and thus the only function the ship had to perform was to coordinate a salvage tug with the local authorities. This was not so simple because when the fire started the cargo ship was in Greek Waters. So the Bridge called the Greek authorities using a Greek 2nd officer who we have on board. While this conversation was going on the little ship drifted into Turkish Waters and the Greeks did not want to know anymore. Thus a casino employee was called to the bridge and then she could tell the Turkish locals that it was time for them to do something.* So after a 45 minute delay we were on our way again. The ship had put on a special Holland America Line dinner by using a menu from the ss Rotterdam from the early sixties. In those days most of the entries were described in French and thus we had that tonight. It was quite interesting to hear the Indonesian Crew taking and repeating the orders in French. Most of them did not, so chicken soup remained chicken soup however hard I tried to get them say: Bouillon de petite Marmite. The weather for today had looked a bit iffy to say the least but on arrival in the Dardanelles it was dry and the sun rose as scheduled, so the guests had a good look from 06.00 hrs. onwards. We in the Western world tend to think of the casualties sustained by the Allied Forces but the other side suffered as much, maybe even worse and for that side there are memorials as well. One of them we passed around 0700 hrs.* Luckily most sights are on the left bank when going north and thus the sun shone the right way. By 08.30 the ship was in the Sea of Marmara heading full speed for Istanbul. We […]
Click here to view the article.
