Holland America Blog
Safety Officer
Holland America Blog Has Just Posted the Following:
And indeed there was a low running swell coming across from the Pacific which made the Statendam gently ride on the waves. Although for some guests they might not have called it gentle if it was a completely new experience to them. Still it was a gentle motion and not bad at all for the Gulf of Alaska. *What started off as a murky day with no wind, turned into a very sunny day with a stiff breeze in the afternoon. However by the time that this stiff breeze could whip up the waves sufficiently and make the ride rougher, the ship was coming under the lee of the land and going around the corner heading towards Cook Inlet. Anchorage is located all the way up Cook Inlet necessitating an approx. 10 hour pilot time to get there. It is as the crow flies not that much more to the north than Seward where Holland America calls with the Zaandam but unfortunately there is land, with a mountain range in between called the Kenai Peninsula and you have to sail around that.* On the other side there are more mountains, called the Alaska Range and in between is a 180 mile long inlet called the Cook Inlet.* Captain James Cook surveyed the area in 1774 but it was his then time assistant captain George Vancouver who came back in 1878 and named the fjord after his former ship’s master. He also named what now is the city of Vancouver after himself. Vancouver was from Dutch descent as his family had emigrated from Holland to England some time before and came from the town of Coevorden. So they styled themselves Van Coevorden (Van = means coming from in Dutch) and it had got anglicized to Vancouver. Due to the fact that cruise ships have to sail around the Kenai Peninsula when coming from Vancouver or the USA means that fewer cruise ships call here. *The port gets a fair amount of cruise ship calls but as a port of call during a longer cruise but not as a turn over port […]
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And indeed there was a low running swell coming across from the Pacific which made the Statendam gently ride on the waves. Although for some guests they might not have called it gentle if it was a completely new experience to them. Still it was a gentle motion and not bad at all for the Gulf of Alaska. *What started off as a murky day with no wind, turned into a very sunny day with a stiff breeze in the afternoon. However by the time that this stiff breeze could whip up the waves sufficiently and make the ride rougher, the ship was coming under the lee of the land and going around the corner heading towards Cook Inlet. Anchorage is located all the way up Cook Inlet necessitating an approx. 10 hour pilot time to get there. It is as the crow flies not that much more to the north than Seward where Holland America calls with the Zaandam but unfortunately there is land, with a mountain range in between called the Kenai Peninsula and you have to sail around that.* On the other side there are more mountains, called the Alaska Range and in between is a 180 mile long inlet called the Cook Inlet.* Captain James Cook surveyed the area in 1774 but it was his then time assistant captain George Vancouver who came back in 1878 and named the fjord after his former ship’s master. He also named what now is the city of Vancouver after himself. Vancouver was from Dutch descent as his family had emigrated from Holland to England some time before and came from the town of Coevorden. So they styled themselves Van Coevorden (Van = means coming from in Dutch) and it had got anglicized to Vancouver. Due to the fact that cruise ships have to sail around the Kenai Peninsula when coming from Vancouver or the USA means that fewer cruise ships call here. *The port gets a fair amount of cruise ship calls but as a port of call during a longer cruise but not as a turn over port […]
Click here to view the article.
