PORT ANGELES WILL be port o’ call for multiple cruise ship visits this year.
On Friday, May 7, the Holland America Lines cruise ship, ms Zuiderdam, will arrive at noon.
It is not known how many people will be aboard, but she can carry as many as 1,848 guests plus 800 crew members.
Those aboard can disembark at 2 p.m. to spend the day touring Port Angeles.
All ashore will settle back aboard one hour before her 11 p.m. departure time that night.
During the winter season, the Zuiderdam calls Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home and cruises to the Bahamas, Aruba, Curacao and the Panama Canal.
She will depart Fort Lauderdale on April 20 for her repositioning to the Pacific
Northwest and head to San Diego on a 14-day cruise with stops in the Grand Caymans, Panama Canal, Costa Rica and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Her final leg of the repositioning journey is a coastal cruise up the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle, from where she will spend the summer making cruises to Alaska.
But wait — there’s more!
The following week on Saturday, May 15, Holland America’s cruise ship ms Statendam, for the second time in a year, will also be in Port Angeles.
She, too, will arrive at noon.
This ship can carry 1,300 guests and has 580 crew members.
But how many will actually be aboard is not known at this time.
Those aboard will tour the town and North Olympic Peninsula within the same time frame as the Zuiderdam.
The Statendam is also on a repositioning cruise for the summer season in Alaska from her winter hailing port of Fort Lauderdale.
During the winter season she conducts cruises from Fort Lauderdale to San Diego with numerous stops along Mexico’s coast as well as the Bahamas.
Decorating the town
During the cruise ships’ visits, downtown Port Angeles will be festooned with balloons, and many businesses will remain open later than usual to accommodate the influx of tourists.
Ships’ passengers will be able to book trips through the cruise line to Hurricane Ridge, Lake Crescent and Peninsula wineries.
Buses have been reserved for both days to transport guests from the ship into downtown, the Olympic National Park Visitor Center, Museum at the Carnegie and the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.
Barbara Frederick, executive director of the Port Angeles Downtown Association, in conjunction with the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, Port of Port Angeles and Olympic Peninsula Tourist Bureau, is spearheading an effort to gather sponsors to defray the costs of providing bus transportation for the two days the cruise ships will be dockside.
For more information on the costs and benefits of being a sponsor, contact her at 360-457-9614 or by e-mail at director@portangelesdowntown.com.
Security watch
This weekend wraps up the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.
For the past couple of weeks, there has been a heightened presence of U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard vessels patrolling the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound and Haro Strait.
The ships are participating in a patrol evolution dubbed “Shiprider Pilot” that is aimed at bolstering cross-border security operations in the waterways during the winter games.
Aboard have been Royal Canadian Mounted Police and U.S. Coast Guard officers aboard.
Each vessel has a crew of three — two Mounties and one U.S. Coast Guard officer, or two U.S. Coast Guard officers and one member of the RCMP.
Officers from either country are authorized to enforce security and immigration laws on both sides of the border. However, the first point of contact with a transgressor will be with an officer from the country where the vessel is stopped.
Shiprider Pilot allows Canadian and U.S. Coast Guard vessels to enter into each other’s waters without having to be deterred by maritime borders.
Boat yard
Recently, Platypus Marine hauled out Papillon, a 68-foot fiberglass boat, at the company’s Port Angeles yard.
According to Capt. Charlie Crane, director of sales and marketing, the Taiwanese-built boat was out of the water for about six hours.
Gregory Wickes, who operates Northwest Yacht Delivery out of Oregon ,was transporting the vessel to San Diego from Lake Union when she ran into a “deadhead” — a floating log — in the Strait, bending one of her propellers.
Platypus personnel swapped out her props using spares that were onboard.
Platypus also hauled out Pacific Song and stowed her in the Commander Building on Marine Drive.
Capt. Charlie said the 68-foot North Sea trawler will be on the hard for about two weeks.
Personnel will paint the bottom and topside decks, install staple rails on the swim rail, install zincs and send out the anchor chain for a new coat of galvanizing.
The boat hails from Campbell River, British Columbia, and is owned by Paul O’Brien, who also owns a beachfront motel on Grace Bay Beach in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
On Friday, Platypus launched Zorro, a Nordhavn 68 that hails from Kirkland.
Capt Charlie said they worked on a couple of warranty issues on the new yacht for the manufacturer and applied a new coat of bottom paint.
Technicians also installed additional zincs, applied PropSpeed and fabricated and installed a mounting rack for a motor scooter.
Visiting ships
Last Sunday, Tesoro Petroleum refueled the Hong Kong-flagged Genco Pioneer, a 558-foot bulk cargo ship that stopped in Port Angeles Harbor en route to Brisbane, Australia.
On Monday, Tesoro bunkered Federal Danube, a Cypriot-flagged bulk cargo ship that is on her way to Santos, Brazil.
Later in the day, the petroleum company also refueled the 620-foot bulker, JS Comet, that is now heading to Inchon, South Korea.
Tesoro on Tuesday had its refueling barge alongside Overseas Long Beach, a 576-foot tanker with a capacity of almost 14 million gallons of refined petroleum.
On Thursday, Mandarin Glory, was at anchor for bunkers.
She is a new 623-foot cargo ship that is operated by San Juan Navigation, a shipping company that operates a fleet of dry bulk cargo ships out of Bainbridge Island.
Tesoro on Friday bunkered Alaskan Frontier, a 941-foot, double-hull crude oil tanker that is under way to Valdez, Alaska, for another load of Alaskan crude.
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David G. Sellars is a Port Angeles resident and former Navy boatswain’s mate who enjoys boats and strolling the waterfront.
Items involving boating, port activities and the North Olympic Peninsula waterfronts are always welcome.
E-mail dgsellars@hotmail.com or phone him at 360-417-3736.
His column, On the Waterfront, appears every Sunday.
