On August 29, Volendam donated approximately $200 in Canadian coins to British Columbia’s Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. Below is a picture of myself handing over the jar to Krishna, a YVR agent. The coins were accrued in a collection box where crew members contribute their change when they return from shopping.

Captain Peter Bos and Krishna.

Peter Bos is Volendam’s captain.

Topics: Canada/New England, Captain's Log, ms Volendam, Staff & Crew | | No Comments

After donations from the coin box near the crew office in 2010, and $118 to Love Inc, a Ketchikan food bank in June 2011, the initiative was taken to hold a concentrated coin collection drive in the month of July 2011 for Love Inc. again. The incentive was that whatever the crew and officers would donate from the coins always laying around their cabins, the ships staff would double that amount and donate that part to Salvation Army and Skagway Paws and Claws Animal Shelter fifty/fifty. The Canadian coins were taken back and exchanged for US money after everything had been counted and sorted ashore and added and the “strange” foreign coins were researched by the culinary operations manager on the internet and he added their value in US money as well for another $9. So this came to a nice grand total of $417!

The First Bank in Ketchikan allowed Love Inc. to use their coin sorting machine for free, where normally a six percent fee is charged. In June the volunteers of Love Inc. spent five hours counting and sorting all the coins we gave them. Whilst helping us to set this all up the secretary of Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska, Judee Mettler was so impressed that she spontaneously added a personal check of $150 to the cause. That brought the grand total to $567 for Love Inc, the local food bank in Ketchikan. The five ship staffers added their $100 each and then two newly joined staff officers also decided to chip in $100 each, so we came up with a total of $1,267 for the Ketchikan and Skagway community on behalf of the Volendam with the help of First Bank and generosity of Judee Mettler. A total of $350 went to the Ketchikan Salvation Army and $350 to Skagway Animal shelters which also takes care of animals found near Hoonah.

Peter Bos is Volendam’s captain.

Topics: Alaska, Captain's Log, Good Deeds, ms Volendam | | No Comments

Entrance to the spotless garbage room on the Volendam where they even “recycled” garbage into Christmas ornaments. These guys were rightfully as a team chosen as employees of the month in September 2010. Team work matters here.

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Topics: Holidays, ms Volendam | | No Comments

Volendam deployed weather buoys for the New Zealand Meteorological Service February 23. The first buoy was launched at 153 degrees and the second one near 155 degrees east, so 120 miles apart or approximately 6 hours steaming.

Cadet Lars removing the plastic and doing the last minute transmission check/test on the weather bouys.

The buoys have a serial number on them, and we write down the serial number and the coordinates where we launch that specific buoy. We take the plastic wrapping off the carton and the paper will dissolve, the bottom part is a big drogue — or sea anchor — which makes sure the buoy goes mainly on the current and not too much on the wind.

Cadet Stevens Melchior and Second Officer Harry Hobma doing the “1, 2, 3 in God’s Name” toss from the pilot break.

Every 90 seconds the buoys transmit a signal from the transmitter signal and the beeper will give a sound. We check until the very last moment if the buoy is still active before we launch it, less the buoy gets returned as a “dud”. (Actually they both work very well because I can hear them transmit based on the noise my computer makes every so many seconds. It interferes like a UHF radio.)

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Topics: Australia/New Zealand, Captain's Log, ms Volendam, News | | 2 Comments

Besides leading the HAL fleet in weather observations, the Volendam again is helping out the New Zealand and NOAA offices with deploying two weather buoys.

On Feb 23rd two weather buoys will be deployed at 153 and 155 degrees eastern longitude. These will fill the gap that exists between Australia and New Zealand as seen on the attached charts.

Worldwide every year approximately 1,500 weather buoys are launched. The red ones are simpler models, the blue dots are more complex models since more data are desired. As you can see the area of the east coast of Africa is avoided since most buoys get stolen there or used for target practice.

Most likely the Amsterdam will be a candidate to deploy a few this summer since she does the cruise to Anchorage and you can see that there is a lack of coverage there as well. Two of the New Zealand buoys are actually on islands which are wildlife preserves, however, because of that status no structures can be erected so the buoys are placed on shore.

Peter Bos is Volendam’s master.

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The community in Ketchikan gladly accepted some 150 chairs from Volendam that came from Lido restaurant exchange 2nd phase.

After Ketchikan, charities in Skagway also got their part of the Lido chairs from the Volendam that have been replaced after 10 years.

Captain Peter Bos is Volendam’s master.

Topics: Alaska, Captain's Log, Good Deeds, ms Volendam | | No Comments

The boy scout group in Ketchikan came to visit the Volendam to say thank you for the donation they received the week before of the furniture from the Hudson Room. This was just in time for their annual fundraiser, and most of it was sold and that gave them some extra cash to be able to travel and meet up with other groups in Alaska and Washington State.

On board they were given a bridge and ship tour by First Officer Tim Fletcher. They all got a Dam Ship T-shirt and then were taken to the ice cream parlor to conclude the visit.

Topics: Alaska, Captain's Log, Good Deeds, ms Volendam | | No Comments

Aboard Volendam

With the conversion of the Queen’s Room to the Microsoft Digital Workshop center for guests, we moved the Queen’s Room furniture to the Hudson Room and donated the Hudson Room furniture to the Boy Scouts in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Chief Housekeeper Koos van Beesten. and Ketchikan ship’s agent Bill Halloran

Topics: Alaska, Good Deeds, ms Volendam | | 1 Comment