Portimao

We visited the Algarve with a call at the big tourist-city Portimao. But as soon as the busses had taken us out of all this skyskrapers and shopping-malls, we explored a green country with some refreshing springrain ...
The coastline is typical with steep cliffs and low vegetation. We reached the southwesternmost point of europe shortly after our visit of Sagres, the famous little town, from where Prince Henry the Navigator sent out his fleets to find the waterway round Africa to the wealthy coasts of India in the 15th century.





The lighthouse at the end of europe ...

Guadalquivir - on sea

In the early morning the FRAM left her position in the midt of Sevilla and went down the river again. First we went through the suburbs and outskirts of town, before we reached the plain agricultural landscape with fields of corn and orchards of oranges. It's a distance of approximatly 100 km to the open sea. There are no villages or citys at this part of the river, just a very empty landscape with a lot of storks. The last miles we went through europes biggest nature reserve, the "Coto de Donana". The rest of the day we were far out on the sea again enjoying fresh baked waffles or listening to some lectures ...

The FRAM on the winding river

A little bit smaller ships than ours!

Sevilla

During the night we went up the Guadalquivir and reached Sevilla at sunrise. In an astonishing maneuver the captain went backwards through the last little bridge ...
Then we docked really in the middle of this historic town, just aside the towns biggest park and only a short footwalk from the towncentre with its wellknown attractions as the big cathedral and of course the arabic-styled castle - the Real Alcazar.
We had sunshine all day and T-Shirt-weather with 23 degrees (Celsius).



Hurtigruten-guests visiting the palace




The small gates in the old town ...




Great show of a royal bird!

Still on the ocean

Another warm, sunny day with no big waves - ideal for the guests to enjoy a sunbath on deck 7. There were also several dolphins to bee seen around the ship. And of course we had all this highly scientific lectures about spain ...
Around midnight we expect to reach the mouth of the Guadalquivir, and during the night we will travel 125 nautical miles until we reach Sevilla for breakfast!

What is the crew doing?



Our very busy purser filling out all this boring
schedules - but still showing her beautyful smile!



As everyday, Jayson takes care of fingerprints
in elevators and on the staircases - thank you!



Back on the bridge again - our safety-officer
John Sigurd, looking out for the coast to come ...

On the wide open sea ...

We left the nice island of Madeira again, and are now heading for the coast of spain. But that is a really long distance to sail, so we will have to spend two days far of the coastlines. That means, a lot of lectures for the guests, a lot of things to learn about our destination - or just relaxing in the sun ...



Everywhere just water! No coast, no ships and no ICEBERGS!
So we don`t need anyone on the bridge ...

Funchal/Madeira



Was a little bit rough this first night, but finally we reached this far-out atlantic island. There were a lot of excursions into the green and blossoming nature. Outside of Funchal there were all this little terraced fields with bananas, vine and sugarcane - they destill rum from it ...



Our FRAM next to another famous old explorer-ship!



Hard to reach fields at the foot of europe`s highest seacliff

Las Palmas/Gran Canaria

8. April

So, after the ship left the dock - clean, painted and fresh again - the first passengers arrived for the "Spring-in-europe"-cruises. Spring is really on it`s way down here, and so we all experienced a green and warm island ...

Docking out

Our time is up. We started to dock out of the yard at 1600, and the first "train ride" went very quick as you see from the first video clip, but the part filling the dock with water did take about 2 1/2 hours, see second video clip. Bunkering next at León y Castillo pier, and then after bunkering, we reposition to Santa Catalina Pier.

Cleaning time!

We have started to clean for real, plastic covers removed from furniture. Water, brooms and soap can be smelled around the vessel instead of paint, steal welding etc. As you see our anchor has got a new coat of paint too. Our Expeditionleader Anja Erdmann has also arrived, she is preparing the cruises ahead.

Septic Tank

Sound incredible discusting really, but nevertheless it is an impotant thing to have. After removing the content, the septic tank was ready for a face lift. It was cleaned, treated with a remedy to prevent corrotion, and last but not least painted.

As you can see we still have some work to do before the ship is ready to receive passengers.

The crew will all go to dinner together in town tonight, we are all looking forward to that

Ships on Rails

The big happening today was that our neighbour on starboard side, the fishing vessel "Victoria" was ready to leave drydock. There is a very efficiant system for docking in/out of the yard, and we figured you have to see this in the video cut added in todays blog. A couple of hours later we had a new neighbour a small tanker called "Sea Runner".

We are closing up to the end of our time here at the shipyard, and we see clearly tasks getting finished and polished every day. The plan is to be out of drydock on Monday, take bunker and move to our berth at Santa Catalina for the last provitions on Tuesday. By Wednesday we should be ready to receive our passengers for the Easter Cruise.

Crew Arrival

The Atlantic Crossing was made with minimum crew. Today they all came back after a short vacation. We received 24 crew members mostly from the Phillipines. All ready to take part in the big job, cleaning the interior as the work finishes here at the yard in a few days. Our next cruise starts next Wednesday 8th of April "Easter in Europe".

Paintjobs never ends on a ship, here our deckboys in action.

X-Ray

Our ship has been to the doctor today. At 1200 we were notified that at 1315 all persons onboard had to be out of the ship. Reason? The yard was conducting an x-ray on the ship. You may ask why, and so did we. It is simply because to check if the welding work is strong enough on the parts of the shipside we replaced on deck 3 and 5. Last week we blogged the work as it commenced and now it almost concluded. Well, we all got 1 hour unintended break, but as you can see we were eager to get back onboard as soon as the test was over.

Anchor Chain

A rare sight for most of us. The entire anchor chain on both port/starboard side neatly in folds on the ground. We have 280 meter chain on each side. It was difficult to capture it all on a photo, so we added a small video for illustrations instead. As you can see maintenance welding work is being done on the anchor chain now. The shipside is getting a new coat of paint as well, and the priming has started, by the grey patches (have to see the video for that).