Day 14: Akureyri, Iceland

Day 14 — Akureyri, Iceland. What I love most about this ship is that from Deck 9 (the sun deck, the topmost one, with the loungers) you can see and hear perfectly everything the captain and his second do from the bridge wing, one deck below, during anchoring or docking maneuvers — which we never miss.

It's absolutely fascinating to watch the interplay between the captain and his right-hand man, the first officer, during a maneuver. The captain's head sits on some kind of swivel gimbal, always scanning in every direction, over one shoulder then the other, like Messi on the pitch, forever hunting for clues about what his ship is doing at any given moment.

The first officer knows his captain by heart and doesn't need words. The captain just throws him a glance, and the first officer knows to call it in over the radio:

"Starboard anchor, status update!"

The head of the deck crew responsible for the starboard anchor answers immediately:

"Five shackles, two in the water, up and down!"

I'm making the numbers up here, not sure if they add up, but I know what the captain wants to know: what the chain is doing!

1 shackle = about 30 meters of anchor chain. How many are available, how many meters are already in the water, something along those lines. "Up and down," I'm guessing, means the chain isn't under tension, it's moving freely up and down.

The captain gives a quick flick of the hand, like he's waving off a fly. The first officer knows exactly what to do, and calls it into the walkie-talkie:

"One more shackle in the water!"
"One more shackle in the water," comes the crewman's confirmation instantly over the radio, and right away you hear the chain rattling out: another 30 meters in the water.

All while the ship inches backward and sideways toward the pier, imperceptibly slow — a small, sorry-looking pier, way too small for this massive ship (which actually isn't even that big, compared to other cruise ships).

A Roman Catholic style of docking — I've seen it in Greece and Croatia too, you drop anchor and back up to the pier. I've always seen it done with small boats, but never before with a ship this size, and with the pier off to the side, not astern.

"Midship!" the captain calls out.
"Midship!" a young woman's voice immediately echoes back from the bridge, confirming to the captain that the rudder is now in neutral, centered, neither to starboard nor to port.

Later the young woman steps out onto the bridge wing herself, for a few seconds. She looks Greek, dark hair, sharp eyes, an impeccable uniform. I wonder what her role on the bridge is, and what her story is — where she was born, whether she comes from a family of sailors like the captain, who I know is a third-generation captain in his family — where she studied, how much schooling it took, and under what circumstances, before she ended up "in charge of the rudder" on a cruise ship with a few thousand people aboard.

Once the maneuver's done and the noise and commands settle down, he asks for one more status update, this time from the crew lowering the enormous gangway onto the pier with a crane, so the tourists can disembark and invade — for a few hours — some poor little town whose population is smaller than the number of tourists on this ship, a town that in the meantime lives off souvenir sales, guided tours to local attractions, museums, whales, curiosities, and so on… and has long since gotten used to being invaded, er… visited, by two or three cruise ships simultaneously every day during the season.

We're not the only cruise ship in port today either — the one next to us is twice our size, with twice as many tourists, and practically speaking, statistically, if you stop someone on the street in this town to ask them something, you're far more likely to stop a cruise ship tourist than a local (the locals are probably hiding indoors until we leave, anyway).

"Rudder outside!" the captain calls out.
"Rudder outside!" the young officer confirms from the bridge.

Update from the gangway crew: they need half a meter more before they can secure the gangway to the pier! The captain rolls his eyes slightly and trades a quick glance with the first officer, then the two of them carry on with the commands and maneuvers until the gangway is safely secured.

Then the now-familiar chime, and the cruise director's voice comes over the speakers: "the time is such-and-such, the weather is so-and-so, we wish you a good day and many unforgettable experiences in this little town, don't forget to be back before 5:30, disembarkation is now permitted."

The captain checks the controls on the port bridge wing one more time, pulls the metal hood over them that protects them from the sea's moods when they're not in use in bad weather, and calmly lights up a cigarette:

"Controls inside!"
"Controls inside!" the young officer confirms from the bridge.