The cocktail napkins are emblazoned with the phrase “Celebrating 145 years: Holland America Line,” and I just noticed it this morning. I knew the company was an Old Dutch shipping enterprise. So, this company has existed since right after America’s Civil War (1873 if my math is correct). Today Holland America is part of the Carnival Corporation.
HAL has had a few ships that sank (they have books on the history of the ships in the line in the library with notations on what happened to them), but none in more modern times (although Costa, the Italian line, is part of the Carnival Corporation and it had a ship off the coast of Italy a few years back). I write this as we’re “rocking and rolling” in the North Pacific. Yesterday the captain announced we would miss a storm, but the swells from the storm we would notice. You sure cannot miss them. I slept very well with the constant rocking, but it does make walking this morning a little more difficult and treacherous.
The ship is to pull into port around 8am tomorrow morning. Of course it’s dark here until after 8:30 or so. There’s been some talk that we may not be able to make the Dutch Harbor port of call because of the swells. I’m hopeful we can visit Dutch Harbor; I think everyone is ready to stand on solid ground for a little while.
