Our last full day on the ship.,  It has been a great cruise.  We love Holland America.  The cruise has been great, the ship reliable, and the friends fantastic.

More than 500 vessels go through it every single day to get from the North Sea to the Atlantic and from the United Kingdom to continental Europe – and vice versa. Every year, more than 16 million people and 5 million trucks pass through the Channel’s roughly 170 ports and harbours. Lots of traffic management: The organization of maritime traffic in the English Channel follows a specific pattern to ensure the safety of men and ships. Traffic is organized according to the direction of navigation of vessels. The main roads travel the four TSS (Traffic Separation Schemes) in the English Channel. These kinds of “markup” of the sea, through which ships have obligation to declare to the maritime authorities, are used to organize the important traffic. However, some areas where traffic up and down intersect are more dangerous than others. Two areas, one located in the North coast of Brittany, before entering in the Casquets TSS; and another located in the Dover Strait, just before entering in the TSS are particularly dangerous. This complex organization scheme can be explained to the narrowness of the sea and the very high density of traffic.  Below is a picture of the traffic pattern as well as a snapshot of where our ship was this morning, a snapshot of all ships around the English Channel, and all the ships we can see from our ship.

Nana did her daily swim with Wolfgang.  We had breakfast and then did our deck walk.  A little chilly today.  Then up to the exercise room for weigh exercises and then a dip in the hot tub at the thermal suite.  I will miss this routine.

I finished up my programs today and transferred them the sd cards for the Raspberry Pis that will be controlling the different layouts.

We started packing today for our trip tomorrow.  Tomorrow we take the train from Rotterdam to Hannover Germany where we will stay with Haley, Renato, Issac, and Cecilia for a week.  I will be upgrading their trains and programs to run their trains.  

Nana had to host one last get together this afternoon with a new couple that she just met.  It gives her an excuse to order tea and pastries.  

We had our last dinner with Wolfgang and Laura in the Asian restaurant upstairs which we love.  We all talked about the friends that we have met on this cruise….. especially Bishop Bob.

Another stunning sunset tonight.

Thanks for reading my blog on this trip.  I will update on  some train blogs over the next several months.