Takoradi, Ghana — 2024

     We docked in the port of Takoradi on the morning of April 27 after four sea days.  Those of you who have carefully perused the itinerary (probably fewer than one) will notice that the day before this we were scheduled to be at Null Island.  The truth is that there is no island at Null Island; that’s why its called “null” . . . you get the joke, right?  This is actually the spot in the Atlantic Ocean where the Prime Meridian crosses the Equator, so its zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude.  There was, we are told, a weather buoy here at one time but we have now crossed this spot three times and seen nothing but water, just like on every other sea day.  Our first visit here in 2018 can be seen here: https://baderjournal.com/2018/09/05/ .  Our second visit in 2022 can be seen at the bottom of this post:  https://baderjournal.com/2023/04/05/luanda-angola-2022/ .  There is a good bit more information about this in those posts.  For what its worth, here is what we saw this time when we got there:

     We had been to Takoradi before, just 16 months earlier.  On that visit we were on a private excursion that was quite interesting (not to mention somewhat challenging).  You can see that, and read a lot more about Takoradi & Ghana, here:  https://baderjournal.com/2023/04/10/takoradi-ghana-2022/ .  By the time we reached Takoradi on this trip we were pretty tired of bus tours and there really weren’t any offered that piqued our interest.  And there was no place to go on foot from this port.  So we stayed on the dock.  There was a pretty good vendor market set up in tents on the dock for our visit, so we left the ship to spend some time perusing their goods.  From our veranda we also saw a local working boat.

     We did have one highlight activity during our day on the ship.  It seems they were inviting passengers in groups to tour the bridge, something we had been wanting to do.  We aren’t sure whether everybody was invited to do this but quite a few were included.  They ran us through in shifts at predetermined times.  We were part of a group of about 12 or 15 and if we remember correctly we were allotted about 15 minutes on the bridge before the next group was scheduled to replace us.  The bridge is (as you might have guessed if you haven’t seen one) long and narrow with the front array of windows on one of the long sides.  There are basically two rows of consoles with many complicated looking bells and whistles and controls.  Since we were docked not many officers were needed to handle the bridge (ie. no navigation needed), so most of the people in the room were visitors.  A young officer was assigned to explain everything to us and he did a good job on what must have been a trying assignment as tour groups trooped in one after the other.  He explained a lot, most of which we have probably forgotten by now.  But we do have some pictures. First some general pictures of the navigation consoles.

     The bowed line of front windows provides a panoramic view of everything in front and curving to the sides.  In this case it showed the dock in front of us (we were docked facing the shore).  In the floor was a window providing a view of the water below.

     Finally, here is a picture of the young sailor in mid-talk, another of the joystick used for maneuvering the ship especially in tight circumstances (just like a video game), and several closer pictures of some of the lighted consoles.

     Here are two panoramas.  The first is of the shoreline around the port, showing many small wooden houses that look from a distance almost like unstacked piles of boards.  On the far right is smoke rising from a fire (hopefully one that was planned).  The second is of the sun setting behind one of the piers in the port.

     Holland America is now a US corporation (wholly owned by Carnival Corp.), but it started out 150+ years ago as a Dutch line and it still sails under the Dutch flag.  The royal family of the Netherlands is the house of Orange and there is a picture of the current royals hanging near the main information desk on all the HAL ships we have been on.  In that tradition most of HAL’s cruises include an “Orange Party,” in which passengers and crew are encouraged to wear something orange in tribute to HAL’s origins and on this voyage the party was tonight.  Unfortunately they advertised it with something like “Wear something orange to show your loyalty to the House of Orange.”  We actually have no loyalty to the House of Orange or any other royals, being Americans, so we did not wear any orange clothes (also, we didn’t have any other than a tee shirt which wouldn’t have cut it in the dining room at dinner).  But many others did.  Orange items were for sale in the shops (of course), including bizarre orange wigs, but we thought that the prize should go to our travel agency’s onboard hosts: Tom, Keith and Susie.  Fun was had by all.