The Largest Bridge in the World

29 August 2006


Three times every cruise we go under the world’s largest suspension bridge, which is in Denmark of all places. The bridge covers 11 miles. Before that, there are several small causeways spanning a series of islands.
It’s a tight fit, getting our 16 decks under the bridge, Here’s a shot I took of the looming bridge with a schooner, one of the training ships that we see here all the time, making it with plenty to spare.

I was on deck 15, the open deck beneath Skywalkers, where thr improbable DJ “spins your favorite records ‘til the wee hours.” (Yeah, as if all these old folks would be caught dead in a disco. The original and still official name of the place is Skwalkers Night Club.)

It’s a little hard to see from these pictures, but the bottom of the bridge is maybe 50 feet from collision with our communication towers. (The raindrops on the lens don’t do much good for the perspective either.)



The lower level of this bridge, I am told, is a completely enclosed railbed. Yes, there are trains running below the cars which you can’t see. It costs about $35 US to cross the bridge, and some wag in Danish Bridges figured out that the bridge links up the Baltic countries to the extent that travel through to Asia is theoretically possible. It supplements several ferry routes which we see criss-crossing between cities in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Stout vessels, built for the vagaries of uncertain weather. I have no idea what to compare them with in terms of their load factor, but they always seem to still have vehicles and trucks and people on them. The bridge at best seems to have half its potential capacity.

I guess the real point in this is that the comparison of our mass with that of the schooner in the first frame is pretty apt. We are, by comparison, huge, massive. As Dave Cutler told me the other night, we are one of the largest moving objects ever built by men (and Italian men at that, union men). I’d qualify that by adding the modifier “civilian”, although sometimes I wonder if there’s a difference.

We slide under the bridge today around lunchtime. If the weather’s cooperating I’ll try to get some more and maybe even better shots of it.

Getting Ready for Rough Traveling and a Jackpot in Germany

11 August 2006

Well, the British have managed to get the all that unpleasant business in Lebanon off the front pages or, in the case of the cruise ship musician, the crawls of CNN international and BBC World. What they did was round up a bunch of Pakistanis who may or may not have figured out a plot to make bombs out of common household materials that could be smuggled on to planes undetected in common carry-on baggage. As a result of all the hysteria there is no carry-on baggage allowed at Heathrow, All well and good, but if this catches on it’ll make it difficult to fly back to the states with my horns and my Powerbook in tow, to say nothing of my effects, as they call all my stuff I packed for four months in the Baltic.

I don’t anticipate flying through Heathrow. but what scares me is that this might spread to Copenhagen, where I will likely depart Europe in 31 days (this having been written August 11) for JFK or Dallas if I get real lucky.

Good news, though, as we are in Warnemunde for one last time. The last time we were here I thought I’d stumbled upon a store owned by the parent company of Trader Joes. Our Berlin tour guide pointed out a market about a mile from the ship and said that tourists from Sweden came in on ferries to stock up for parties. So I checked it out that night, only to find the store closed. I did manage to look inside the place, though and it had a very TJs feel to it.

Of course I had my doubters.

But when I got there this morning, thee weeks later, I found a place very much like TJ’s. Things for sale were piled up everywhere, the booze boxes had been knifed open on one side, there were plenty of pre-wrapped cheeses and produce, and the usual assortment of sausages (Germany, remember) and frozen stuff and chocolates. I was delighted to find some Arnika gel, which I’d run out of, and which is spelled completely differently in Germany. It’s a great relief to my neck, which gets a workout holding saxophones. Still, I hadn’t found the smoking gun until, turning to the freezer case form the cereal, I found Trader Joes brand prunes! I know that Joe doesn’t make stuff for its competition, so I did my best to ask the check-out gal if the company she worked for had any association with TJs.

So I bought my gel, six bottles of vitamin-enhanced orange and carrot juice, Eurodont mouthwash, a chocolate bar, and those prunes. Just under ten Euros. I was lax in my booze purchasing, but I felt like the Swedish passengers on the ferries deserved no competition from me. Tomorrow we start a two-day in Copenhagen. This almost felt as good as when I found a current New Yorker in Helsinki at the legendary Stockman department store. Even though it was 6.9 Euros I had to have it.
Anyway, this place is Aldi Markt. They have stores all over Germany and a certain division of their company will be opening 700 stores in the states this year. Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of the stores will be in central Texas.
Peter, wish you were here to help with the translating!

The other thing happening this day was a big sailing festival with Tall Ships everywhere. I took some shots outside the ship when I was walking around.

That’s the bow of the Star on the upper right.

Dull Statistics

Here are the goods on the Star Princess (that's her on the right):

Built in 2001 in Italy

Flag of Convenience: Bermuda

Call Sign: ZCDD6

Official Number 733709

Gross tons 109,000

Net tons 71,763

Overall length 951 feet

Breadth 118 feet

Fuel Capacity 2649 TONS

Fresh Water Capacity 2731 TONS

Normal Passenger Load 2600

Normal Crew Load 1150

Cruising Speed 22.5 Knots