03 January 2010; Grand Turk & Caicos Islands.

As mentioned yesterday I was concerned about the weather. The Bahamas’ and the Caicos are all low lying islands, Keys and reefs and are completely exposed to the North Atlantic weather. The dock is not sheltered for any sort of ship higher than 25 feet or so. Also the pier is a concrete podium on stilts and the swell, if present, goes right under it. Lastly, the forward end of the pier is dredged to create enough room for the large ships. That means that you cannot drift sideways too much without hitting the reefs. All and all enough reasons to worry about being able to make the call. When we approached it did not look good at all. Winds of up to 30 knots and long swell running in. However you have to see the situation at the dock itself before you can decide what to do. That means lining up on the pier and creeping closer. Until about a 100 feet from the pier end it is very deep water so if things are not the way they should be you can always exercise the “blow away” maneuver and drift back to open sea.

The leisure village on Grand Turk Island, basking in the sunshine. Note from roving reporter Lesley Schoonderbeek; There is free WiFi in Margaritaville, with pool, restaurant and other facilities

However we were in luck. The closer we came, the more the wind dropped. Not because we were coming into the lee of the island but because there was a large rain cloud coming over the island. By the time I was 500 feet away from the pier it was nearly wind still. Always willing to use to my advantage whatever Mother Nature is willing to give me, I pushed the throttles forward and brought the ship alongside. 30 minutes later the sun came through and the wind breezed up again to 20 knots. But we were THERE. At the moment that we were approaching the end of a front came through, hence the rain clouds and that caused the winds to die off, just in line with our docking time. I was really happy with myself that I was early today. Had I arrived 30 minutes later, it would have been a struggle to get alongside or maybe not at all. Now we had docked without any wind and were safely alongside before the wind came back. Our official arrival time was 11.00 but we had the gangway out at 10.15 and by 10.30 the ship streamed empty for a beautiful day on the beach.

The pier with all the docking marks for the various ships along the edge.

The pier and guest village nearby have been constructed by Carnival Corporation and all its subsidiary’s can call at it. Thus we saw on the dock many “bridge here” docking marks from the various ships that had called. I used to have those signs painted in the past as well, when I was on ships sailing on the regular cruises. With the Prinsendam we do not do repeat calls very much and thus the need is no longer there. We just have to figure out each time we dock what the best location is to have all our break doors clear from obstructions. I have a port photo database with me, so I can check if I have been there before and how we docked then. I started doing that when I was a chief officer in the 90’s and the information has proven very useful through the years. Grand Turk dock will be my last addition to this database for awhile as I am going home on the 5th.

So for me no beach time, it was shuffling paper work. Time for clearing my desk of the last projects and working on my End of Term report for the office and the hand over notes for my relief. Also Fort Lauderdale will be a very hectic day with a large crew turn over and a very heavy storing for the coming grand Voyage. Plenty of things to check and plan. My wife started to pack today, and I have to keep a close eye on that one as well as otherwise she will fill up both my steamer trunks with nothing left for me.

We sailed at 1900 hrs. from Grand Turk. A bit of a strange time but fine by me as the wind dies down after sunset. It did so this time as well and I could let the Prinsendam slowly float away from the pier without being unduly concerned about the drift.

The coming three days we will have beautiful weather. Tomorrow with a nice day at sea, Fort Lauderdale for dry turn over day and then for the next cruise hopefully a good day in Half Moon Cay.