04 December 2010; Heading South.

The further south we sail, the further behind we leave the wave fields. Although the swells are not that high, they still make the ship move a bit and I am just puzzled about how much swell there still is. Normally by this time it has come down to a low running swell of about 4 to 5 feet maximum but there is still 8 to 9 feet out there. That means that we will have at least a little ripple of swell still running while we anchor at Devil’s Island tomorrow. Only ships with less then 6 meter draft can anchor far enough in, to sit in completely sheltered waters. That is however a worry for tomorrow. Today we are at sea and apart from the occasional rain cloud it is a sunny day. The navigators sail around the rain clouds as much as they can but they do not always succeed as sometime the rain clouds are interlinked into a continuous band miles and miles wide. The good thing is, is that the rain is warm; the bad thing is that the rain is wet. But then life is never completely perfect.

I have to finish off my story from yesterday about the SOPEP. The Shipboard Oil Pollution Prevention Program. This is a compulsory system that all ships have. It consists of a binder that describes what measures will be taken onboard in case of an oil spill. Which equipment we have onboard but it also gives addresses in each country where we can report to in case of a spill and where we can ask for help if needed. It is always possible that due to a stranding or a collision, fuel oil would escape from the tanks. If possible; we then should contain it ourselves and or scoop it up. The same goes for leaks of hydraulic oil; although most Holland America Line ships now have environmental friendly oil in the systems, which mitigates that problem considerably. For dealing with oil spills we have absorbent oil booms onboard, absorbent pads and other equipment that might come in handy but that we hope never to use.

The oil boom is our main weapon against oil leaking from the hull. The one we have onboard is the length of the ship, plus a little bit extra so it can be deployed all the way along the hull and tied up at bow and stern. A requirement under SOPEP is that we hold regular drills. These can be Table top exercises, where we discuss and simulate a spill situation, or real exercises where we simulate combating an oil spill. In Castries, being a sheltered harbour, we did such a drill and the most important thing here is running out the oil boom. We cannot use the real oil boom for that purpose. The real boom is absorbent and once dipped in water would have to be renewed at great expense. Thus we use a poly prop mooring rope as it has basically the same properties as an oil boom; it floats and has the same stiffness when being deployed.

To deploy a boom, we use a ships tender as it has two engines so it maneuvers very well. By going backwards, the rope cannot get into the propellers and also it is much easier for the tender driver to see what the oil boom is doing. We just have to ensure that somebody is keeping a lookout while going astern. We do these drills every three months to ensure that all officers are aware of the basic principles, know the location of where the equipment is stored, what and how much we have in stock and how to use it.

Tomorrow by lunch time we will be at anchor near Devils Island. It is quite shallow there, so I have to sail in carefully to avoid getting stuck in the mud. The weather looks like a bit of everything. Rain, Sun, Wind; but whatever we get, it will be warm and very humid.