08 November 2017; Fort Lauderdale, USA.

It was the end of the cruise today and welcome to Florida and welcome to Mayhem. Controlled mayhem but the ship had a very heavy day. We knew what to expect and we were prepared to have all go as smoothly as possible. But with so many things going on, and with so many outside influences, the only approach from ship side can be to very minutely plan the operation and then hope that all the other stakeholders do their part of the job. And this time it did not work out completely.

As the ship had been away from the States from more than six months, we knew that we would have to go through a full crew inspection of the CPB and we knew that we had to do a Full year CVE (Control Verification Exam) by the USCG. So we were ready. We knew we might get an inspection by the USPH ( we are always ready for that) but we were hoping that they would come in the next USA port  as providing labor for that while the USCG drills were going on would be tight. And in the mean time we had to do the cruise turnover. On top of that we had a crew change of about 70 and while the old crew could not help anymore; they had to see immigration and then go to the airport, the new crew could not help either as they first have to complete the mandatory safety indoctrination before they are allowed to start working. This was all expected, we had planned for it and had all it organized.

Then we found out the CBP could only make 4 officers available at the start of disembarkation. This slowed down the full crew inspection but it also slowed down the Guest disembarkation. Nothing we could do about it, nothing they could do about it as the CBP is really strapped for manpower at the moment. I heard from the ground staff in the terminal that some of them were already on the job for 14 hours that day; then were supposed to take a few hours off and then go at it again for a full night shift.  And although they were trying to be as efficient as possible, it delayed the end of the disembarkation by more than an hour.

This had a knock on effect on the USCG inspection as the USCG officers like to wait with the drills until the guests are off the ship so it does not interfere with the disembarkation procedures. But now the guests were late and thus the drills were late and rolled over into noon time. That had a knock on effect on the boarding of the new guests as the crew was still in the drills. Cabins had to be completed, food for lunch had to be cooked, meet and greet setup etc. etc. So embarkation did not start until 13.30 hrs. and nothing we could do about it. While all this was going on, the USPH officers boarded for an inspection and that drew labor away from other tasks as now various Hotel supervisors had to be at their areas of responsibility while the inspections took place. In between we had to fully provision the ship, bunker oil, load water and had a large number of service technicians on board to service all the equipment. I observed coffee machine experts, a radar technician, an expert on water measurements, a juice machine repair man, and at least another 20 or so experts in one thing or the other. They all disappeared into the bowels of the ship, to ensure that everything would be in good working order while we make our cruise.

Based on all of this rolling forward, the Captain could not do anything else than to postpone sailing by an hour to get everything completed in a proper way. As always it all worked out. USCG returned happy to Miami and we got our CVE certificate. USPH declared our ship healthy and the CPB inspected all the crew and the guests going off and gave us the sailing clearance. Nothing stopped us from starting our Panama Canal cruise, with our first port of call Aruba, two days from now. Complements to all for a job well done as this turn over day was not for the faint hearted.

I am now staying on the Westerdam to help out with some projects for the Captain until Puerta Vallarta on 21 November, and then fly home for first a training course and then my vacation. I came Eastwards through the canal with the Nieuw Amsterdam 3 weeks ago and now will go Westwards with the Westerdam. I will have to sit down one day and calculate how many times I have done the Panama Canal since 1981. I know I am closer to or over a 100 of them so maybe I can apply for a discount as a frequent Canaler.

Heavy rain clouds coming over from the East Carib. (Courtesy The Weather Channel)

The weather for the coming days is a bit uncertain. There lays a large weather front over the East Carib and the North part of the South America and that is moving slowly westwards. If I read the chart correctly, we should get through the frontal system while on our 2^nd sea day and then it should be gone by the time we dock in Aruba.  But that will depend on the speed it moves to the West.  Wait and see, the frontal system is too wide to sail around it so we will take the showers when we get them.