09 April 2013; Cartagena, Colombia.

We made our timely approach and saw that the Island Princess was also on time. She had announced a pilot station time of 07.00 hrs but she arrived at 07.15. As we had scheduled ourselves for 07.30 anyway it worked out fine and we lined ourselves up behind her with a 3 mile distance. My navigator had calculated that if the ship travelled at a speed of 12 miles and you divided that by 4, then we would be able to cover 3 miles in 15 minutes and thus that was a good distance. Isn’t navigation wonderful? It even worked out as there was no current. The pilot hopped on board and after a discussion about where to go (Cartagena) how to go there (through the entrance) and how to do it safely (not to hit the Island Princess) we sailed into Cartagena Bay through the narrow entrance of Boca Chica. The Island Princess is also on a tight schedule as she has to make the Panama Canal tomorrow morning and thus her captain is in a hurry getting in and out. With 3,500 passengers on board he has some impressive logistics to deal with.

So we both speeded up; we did when the I.P sped up and we slowed down when the I.P slowed down. Coming closer to the dock I let her go ahead a little further ahead as I found out from the pilot that she was going to turn on arrival, so she could race away on departure without the delay. The pilots were having a great time, being in constant contact with each other in a sort of synchronized cruise ship approach and it helped greatly as we knew exactly what the other one was doing.  It had been in the back of my mind as well to swing on arrival, but I had decided to wait and see what the I.P was going to do, as it takes 15 minutes to make the swing and I wanted the gangway out and the ship cleared at 09.00 hrs. Now the I.P swung, which meant I had to wait, and thus lost time, so I decided to go nose in.

Over 4000 guests ashore,means a lot of tour buses.

For both ships the tours were leaving on arrival and returning just before departure

I have to make that decision about 15 minutes before docking at the latest, as the sailors have to range out the ropes through the correct mooring chocks and security has to set up their whole screening system for the right gangway door and that takes a while to do. So my final decision was awaited with great eagerness by a lot of crew, including those from Dining room, Housekeeping and BLD who have to setup their Toko’s with water, towels and other items for last minute service to the guests.

As soon as the Island Princess was out of the way, we went nose in, and managed to get the gangway out at exactly 09.00 hrs  The first tours had been scheduled for 09.10 and they started to leave at that time. All was well in the world. The chief engineers bunker barge arrived at the same time, as we needed a top up of special fuel for sailing in American Waters.

I had been looking with a worrying eye to the weather in the Caribbean Sea. There is a large out flow through the middle of the Western part. We noticed that out flow already last night, when we had a bumpy ride towards Cartagena. This afternoon and the coming night we will have to go straight through it and we will have some movement again, plus a lot of wind. 40 knots over the decks at times, I think. So on departure I advised everybody accordingly, as everybody has been used to very smooth seas all the way from San Diego.

By 13.45 we had everybody on board, I gave astern power to the propellers and we moved away from the dock and swung around in the port basin. By 14.45 the pilot was off and we were on our way to our final port of call Fort Lauderdale, two days from now. By 20.00 we had 35 knots of real wind and that gave 53 knots of relative wind over the decks, so the doors to the outside decks were closed for the night.  The ship moved about a little bit, as it was a combination of rolling and pitching and against the pitching the stabilizers cannot do anything.

The windy weather will last all the way to Fort Lauderdale but by tomorrow evening we will come under the coast of Haiti where it will be quiet and from then on we will have following winds and fairly smooth seas.