And thus we docked in the very early morning at 04.30 hrs. Although I am not involved with the routine ships operation I still could enjoy it because as soon as the ship was docked the Shell/ Break doors were opened, ready for offloading luggage and as luck would have it my cabin was just above it. Whatever you try on a ship, construction and design wise, you will always hear something somewhere sometime. That why it is a ship and not an apartment building. Luckily the shell doors only open up in the home port at an early hour and then the guests have to wake up anyway. Time for breakfast and then time to disembark.
For disembarking I was part of the process today as having the legal status of an L visa traveler, the immigration officers could not wait to meet me and I had to show my face in the terminal once all the guests had disembarked. After having yet received another stamp in my passport I was declared free to go onto American soil. It is a pity that the CPB uses the same stamp at every airport and every ships port otherwise I would have by now have a very nice collection. But they use the same one everywhere and so my passport pages are just blue and red. Getting back on board was possible as soon as the “zero count” was achieved, meaning that indeed everybody had disembarked.
In the meantime USCG inspection was going on with the necessary alarms and whistles and on the pier it was also the hectic activity of unloading baggage, loading provisions and later on with loading baggage again. But with all this going on the crew still managed to do what it had to do and that was to satisfy the demands and requirements of the USCG inspection so by the end of the day we could sail with the required certificate duly received and stamped.
The Zuiderdam is now starting an 11 day cruise, which will also see the ship popping in and out of the Panama Canal by means of making a turn in the Gatun Lake. But we will start the cruise with a call at Half Moon Cay where we will be tomorrow.
Not un-common for Ft. Lauderdale, our departure was somewhat delayed due to late arriving luggage. This is an issue we seldom have when sailing in Europe as most guests come in the day before and if they don’t, then they arrive mostly with own transportation. For cruises out of Florida this is not the case, a lot of guests fly in on the day and the luggage is not always flying with them at the same time or to the same place. Sometimes the problem can be alleviated with having the luggage come to the next port. For a Tampa cruise that works quite well as the next day is a call at Key West. For this cruise it does not work as our next port of call is Half Moon Cay and there is no easy way of getting anything there. Everything comes by ship, our own ship. So if the captain can afford to wait, then the captain will wait. We are now looking at a few thousand dollars of extra fuel to make up for the lost time but it is all about avoiding dis-satisfied guests, even if we on the ship cannot do anything about lost luggage. We were not the only ones who were delayed as the Seabourn Odyssey only managed to pull out just ahead of us and the Celebrity Equinox followed directly behind us.
We blew the ships whistle loud and long for this Lady and her flag.
Sailing out of Ft. Lauderdale is always good fun as much to the chagrin of the competition we have a number of dedicated HAL cruisers in the apartment building at the fairway. Today there was only one HAL flag flying but I have seen 4 or 5 in the past. Most ships are willing to give a flag to the residents who really live there as it all adds up to a nice show. (I do check if guests are really living there as the flags are not cheap; so proof of I.D is required and then it depends on how many spare flags we have on board. Ocean weather is not kind to flags and we go through a lot of them at a steady pace.
Tomorrow we are at Half Moon Cay and I hope to hop ashore there, as they keep adding attractions to the island and I have not been ashore there for several years.
Weather for tomorrow: very warm and no wind. 86oF /30oC, partly cloudy leaning to very sunny.
November 12, 2015 at 7:44 pm
Funny you should mention the noises that are typical on board ships. As long as the noise belongs to the ship I love to be reminded that I’m on board of a ship. A whistle I had coming out of the wall connected to the air conditioning was like music in my ears and had no problem falling asleep on it. But, I would not be amused by the noise of a late night show overhead. “Daran erkenn’ Sie Ihre Pappenheimer!”