09 November 2017; At Sea.

After all our trials and tribulations of yesterday, today we have a routine day at sea. The focus of the crew is back on pure guest satisfaction and everything else is on the back burner as most of them made too many hours yesterday according to the legal requirements. If this happens, then those extra hours have to be compensated with extra rest the next day. And so we did. This is not something that the guests will notice but any work planned for today behind the scenes was put on the back burner for another day.  I helped out today where I could and then started my own project of carrying out a full safety sweep of the ship on behalf of the Captain.  I do not expect to find much but history has taught us that small things can change into big issues and it needs an experienced eye to connect a small issue to a much larger challenge sometimes in the future.

When there are inspections going on like yesterday I cannot be involved as……… A. I am not officially a crew member and B. Legally I am in a bit of a vague position as what I say would carry authority but could encroach on the position of the Master and that is of course a No No. Plus halfway in the morning I get kicked off the ship to present myself to the CBP to show my Visa and dutifully declare that I am still not a danger to the safety and security of the USA. And you never know how long that might take; and yesterday it took a long time.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Cuba had a sort of North – South Panama Canal in the middle. I wonder if it would be profitable.

But the cruise has started and we are now happily on the way to our first port of call Oranjestad Aruba. Yesterday evening we sailed south towards the Old Bahama Channel and there we spend all of today. Tomorrow morning between 04.00 and 07.00 hrs. we will pass through the Windward Passage and then we are in the Caribbean Sea. Because we called at Ft. Lauderdale on a Thursday there was only the Koningsdam and the Crown Princess in port, plus a small intra-coastal cruise ship of American Cruise Lines. All went their different ways and thus we are sailing all by ourselves at the moment, not counting cargo traffic of course.

The Old Bahama Channel is the preferred route for going to the South and East Caribbean Sea. If you go all the way to the East, then going north of the Bahamas is shorter (= saves fuel) but you are completely exposed to the vagaries of the North Atlantic Ocean. Sailing the Old Bahama Channel offers protection by the Bahamas to the North and Cuba to the South. You might still get a strong, opposing, easterly wind, but you do not get the swell of the North Atlantic. Thus every cruise ship captain, who is concerned about his guests comfort, will look for an excuse to take this route as it will call for a more comfortable ride.When you go to the South Carib, then it is the only way to go, as going West around Cuba adds at least 80 miles to the route and you have to sail against the Gulf Stream until you pass Cabo San Antonio. That we only do when there are hurricanes in the way. But the hurricane season is more or less out of the way and thus we take the regular route. As it is so popular with everybody, the channel has been divided into traffic zones to keep opposing traffic nicely separated.  So going South/East bound we are hugging the Cuban side at a distance of between 3 to 12 miles, depending on how the Cuban coast is following our route.

The weather is, what it promised to be. We are still out of the rainy area as the frontal system is now occupying the middle of the Caribbean Sea. But we can expect some heavy showers when are south of Haiti.

I expect that we will meet the tail end of the system and get some showers in the morning and miss most of it.