13 April 2012; San Diego California, USA.

It was wind still weather when we arrived at the pilot station. The ominous situation of the “silence before the storm”. Although we were not expecting storm, just a lot of wind on departure.  Ahead of us was a car carrier and to our amazement the Carnival Spirit who had unbeknown to us had changed their pilot time to 05.30 Unbeknown as on the agents ETA list it still gave 04.30  As she slipped in just ahead of us, it put us back by about 15 minutes as it takes some time for the pilot boat to get from one ship to the other.  We were still docked on time but not as early as I had hoped for.  It is important to have the gangway(s) out in good time as at exactly 07.00 hrs the longshoremen roll on board to start off loading luggage.  As soon as that is done disembarkation can start and with the inclement weather coming, the aim was to get everybody off the ship and out of the terminal, before the rain would start. That worked out quite well and as the rain did not show until 3 pm; we also managed to get most of the luggage of the joining guests on board.

The luggage is collected in the terminal but it has to cross the open dockside before it goes into the ship. It is only exposed for a short while to the elements but if the elements are brutal, then it can still get wet.  Longshoremen are often a law to themselves and thus we cannot always control what they are exactly doing. However here in Sand Diego we have a very good cooperation with them and things run very smoothly. The luggage comes directly out of the terminal and into the ship. The only delay is the switch of forklifts, as a big forklift is needed to reach into the ship.

A special forklift with a high lift and long reach. (Courtesy: from my archives when the weather was much better)

 In the meantime we were waiting for our bunker barge, which had to do a split job between us and the Carnival Spirit. As we are now all living under the Carnival umbrella, the fuel for all ships gets ordered through Carnival Corporation and thus we use one supplier in San Diego. They had the brilliant idea to combine both loads in one barge. That is on paper possible but it needs good coordination.  The barge was already waiting when the Carnival Spirit was docking but then it took a long time before they were ready to accept the barge and as a result it came over an hour late to us.  In the end we had to make the difficult decision to either load a full load and swallow the extra fuel cost we then would have to make to catch up with the schedule, or squeeze off, leave on time and top up somewhere else.

The Chief  Engineer and I decided upon the latter and now we will top up some more in Cartagena as this will turn out to be cheaper than burning more fuel along the route.  Next time I will insist on a separated barge so we are not dependent on another ship for cooperation.  The barge had gone to the Carnival Spirit first, as she was scheduled to leave at 16.00 hrs but she hardly ever makes it before 17.00 when we are already leaving. I do not know if we will see her again, as she departed today for a Hawaii cruise. All their guests received a Lei upon boarding which is a great welcome but a bit strange at the same time, as it looked and felt like Alaska. San Diego looked more like Ketchikan today than the Californian sunshine port that it is supposed to be.  According to the pilot that happens about 3 times a year and we managed to pick one of them.

The navy port of San Diego is split in two parts, one behind the bridge and one below the bridge where we dock. Most of the time we see at least one Carrier docked in the port but today there was not anything. The Ronald Reagan has gone to dry dock and a second carrier group has been sent to the Gulf and that made the port look very empty. For the rest there was activity enough with warships 101, 102, 106 and 107 chattering on the VHF about coming and going. It made for a busy afternoon as all the car carriers were trying to get out of the port as well before the weekend. It is always cheaper to be at sea than a weekend in port for a cargo ship and although the crew might not like it, economically it makes sense. As labor and other costs tend to double or triple in the weekend.  

Our USCG inspection has been postponed to Fort Lauderdale as our Inspection Certificate is still valid and that meant that we had less upheaval today than was expected. The weather created enough of that but luckily the wind and rain were straight on the stern, so we could do our passenger lifeboat drill without the guests getting too wet.  We have a plan B for this, assembling in the dining room and show lounge but we try to avoid it as we want to train the guests in finding their way; e.g. their route towards their lifeboat and muster station on the outside deck.

Tomorrow we will be at sea, and with following wind it should be quite pleasant on the deck although the ship will move somewhat with the swell coming in on the starboard quarter.