16 March 2018; Half Moon Cay, Bahamas.

It was a glorious day, whatever was happening further up North with the weather did not have any chance today to make our life miserable here further down to the south it was a great day. And so it will be tomorrow as the weather seems to be holding for the coming days. We were together with the ms Nieuw Amsterdam but the island is big enough to absorb over 7000 guests at the same time and our 1200 together with the 2200 from the Nieuw Amsterdam did not come even close to that 7000.

The island is on a permanent lease hold purchase from the Bahamian Government and this is our 22^nd year of calling at HMC since its opening. There is the agreement that part of the island; the area around the lake will be treated as a permanent nature reserve. Guests are allowed to go there but just for a walk, not for anything else. Thus the company has concentrated its efforts for the guests around the crescent curved beach on the east side. There is not much beach on the North and East side and being there is not very pleasant as you are constantly buffeted by the Trade Winds or the occasional cold front.  There is some beach on the south west side but it is difficult to get there and we do no encourage guests to go scaling up and down a rock out cropping in order to find another beach.  The main beach is nice enough as it is and there is ample space. Either in the area where all the beach stretchers are or if you wish for a very quiet experience, you can make the hike, all the way to the North West end, where very few people go.

The sand of the beach is pure sea sand. It is built up by the sea and sometimes removed by the sea. Somewhere in the autumn of 2004 or 2005 I arrived here with this Veendam and we found the beach completely gone, apart from a small strip just beyond the vegetation perimeter. A few days before a hurricane had come through and wind and a change of current has washed all the sand away. As we were by ourselves we still had enough beach left for the 1200 guests but the water was murky and the skipper of the glass bottom boat had to keep himself busy with something else.  But the Island Manager explained that this was normal and said, Captain when you came back next week, half of the beach is back and in another week and everything will be back to normal. And he was right, in 14 days’ time all the sand was back. That sand gets there because there is a small current running to the North West through the bay. It curves with the beach and then under the influence of Ebb and Flood it deposits sand.  I do not know where that sand is coming from, maybe from an island or sand bank nearby.

The good ship ms Nieuw Amsterdam, just to the north of us, with a HMC tender under its bow.

We, as sailors, do not like that current very much as it means that the ship, when not at anchor, will drift slowly to the North West. With the Ebb, it goes North West to open sea, with the Flood; it goes North West towards the beach. With two ships in the bay that can be quite interesting as the current is not the same everywhere in the bay and thus one ship can drift faster than the other. Hence we keep a good distance.

The Rock at the entrance. If you anchor you have to go where you can just see the white was of another boat. If you stay on the engines you can sit right in front of the entrance.

Today both ships stayed on the engines, to be able to be as close to the harbor entrance as possible. The normal anchor spot is about 3 cables (1800 feet) from the entrance rock to the West and if one ship is there, the other one has to go another 1800 feet to the north and is then almost 4000 feet away from HMC port. Thus the captains had arranged to stay on the engines and then both could float close to the port because when staying in deep water you can sit right behind the rock. And that is what we did today. The Veendam floated right behind the rock, and the Nieuw Amsterdam hovered a little bit more to the North. Both had roughly the same distance to the port entrance and all was well in the world.

Tomorrow we will be back in Ft. Lauderdale; together with the Nieuw Amsterdam as she is nearing the end of her cruise as well. For me that is the wrong ship, as I will transfer to her sister the Eurodam. Thus there will be no blog tomorrow as I will be inspecting a Ft. Lauderdale hotel for one night and then join the Eurodam on Sunday. She is sort of alternating between the East Carib and West Carib on 7 day cruises with the Nieuw Amsterdam doing the opposite.