19 May 2017; At Sea.

The low clouds stayed away, courtesy of colder air blown in with a steady breeze, and as this cooler wind was blowing over colder water, the fog never really could materialize. . It turned hazy but visibility remained more than the minimum 3 miles which meant the bridge did not need to go to battle stations and the captain did not have to get out of bed to pull the fog horn every two minutes. For tonight the same wind is expected and thus the Maasdam should reach Boston with everybody having a quiet night.

The route we have to take after the New York pilot station off Sandy Hook goes straight east and then we make a more than 90 degree turn to head North North West towards Boston. Before we get there we have to turn to a straight westerly course again until we come to Boston pilot station. If there would be a big enough canal between New York and Boston, the ship could have done it in a few hours, now it will take a day and two nights, although we are not going at full speed.

We used to go full speed in the old days and often that meant we could wriggle in another port call along the way. Now we offer the guests a quiet sea day as we try to conserve as much fuel as possible (which keeps the ticket price down) but also because we sail through Whale territory. The moment the ship has passed the Coney Island area there are whales. Whatever the world is doing to make the whales habitat better, seems to work as we see more of them every year. Because we do not want to bump into them we have to reduce speed. Preferably to 10 knots or less if there seems to be a danger of getting a close encounter. No problem to do so but it can play havoc with a cruise schedule if the average speed has been set too high. So the company has worked “whale speed” in their cruise schedules and that makes the life of all of us a lot easier.

Between New York to Boston we basically pass through two whale areas. East of New York you see all sorts of whales and once getting closer to Boston we sail through the habitat of the Right Whale. During the morning we saw several whales sedately moving along on the starboard side of the ship and it took me a while to recognize the species. Most of the time you see humpback whales which are very easy to recognize as they have that hump and their tail comes out of the water often even when they are not engaged in acrobatics. This one was not doing this and also I did not see a dorsal fin. Plus the exhaust air plum was not distinct, but fuzzy. That meant that it could only be a Gray Whale and that is fairly unusual as there are only about 25000 of them around.

The whale we are very concerned about is the Right Whale. There are only about 400 left and one of their habitats is an area south east of Boston. As they do not pay any attention and or react to noise or vibration of ships they have a much higher chance of being hit. During the day we can keep a look out for them but during the night that does not work and thus sailing at a slower speed is the best preventive option we can take. To make things complicated this area is very busy with commercial traffic, so much that the IMO (International Maritime Organization) has imposed highways at sea here, or Vessel Traffic Separation schemes. Thus east and west bound ships are in separate lanes and when coming to a cross roads there we have a round-a-bout to prevent collisions.

With so many ships around and so few Right Whales the USCG has a broadcast and monitoring center in the area with mandatory reporting and announcements about sightings. If one ship sights a whale then the rest is being alerted and can exercise extra caution.

Tomorrow morning the Maasdam will dock in Boston at the Falcon terminal and she will be behind the Veendam, her sister ship. Arrival should be between 0700 and 0800 and we will have a partial disembarkation / embarkation of about 700+ guests. On departure the ship will have a full house with close to 1250 guests on board.

Weather in Boston, same as in New York, warm and sunny.