Today we continued our North Atlantic crossing. We are still closer to the American side than to the African side but that will change by tomorrow. Little change as well in the weather forecast; the wind is consistently blowing from the North North East almost straight on the bow and the swell remains between 10 and 12 feet with an occasional hiccup of 14 feet. This makes the ship move gently up and down by the bow but it is not that noticeable. At least not in a way that it affects the activities onboard the ship. Sometime today was also the time that spring officially started. Although we normally use the day of 21st of March, this is not completely correct as spring really starts at the moment that the sun passes the equator, the vernal equinox as it is called. My 4th. Officer calculated that moment and for our locatio it means that by 9 pm. in the evening, ships time, the sun moved over the horizon. Not that it was noticed as by that time it was already dark. So spring began for the Prinsendam today at 9 pm.

This is not an area where there much to see. No flying fish have been reported, nor birds or whales or anything else. I am not an expert in nature, so I could not tell you whether that is unusual or normal for this area. Today we did see a few ships, mainly on North – South courses. If you draw a line between the main ports on the North American East coast and South Africa, then you pass our course line, somewhere in this area.  Thus we saw a few cargo ships passing by near the horizon; reminding all navigators that a good look out is required, also when far away from land, as ships are everywhere. It would not be the first time that a collision took place a few thousand miles away from the nearest land and with only two ships in the whole wide area, but they manage to find each other. Thus the bridge watch remains forever vigilant by keeping a sharp look out and observing the radar screen.

 For me I had my ships staff meeting this morning, which is normally a weekly or a 10 day affair. Although we constantly communicate with each other, it is handy to have a more formal meeting with the Heads of Department. Those who attend are the Chief Officer, Chief Engineer, Hotelmanager and the S.E.H (Safety, Environmental, and Health) Officer.  We mainly deal here with items that pertain to all three departments and with scheduling. The latter can depend on the ports we are going to visit and the availability of manpower. The function of the captain is to coordinate and to make an infallible decision when no consensus can be reached. Also the captain maintains the minutes of the meeting to ensure that long term projects are carefully tracked. This meeting normally lasts about 1.5 hours and then the minutes are typed up, as a reminder of what was discussed and to document who is going to do what.

A guest once told me, that she would loved to be present at such a meeting and listen to the yarns about the olden days. Well that might have happened in the past but those days are long gone. Nowadays these are high powered meetings where a large number of items are being discussed. Especially on the Prinsendam, where not a single cruise is the same and we have to continuously adapt ourselves to new challenges that an itinerary throws at us. Planning for the future is in our case, careful study, fact finding and planning, relying on experience from the past, and to a certain amount a bit of crystal bowl gazing, as we can never be certain what will happen in a certain port. If that port is a new one, or visited only once every few years then we have to rely greatly on the information that the local agent provides.

 So we also prepare for the what-if and that makes good coordination a must. Thus we have meetings. More than we like to have, but it is part of life.

We have two more days at sea, before we come to our port of call Mindalo in the Cape Verdes. I am closely watching a dissipating frontal system on the North East of us. It is sending this wave field south and it is impossible to predict if that wave field will remain strong, and we will get hit by 16 feet waves, or that it will stay with the 10 feet that we have now, or that it will get even less. All will be revealed tomorrow.