20 Oct. 2016 ; At Sea.

Today we have our final day at sea and are sailing along the East coast of Florida towards Fort Lauderdale, and once again we are battling the Gulf Stream.  I can even feel it. The wind is from the North East and thus partly against the general flow of the water and that gives a strange movement to the ship.  On the waves caused by the wind, it should either move or not, but now it moves on occasion and that is caused by  the wind moving against the swell at times. Sometimes damping them out, sometimes enhancing them, then you get this moment of will she roll or will she not and you cannot really predict it. In the course of the evening we should get a bit of wave left over from Hurricane Nicole who created havoc near Bermuda a few days ago and whose wave field is not completely gone yet. It won’t be bad weather but some clever guests were already packing in the early afternoon.

To get as little opposite Gulf Stream as possible we on a SSW heading trying to get under the coast as soon as we can. At noon time we passed Jacksonville and now we are roughly abeam of Orlando passing a village called Palm Bay which brings us in sight of the shore line. Not much to see and not very easy to see what might be there, as Florida is fairly flat. By tomorrow we are in Fort Lauderdale and that will be the end of the cruise. To send everybody home with at least a bit of education, the Cruise Director had me scheduled for my Holland America History talk and now all who attended know where the Veendam came from.  And thus I have done my good deed for the day.

We are coming today from the north, which is a more unusual route for a cruise ship. Most ships that go to Fort Lauderdale are coming from the East out of the North Providence channel (under Freeport and above Nassau) or out of the Straits of Florida from the south. Cruise ships tend to all converge at nearly the same time at the pilot station of Port Everglades as we all want to be docked by 07.00 when the regular work day starts in the port. Especially around Christmas is can be very congested at the pilot station as a lot of cruise lines change their regular cruise schedule to offer a Christmas or holiday cruise, with the happy day at least falling after departure.  8 to 10 ships in port together have happened.

One of those busy days in port, sometime in the past. Eight large ships alongside and one small one sailing down the intracoastal. (Photo courtesy: www.airliners.net.)

On such an occasion the Harbor Master creates a very tight schedule for pilotage and docking, normally 15 minutes between each ship and simply orders a ship to be there at the given time. If not, then it can wait until the rest has gone in. Tomorrow we will not have that challenge as we are supposed to be the only one in port, at least according to the schedule published by the port. Which means we can arrive when we want and dock at the most opportune time. As long as work can start at exactly 07.00 hrs.

Sailing into Port Everglades is almost right on the 270o. But of course they had to make it a little bit harder and thus we have to steer 267o

For the captain the challenge will be to line up into the leading lights before going in. Normally what we do, when coming from the East of South, is to steer a bit to the south of the lights and then let the Gulf Stream push us into it. That makes it very easy to adjust the course little by little until we have found the perfect balance. Now coming from the north we have to “push” into the Gulf Stream and find the perfect angle or steer south and let us be pushed back again. The maneuver of the day will really depend on what other ships or small craft are in the area. The drift angle we need can be quite considerable, depending on how close the Gulf Stream is flowing near the sea buoy. I have been coming in on a course of 242o while the Leading lights want 267o and it was only getting slowly less by the time we passed the sea buoy. I do not think it will be that extreme tomorrow, but it is going to be an interesting arrival as always.

Weather for tomorrow: A hot and sunny day with no clouds predicted and noon temperatures of around 86oF or 30oC.  Not that great for travelling or for sightseeing.