21 December 2010; At Sea.

It is always nice when things progress on schedule and the Lunar Eclipse took place at the time predicted. The weather might be in turmoil everywhere but at least the sun and the moon keep following the same rhythm and schedule. Just over 100 guests came out to witness the event. At least on the top deck, I do not know what the balcony people did, as the reporting security guard could not see those of course. I think most guests enjoyed it, it is not something you see everyday. I received one complaint; stating that if I could not have arranged a better time for it, instead of having it occur in the middle of the night. I fully agree with that, I will pass the message on to NASA to ensure that next time it happens just before cocktail hour…… The clouds stayed away long enough so that the full eclipse could be seen un-obscured. Winter officially started with a black out of the moon. This had not happened since 1638, so I assume it will be a while again before the next one comes by on the same date of 21 Dec.

This all took place while we happily plodded along the North East of Cuba on a north westerly course, heading for old Bahama channel. That is the narrowest part of the sea area between the banks of the Bahamas to the North and the banks of Cuba to the south. The whole area is roughly 10 miles wide but the navigable part is no more then 6 miles measured from reef end to reef. If you would be able to pump the Old Bahama Channel empty you would see that is a sort of gully or trench between banks, a very deep gully going down to more than 2,000 feet in places. The only thing is that if you are keeping to the outer rim of the channel, you do not have much room to evade another ship as the reefs are then suddenly quite close by. To avoid that issue, the IMO has also here created a vessel separation scheme (VSS) to ensure that the traffic is nicely regulated and does not criss cross all over the place. The rules are quite simple, if you are sailing in the VSS then you have to follow its direction, if you do not want to then you have to stay out of it completely. Southbound traffic is hugging the Cuban shore and Northbound traffic the side of the Bahamian banks. A lot of guests are always concerned whether we will sail too close to Cuba. However even if you tried it, it would be difficult in this area, as there is large reef and cay area before you come to the island proper.

The nice thing is, at least when going North West, that the current has to squeeze through this more narrow area and that gives the ship a nice push in the back. That push is lost once you enter the area where the Old Bahama Channel ends up into the Nicholas channel, which in turn ends up in the Santaren channel. Three different names for the same area, which eventually merges with the Straits of Florida. We will get to that merging point around midnight and then we will get the Gulf Stream as a following current, by that time the lights of Miami will appear on the horizon while we will be setting course towards the pilot station of Fort Lauderdale.

As we are in midweek, we should not see that many cruise ships going to or coming from Miami as most of the ships are Saturday or Sunday ships. Although around Christmas that logic does not always work, as several ships might be doing a 10 and an 11 day festive season cruise and then go back to the 7 day cycle in the New Year.

We will be in port together with the Pacific Princess tomorrow, which will be nice as she is about the same size as the Prinsendam, so for once we will not be dwarfed by one of the mega liners.

Although the temperatures are dropping, it is going to be a nice day tomorrow. Starting off a bit nippy, with temperatures in the mid fifties but then it will go up to the low seventies at lunch time.