22 December 2010; Fort Lauderdale.

So after having safely passed Cuba, the good ship Prinsendam turned due north to sail into the Straits of Florida for a scheduled early morning arrival at our end of the cruise in Port Everglades, the harbor of Fort Lauderdale. The arrival time at the pilot station is always a trade off between the captain of the ship and the harbormaster of Port Everglades. The captain wants to sail in at his optimum arrival time. Not too early but also not too late so that it will not affect disembarkation. However on a busy day the Harbourmaster might have to deal with about 10 of these “optimum” captains and then things get a big complicated. Then a sequence is sorted out to find the right balance of arrival; depending on what dock a ship is assigned to and what time a ship CAN arrive (not when it wants to arrive). Accordingly the schedule is sent out and each ship has to adhere to a 15 minute slot for picking up the pilot. Sometimes with 10 cruise ships arriving on certain dates that can be quite a challenge, then the first ship has to come in at 04.30 to ensure that the last ship, coming at 0700 hrs. still docks on time. At a time that will not affect the guests who have to get to the airport to catch their flights. The biggest complainers are then the cargo ships and the barges as they are simply being told to wait until the whole cruise ship parade is safely inside.

Today it was only us. Another cruise ship scheduled for a morning arrival only came in, in the afternoon, due to some bad weather in the North Atlantic. Thus I could keep my preferred ETA of 0600 at the pilot station and we lined up accordingly. That sounds simpler than it is, as for lining up in the leading lights of the port entrance means that you have to change to a course (267o) perpendicular on all the North and South going ships in the Straits of Florida. In other words, you create your own chance of collisions. The Rules of the Road still apply when going and leaving a pilot boarding area and that means that you sometimes have to weave around passing ships. This time is was no different; we had a cargo ship floating right at our planned course change point. They were scheduled for a 06.30 pilot and just sat there waiting and then there was a tug and tow coming down with the beautiful name of “Buster Bouchard” which had the right of way, so we went behind him. In the end we had to make a large turn to the North and then come back south again towards the pilot boarding area 2 miles outside the sea buoy.

Still the pilot stepped on board at 0600 and we sailed into the port 20 minutes later to be all fast at 07.00 hrs. Then the regular procedure started for disembarkation with Custom and Border Protection, the luggage and of course all the loading of provisions, plus the bunkering of fuel. The latter was a major challenge today as in Fort Lauderdale we bunker via pipe line. Through the whole port there is a network of oil pipes that is somewhere connected to a big oil tank and it supplies all the ships with fuel. Today there was only one cruise ship in the port and it had been cold in the last few days. As a result the oil flow was very slow and in the end we sailed 30 minutes late as we needed to bunker sufficiently to make the whole cruise. During the festive season we do not have much chance to top up anywhere as most ports give their people time off during this period.

Still as Half Moon Cay is just around the corner, I could afford half hour and by 17.30 we sailed out of the port again. On board a full house of guests gearing themselves up for a great 14 day Christmas and New Year cruise. We will make an Eastern Caribbean loop with on the way out Half Moon Cay and on the way back Grand Turk, both in the Bahamas’.

The weather for tomorrow looks good, although windy but if the wind does what it is supposed to do, veering to the North and then North East, then we will have a grand day at our Private Island.