22 October 1012; At Sea.

This is really a great cruise for people who like sea days or those who do not want to be worn out with ports every day. I think this cruise has a nice balance of a day at sea; a day in port and a day at sea again. On the Prinsendam I once did a back to back cruise where we managed to do 18 ports in 21 days. It looked great on paper, but when you have to do it, it gets very tiring very quickly. Fascinating to see all those ports, but when each port is in another country, the mental impact is enormous and then it is great to have a sea day inbetween. Experienced travelers realize this, which might account for the very high numbers of repeat guests that we have on board. This cruise it is just short of a 1000 and with 1160 guests on board that is around 85%. Thus part of my day was taken up with addressing the Mariners Brunch, handing out medals, having lunch with the high medal wearers and then hoisting another party in the evening to make sure that nobody was left out. In the afternoon I held my Holland America History lecture for a full Showroom at Sea and by the time that I was ready to go to bed, I had been talking nearly non-stop from 09.00 to 20.00 in the evening.

In between there was the hopping on and off the bridge, to make sure that the navigators keep going the right way; and for them the day was far from boring, courtesy of the very good weather, with very little wind during the day. All the fishing boats from Acapulco and Zihuatenego were out at sea, with the majority on and around our track line. Dealing with fishing boats is always interesting as you do not know what they will do. Normally they do not do anything; they sit, float, and fish. So we just get out of the way and sail around them. But occasionally, a fishing boat suddenly starts doing something. Normally for three reasons: a: the skipper thinks we are coming too close to his net, b: he wants to have a closer look at the ship, c: the skipper panics. The last one is normally the case when it is an amateur fisherman, a so called six-pack navigator- who has no clue about the Rules of the Road but thinks he/she has to do something. Invariably the emotional reaction is then to change course towards the coast. A sort of instinctive looking for a safe haven. Most of that time it means that while they would have stayed clear of our ship if they had not done anything, now they start crossing the ships track line and create a dangerous situation.

With small boats, avoiding collisions is not only always just following the Rules of the Road but also trying to think about what the other party think is logical. Trying to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, even if they are only flip-flops. So today the juniors had a good day in gaining some experience in erratic small boat behavior. All very valuable for the future, as hopefully they will be one day a captain as well, and then they might have to make a split second decision the moment they walk onto the bridge, without having time for a long evaluation.

It being a warm day, and no wind, created a strong haze towards the coast and thus we could not see the land. We were at 12 miles distance but it was too far away to even make out the mountain ranges. The weather forecast for the coming day’s shows wind offshore but along the Mexican coast line the wind should be minimal. That means that the weather in the coming ports will be “sweltering”.

I will be at the Puerto Vallarta pilot station at 07.00 and if all goes accordingly to schedule we should be docked 30 minutes later. We are the only ship in port and thus we are at Pier 1. No wind, plenty sun, noon time temperatures in the mid nineties and a humidity of 91%. It’s going to be warm. I promised the bo’sun that I would go shopping for him by walking over to Wallmart. He needs some electric tools and I do not even know if they sell those there.