25 Feb. 2019; At Sea.

We had good hope that the swell would have started to die down but it was in vain as the wind decided to breeze up. We are already on the windiest side of the Caribbean Sea as the wind has miles and miles of sea to increase strength, but then with a frontal system in the area, it can breeze up even more. And it sure did. By mid-morning we had a force 6 to 7 blowing (A seven is near gale force) and that whipped up the sea and the seas whipped up the ship and thus the ships movement continued. It is not just regular rolling (the stabilizers are dealing with that) and not regular pitching as the waves are not directly on the bow or stern but this is a jerky movement. Ship is still and then it goes for a jolt. It does a light pitch (a sort of small up and down) and then another jolt.  It does not really make you sea-sick, although the ship was quiet today, but it makes you sort of tired after a few hours. The constant focus of keeping yourself upright and on a straight path takes its toll. And thus napping was this afternoon a very favorite past time.

The crew is more battle hardened but with the arrival of the Nieuw Statendam which needed 900 crew we do have a considerable amount of new crew members on board. When the Nieuw Statendam started to get manned, about 50% of experienced crew were transferred from other ships and 50% experienced crew came from home. This to ensure that the crew only had to learn the routines of the new ship; and not the routines of the company and the new job. Quite a few of these crew members were ex Koningsdam so they could jump right in without having to re-invent the wheel again.  But that left still a gap of 900 on the total complement of about 12,000 HAL crew. That is about 6%, maybe a little bit as in the 12,000 there are also a few shore side people.

These are not high waves and they are not a real problem. It is just the irregularity of the waves when they merge and mix that maks the ship move. And move in ways that are more of a sort of jittery than a regular sway.

The 900 new ones are spread out over all of the ships so each ship gets about 60 of them. But that is not the total. We also have a yearly turnover of about 8%. That is very low as it is considered normal for the cruise industry to have about 10%. And some cruise companies are much higher, going right up to 25%.  But 8% is still almost a 1,000 new crew out of that 12,000. Thus with a new build coming in service during a year we need to absorb in the ships about 1,700 or 1,800 new crew. Crew that comes to the ship when needed, and thus every time in the home port when about 10% of the crew goes on vacation we have new people coming in.

Why do people leave? For the same reasons as ashore; retirement, or looking for another job. But the seafaring world also struggles with the fact that life at sea is not the same as at home. So when the thoughts go to having babies, then often both partners leave the sea to be more together in an 8 to 5 job or a work cycle much less than 3 months.  It works both ways.  From each 10 junior officers, only one can become a captain eventually and thus some have to go. For that the baby urge helps greatly, the only problem is that marriage and baby planning always seems to occur when these officers have gained a considerable amount of experience in their ranks and jobs. Experience that we then suddenly loose and then we have to start building up again.

The ships can live with this number as it is a regular routine and something we thus expect and can plan for. The company is really focused to promote people from within, in all ranks when possible. Those who started in the lower ranks as beginners, get indoctrinated in the company’s culture and that makes the next steps going up the promotion ladder, a lot easier. If we cannot promote from inside the company, then we have to go and attract new but hopefully experienced crew from the outside. And then we get officers and crew also from other cruise companies. Some come because they just want to give HAL a try, but a lot genuinely want to sail with HAL, especially if they have been with a 3 star or 4 star company before.

But it is difficult for them as they have to learn new routines and get used to a complete new culture. It also means extra work for the ships colleagues who have to get the newcomer up to speed and assimilated in the team on board.

And today a few of those new-new crew were not so happy with the ships movement. It is not often you see an Indonesian turning white but I saw it today in the Lido. And often they are then being told by guests that this is not bad weather, just very windy, and then you see them thinking “what have I gotten myself into”.  But getting sea legs goes very fast and by next cruise they will be “old Salts” just like the rest of us.

Sometime tonight we should start to run out of this wind field as we are coming closer to Cuba, which acts as a wind breaker for all sorts of easterly wind.

This is the wind we have at the moment. We are now climbing into the bluer area near Belize and then it will start to get better, Ignore the numbers, they indicate how many local forecasts Wind finder.com can give in an area.  Costa Rica has a score of 56 because its coasts have the wind but also the large swells. Something this website specializes in.