14 March 2011; At sea.

 It is 1090 Nautical miles from Fort Lauderdale to St. Barts and thus we have to spend two days at sea in order to cover the distance.  It is never a bad idea to start a cruise with some sea time, especially if it is a longer cruise. We still have 60 days to go on this cruise and when we enter the Mediterranean we are going to do port after port, day after day, with only the occasional sea day in between.  By that time we will all appreciate the luxury of having some relaxing time at sea. Although the amount of relaxing depends on oneself, as the cruise director fills the daily program to the brim with activities so you can be as busy as you want to be. For the deck department sea days are great to catch up with paperwork and to plan for the coming ports that are ahead of us. While the ship is approaching its first port; we are already about 5 ports down the road with the planning for the daily operation. Although the ports are booked by the company about two years in advance, we only know a few days in advance if we are going to be the only ship in port or not and what local rules and regulations have been dreamed up recently, which of course we have to comply with. It is a never ending puzzle.

 What always is puzzling as well is the weather. Yesterday the weather forecast promised a “same day” today, but at 8 am we saw rain clouds all around us. Courtesy of a weather system that had come a little bit further down than the metrological model in the computer had anticipated. The general tendency of the North Atlantic weather is, that weather systems are mostly generated in the Cape Hatteras area and then cross the North Atlantic and go straight over the British Isles or veer off to the North and go under Iceland. However sometimes a system takes a bit of a wider curve while moving east and then we can get the tail over this area and that is most of the time a wet tail. However it passed by very quickly and sunshine was restored in accordance with our wishes.

 The water, e.g the Ocean is having its influence on the ship as well. There is a steady current running against us here, coming all the way from the African continent. It is called the North Equatorial Current. However it’s southern edge,  where we are sailing now, has it its own name, the Antilles current. Its average strength is about 1.5 knots and while the ship is making 18.5 knots on the engines, we are thus only going with 17 knots through the water. The current is not consistent in velocity and as a result we see the ships speed over the ground varying between 16.5 and 17.5 knots. Tonight when we get closer to Puerto Rico, its influence should wane and we should start to make more mileage.

 With approaching Puerto Rico, it also means that we are approaching now the deepest part of the sea in this area, the Puerto Rico trench. By 9 pm tonight we will have about 26,000 feet of water under the keel. From there is goes steeply up towards the islands and by the time we drop the hook at the anchorage it will be down to 60 feet. With such a depth, or height if you look from the sea bottom upwards, 500 feet is no height at all and hence the sea area is considered flat by those standards. When looking at the sea chart is looks a bit like prairie area’s but without the grass of course and the one we are sailing over at the moment is called the Nares Abyssal Plain.

 Although we do not think about it very often, most Caribbean islands are of volcanic origin and were once pushed all the way up from the sea bottom resulting in this ring of islands that form the boundary of the Caribbean Sea. This area is nowadays very quiet in volcanic activity. Which is a good thing of course, as, just by looking at Japan, things can be very different. Earth Quakes can be closely related to volcanic activity and both are caused by the movement and cracks in the Tectonic Plates. At sea we do not notice earth quakes very much nor the tsunami waves that can accompany the quakes. The reason for that is that a tsunami (Japanese for harbour wave) creates a pressure wave through the water. As long as the water is deep enough that pressure wave can travel unhindered forwards. When it encounters shallower water, there is nowhere else to go for that pressure wave than to go “upwards” and the sea height will start to increase. Eventually it will create a monstrous wave that rolls over anything and every thing. Most of the time a tsunami warning is given to all shipping and the wise thing to do then is to get out to sea and wait until it is all over.  For the anchorage at Gustavia, there would only be the danger of a tsunami if there would be an earthquake, somewhere in the western side of the Caribbean Sea.  I am not expecting that tomorrow. ……………….

 We should have good weather during our call and the only thing I am worrying about is a good anchorage. During our Christmas cruise, Bill Gates parked his yacht right on my anchorage and as a result we could not get enough lee for a tender service and had to deviate to Antigua. Hopefully Friend Bill is working tomorrow.