07 November 2012; At Sea.

After two busy days, the Panama Canal and Cartagena, we now had the first of two sea days, giving all the guests some time to relax and catch their breath. Tomorrow the challenge will be for the majority to pack their suitcases as their cruise will be coming to an end. A small number will make the return voyage with us, although “small” is relative, there are about a 100, as far as I know.  Making “back to back” cruises, which is getting more and more popular as it cuts out the need to fly and does not limit you in the amount of luggage that you can take with you. So if you have the time, why not? But we have two sea days in a row, 1143 nautical miles to travel and ample time to enjoy the ship. The weather looks good, although the word “changeable” is in the air as the whole area is settling down for the winter now the hurricane season is coming to an end. Winter season means that cold front after cold front will descend over Florida bringing with it cooler temperatures but also more wind. It looks like we will get the first of that wind over us just after docking in Fort Lauderdale.

The crew of the Statendam had a nice surprise today as the Alaska Rebates for recycling came in. All the HAL ships are working with a company in Vancouver, called Tymac, which comes to each ship in Vancouver to collect non process able waste and also the recyclables. We try to process as much pure waste on board; by burning it or when edible feeding it to the fishes. But all supplies come on board in carton boxes and that carton can be recycled, the same for the glass and for the plastic wrappings. Also when we do projects on board, any steel, wood, or other material is carefully disassembled and prepared for going ashore in the turn over port.

The Tymac re-cycling barge coming alongside a Vista Class ship in Vancouver. On the platform you can see the Safety/Evironmental/Health officer ensuring that all is done according to regulations.

This company that we are using brings alongside a barge with all sorts of containers and carefully separates everything that comes out of the ship in the appropriate way. They are making a profit of course on doing this but part of that profit comes back to the ship as a rebate and it is added to the crew fund. When the Alaska season is ended, the season’s bill is made up and today we received the results.

They were very pleasing and the Statendam received close to $ 27,000 for the crew fund. That is a lot of money and was partly due to the diligence of all the crew and partly due to the refit projects on board that generated a lot of metal for recycling. Still it all had to be sorted and made ready for off loading and that creates a lot of work. So I was a proud captain today, also because the Statendam had a higher rebate figure than the other Alaska ships. That is always a good incentive to keep the crew motivated.

The money goes into the crew fund and can then be used for crew activities. At the moment I am looking at using at least part of that money for a good spruce up of the Crew Mess Room. In the past we have done the Officer Bar, the P.O. Mess and part of the crew mess as far as the equipment goes (TV, games etc) but now we can probably tackle the area more extensively. Holland America is very good at spending money for the upkeep of the crew facilities but all the ships have to be treated the same. So if you want to personalize the area a little bit, we have to use the money that has been “earned” by the crew. For that we have bonus systems, such as company HESS compliance award (which we won last October), meeting the targets of the least number of accidents and crew time loss (which we thus far have achieved each quarter) and a few other company incentives that generate money for the crew fund. So today’s addition is a nice boost of the funds and we will use it gratefully.

We sailed today on a northerly course, straight from Cartagena Sea buoy to the entrance of the Windward Passage which we will go through around midnight. Then tomorrow we will be, all day long, north of Cuba heading towards the Florida Strait.  In the course of the day, the wind died down and it should remain nearly wind still all the way up the Cuban coast unless the cold front gathers momentum and comes down over the Bahamian Islands faster than currently predicted.