The ship is pitching gently on the waves, waves created by a weather system 48 hours ahead of us. This weather system is supposed to completely dissipate in the coming three days thus things are looking really well for the remainder of the crossing. Yesterday we left the Bermuda’s behind us and currently we are sailing over an area called the New England Seamount. This means that the surface under water is more mountainous than before and the interesting thing is the names that have been given to these mounts, Alleghany, Muir, etc.etc.

As we are slowly coming further North, the outside temperature has been coming down. When we passed Key West, the temperature was still around 80oF, it has now dropped to about 60oF during the night time and is barely touching the 70o’s during the day time. As the wind is with us, blowing from the SW, it is still very pleasant on deck and the guests can be seen sunbathing. Also the sea water temperature has dropped considerably and that is something that pleases the chief engineer greatly. The engines are using sea water for cooling, and the colder the cooling water the better the engines perform while consuming the same amount of fuel. When we left Tampa, we were averaging around 19 knots on 5 engines and now we are doing 20.5 while having the same amount of engines on line.

A thing that the guests do not see is what we have to do on the crossing to comply with International rules and regulations for the Water Ballast Exchange Program. This program was set up a number of years ago to protect the local environment from non-indigenous water life. Each ship carries ballast water in its tanks, for stability reasons or to trim the ship. Same for the Veendam, we consume fuel oil, and when an oil tank goes empty, we fill up a ballast tank with water, so the ship keeps the same draft and stability.

A number of years ago international organizations became concerned about the introduction of non native water life in various ports of call. A prime example is the Great Lakes where now crabs and other animals can be found that do not belong on the North American continent. Most likely these animals were brought in by ships that loaded ballast water in another part of the world and then deballasted during loading in an American port. The same is the case in Europe, where wildlife has been found in the local rivers, that was somehow imported from the North American continent. To deal with this problem the Water Ballast Exchange Program was set up. As soon as a ship more then 200 Nautical Miles from land all ballast tanks are flushed one by one and fresh ballast water, e.g. seawater from that area is taken in. We report the participation in this program to the monitoring authorities.