14 December 2008, Tampa.

Nice arrival in Tampa this time. Still 25 knots at the sea buoy, but only a light breeze when docking. Wish it was like that each call. The coming days Tampa is supposed to have mild weather, which is of course the period that we are away from the port. However today was good and thus we enjoyed it. Going in, we did not see any ships at all. Even the docks were empty apart from two tankers and three ships at the Tampa Dry Dock and Repair Yard.

I have been busy with a few little projects on the side of my regular work, simply as little things can make a difference.

The first one was, to buy “over the door shoe organizers”. Our Indonesian crew lives in their crew area in the same way as they live at home. That means that the flip flops (or sandal in Indonesian) that they wear, when off duty stay, outside the cabin door when they are inside. Most of the crew have several pairs. Like a pair for going to the toilet, a pair for walking to the crew mess etc etc. There are a few who even have a separate pair for when they go to the mosque. These all get piled up outside the door. It looks unsightly and passers by can slip on them. Thus there was the brain wave to get these shoe organizers and hang them on the corridor railings and solve the issue that way.

The second one was tool bags for the maintenance people. It had become more and more a common sight on board that the crew carried their tools around in Hal tote bags, the ones that are given to the guests. Maybe convenient but not really professional, thus I decided to go for official maintenance bags. They look better; they are stronger and they carry more tools. So for the last few weeks I have had a friend in Tampa buy Sears and Wall mart empty of shoe organizers and tool bags to supply the Veendam. All little things are part of a general image that a ship conveys both the guests and crew and maybe this is a little part of the puzzle that makes up a ships total positive image.

While I was taking delivery of the latest tool bag consignment, the chief engineer was busy with poring liquid gold into his fuel tanks. Every 14 days we bunker 1000 tons of fuel and as the fuel prices have been rather high in the past months, it is almost liquid gold. At the top of the price boom, we paid just over $600 a ton and thus we pumped every 14 days for $ 600.000 of fuel on board. At the moment the price is down to $ 235 a ton, due to the down turn in economy. Thus we pay for the Veendam alone nearly $800.000 less a month for fuel now than we used to do. As a result the cruise companies are starting to cancel the fuel surcharge on their future cruises, as the need is no longer there.

Still it is not a cheap commodity to load and thus the chief engineer takes great care to ensure that he gets what he has ordered and that he is not sold short. For us on the bridge it is an interesting ritual to see the engineers jump on the fuel barge when the refueling (we call it bunkering or taking bunkers) is finished and to take tank soundings of the barge tanks to see if they coincide with the measurements taken from the on board tanks and the flow meters. If there is an argument about the totals, it is quite often quite graphic, with a barge operator getting irate and a Veendam engineer acting stubborn and refusing to sign off. Most of the time the argument is about the volume versus the temperature. Heavy fuel oil needs to be heated otherwise you can not pump it. Fuel oil expands when it gets heated up. That increases volume. So a 1000 volume tons at 150oF is different in weight than a 1000 volume tons at 100oF. Thus there has to be agreement in what is really loaded in total. I have seen bunker days, especially in “less advanced” ports in the world, where bahco’s were waved and gestures indicating grave body harm were used to settle arguments.

Nothing of that in Tampa. Everything was found in good order. Bunkering was finished on time and we left on the minute. Racing down Tampa Bay as it is a tight run to Key West. It is going to be a breezy day tomorrow and I will have the added fun of sailing around the Carnival Freedom to get to the berth.