Normally we spend two days at sea to get to the Dutch ABC islands but you can do it in a shorter period, if you leave on time from Half Moon Cay and keep the pedal to the metal. This means for us about 19 knots and will result in an arrival time of around noon time tomorrow at the Oranjestad pilot station, and then we will be docked about 30 minutes later. ABC islands, stand for Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao the three Dutch islands of the Venezuelan coast. (There is also a Klein (=s mall) Curacao and Klein Bonaire but those are two very small islands and are not in inhabited. The 3 islands form part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands but each has a different arrangement with the mother land. While Aruba is only nominally connected with the Netherlands, Curacao is somewhere in between and Bonaire is still very closely aligned. But they run most of their affairs independently and there is no completely free travel / option to live everywhere. If that would happen that there would be a fair chance that a lot of the islanders would come to Holland as there is more and higher paid work there and a lot of retired Dutch people would settle down permanently on the islands turning it into a big retirement village with no doubt a large hospital as well. So the economies are kept sort of separated and that is much better for the future of the islands. Continue reading
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We were the first regular HAL ship that is calling at Half Moon Cay this year. This does not mean that no other ships have been here, or will be, but each company has its own routines and we apply our routines rigorously also to island practices. So today was the first time all HMC facilities were run through their paces in accordance with HAL standards. Tomorrow the Carnival Magic is visiting the island but they do their own thing. (And I have no idea what that is, apart from they use all the facilities as well). Ships from other brands of the Carnival Corporation can use the island as long as they do not send a ship while we are there. Thus tomorrow Carnival Cruise Lines can visit and apart from our island, they also use Princess Cays on occasion. Carnival does not have its own private island but the borrowing system works quite well as the cruise schedules are inter checked with all the brands to ensure that there are no bottle necks anywhere caused by ourselves. What the other companies such as RCI and NCL are doing is be doing is beyond our control so clogged up ports are still possible but the Corporation tries to avoid it. Continue reading
We are always confused on the ships of where we are exactly going. The whole cruise world speaks about Fort Lauderdale where the cruise starts or ends but it is of course really Port Everglades. So I try to explain to everybody that Port Everglades, is what it is, the Port to the Everglades. It is part of Broward County which has a major who is also the boss of Port Everglades. (Please do not tell the Harbor Master) Fort Lauderdale is a separate entity and has its own mayor. For most of the officers on board who cannot get their head around it, the fact that there are two mayors normally makes the penny drop. For the rest it is a bit of a mix. Although the Sheriff of Broward County runs the security in the port we also see police cars from the Ft. Lauderdale police force cruising around but I have no idea if that is for work or on the way through. But no doubt they work together when somebody crosses the dotted line. I remember once, in the gray mists of time, one of our crew members became a little bit too happy in a pub. So happy that he thought that the waitress was in love with him. She was not so she called the police. Up showed Ft. Lauderdale police and then at the security checkpoint of the port he was switched from a police car to a sheriff car. In those days things were quite simple, the sheriff simply asked the captain to do something. And the captain did something. He was booted off the ship in the next suitable port when he was sober again. So maybe he is telling his grandchildren now: Grand dad was once arrested by the police and then released by the sheriff and he only had to change cars to do this. Continue reading
The weather system from the North East Gulf of Mexico came over during the night and by late afternoon we had some considerable rain and wind while the system moved over the Florida Straits. Looking at the USA weather forecast and reports it was not expected that this system would create much turmoil while going overland so hopefully that turned out to be the case. The area where the system was traveling through had been hit hard by a hurricane the year before and now they got a storm coming from the other side. Not much fun. Continue reading
As was expected, the bad weather passing the New York area did not really affect us and the ship was travelling very quietly with no movement what so ever. And that is the way we like it. Cruise ship weather. It was not cruise ship weather completely as it was overcast but the winds were following winds and thus 18 knots less in velocity on the ship than what was really out there. Thus people could be on the outside decks with only feeling a gentle breeze while the real wind was 35 knots or so. Continue reading
We had a bit of a bumpy night and a slightly moving ship. What “slightly” was depended on the view of the guests as some spoke of a heavy storm and some dismissed it as an occasional “bump”. I have been assigned a cabin above the Azipods this time and the only thing I had to do was to move the coat hangers in the closet as they rattled on occasion. That is not a regular ships noise and thus it will wake me up. We did have quite a bit of wind during the night with gusts to over 60 knots but as we were heading into the first arrival of the storm, the storm had not been able to generate very high waves and thus the ship did not provide the roller coaster ride, something some guests had been afraid of. Continue reading
By 10 am this morning we were at anchor at Newport. Further out than we really liked as the Riviera had the best spot because she had arrived earlier. It was sunny but there was a strong breeze blowing, stronger than we had hoped for as the wind was only supposed to get really going in the early evening. Referring to my blog of yesterday: the weather was not really organized. Still the circumstances were good enough to operate a tender service and thus the ship got things on the road. We had even drafted in a local tender, the Amazing Grace and later another on, the Katharine, to cover the long tender distance as good as possible. Still it was slow going for a while, due to the tender distance but also due to the wind which forced the tenders to be extra careful. But still it worked. Continue reading
The weather turned out to be as forecast although it took the wind a few hours this morning to get in synch with the predicted wind in the weather forecast. But by 10 am. it managed to do so and from then on all was well in the world. As a Japanese friend of my once said, things have to be organized and lined up nicely; otherwise you get confusion. Maybe that is why I have been going through life confused most of the time as the weather is seldom well organized and as a sailor you live very close to the weather. Continue reading
It is a tight schedule to make if you want to get to Portland from Halifax at a decent time and we could not be docked earlier than 11.00 hrs. and we just made it; with only minutes to spare. A late morning arrival is nice as it gives everybody the chance to see the ship sailing in; and sailing into Portland is nice. People go to the Canadian Maritimes for the Fall foliage but you can also take a sightseeing trip around Portland Harbor as the woods around the natural inlet were a riot of color. Arriving later has a negative side as well, as we were coming from Canada and thus everybody had to go through CPB immigration inspection. How fast that goes depends on how many officers there are available for the clearance and secondly if the CBP Supervisor allows those who have seen the CBP to go directly ashore, while the rest is still being cleared. That can vary from port to port and in some places the CBP only clears the ship once everybody has been seen. Today there were sufficient Officers available and the guests who had been seen were allowed off. Kudos to the CBP. They did the job they had to do, but they worked with the ship to give all a guests a good first impression of Portland. The sunshine did the rest. Continue reading
We had a bit of a bumpy ride last night but not as bad as was forecast. Today we had a dry day but the promised sun did not materialize and the wind blowing was much stronger and colder than predicted. Maybe because it is the 13th. today, the weather guru’s had a day off. Or what they say most of the time, the weather pattern did not follow the prediction of the computer model. These sort of things always remind me of the weather predicting capabilities of one of my uncles. He used to look at the sky and would then say, “Well if the weather does not change, I am sure it will remain dry today”. Sometimes his computer predicting model was off and it rained cats and dogs a few hours later. Continue reading
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