01 April 2012; At Sea.

When we entered the Caribbean Sea proper, it was windy, very windy. With the summer coming, the sun is burning heavier on the area than in the winter and thus the thermal flow caused by this is going up. That means that the gentle winter breeze of the Trade Winds is strengthening to near Gale force winds and that becomes the standard for the remainder of the summer. As Aruba and the rest of the ABC islands are located at the far West of the Caribbean Sea, they get the most of it with the longest open sea area to the East of them. As we are heading in that direction we will enjoy the full brunt of that as well. It has been blowing in this area more than usual as well and means that also the current is stronger than normal. On our way North, last cruise, we suddenly had much more current with us than expected and thus I was bracing myself for the opposite when going this way. I was not disappointed. Nearly 3 knots of adverse push and that meant that I had to bring another engine on line. That costs more fuel and makes my chief engineer very unhappy. He had hoped to buy a New BMW this year from the savings but it looks now that he will have to settle for a new spare tyre only.

We will be going to Alaska in about 6 weeks and we are now slowly starting the preparations for it. The State of Alaska has a large number of rules that are different than the rest of the USA, let alone the world. They are not necessarily stricter but phrased in a different way and require different reporting. I will explain more about that when we get closer to Vancouver. For now we reviewed the oil pollution reporting requirements, which do follow the regular pattern of other ports but with different telephone numbers and calling in procedures. Thus our place cards on the bridge were updated and we checked if our routines, currently in line with Florida and Californian procedures where ready to be amended before we leave San Diego for the last time. I hope I never have to report anything but you have to be ready for it

The weather forecast was erring on the low side this time.  Two weather vanes, indicating 20 knots of wind while it was more in the region of 30 knots in real life. (Courtesy www.Windfinder.com)

However for the time being we are still here doing our Trans Canal cruises and that meant a blustery crossing of the Caribbean Sea.  Because there are so many entrances/exits in and out of the Carib, you see ships everywhere. Most of them on voyages from the Gulf of Mexico towards Venezuela and back. Those ships are mainly tankers either collecting crude oil from Venezuela or refined products from the various processing plants on the South American mainland or on one of the islands. Once they are in the area, they have to wait for docking space and thus you  always see 10 or 12 of them drifting south of Aruba. It is deep water there and the (weak) current runs straight in open sea. That means that they can simply stop the engines and drift away. Being tankers they do not catch that much wind and will not be far from their starting position by the time they are called to come into the port. If I would do that with a cruise ship it would be different. With a high superstructure and shallow draft (26 feet is nothing compared with 70 or 90 feet of a tanker) the wind pushing full on the beam would cause a nice sideways momentum on the ship and thus a nice drift. In 2001 I once had to wait because there were issues in the port of Aruba, so I tried it. Within 45 minutes we were doing nearly 3 knots sideways on the wind alone. Therefore if a cruise ship has to wait somewhere, it sticks its nose into the wind and kills the drift with the engines.

We are scheduled to arrive at 08.45 at the pilot station for a 10 am arrival. Sailing into the port will be very fast as you keep the speed up to avoid drifting on the wind. Also it will take longer to bring out sufficient lines to keep the ship alongside with the wind full on the beam.

It will be a windy day. Wind force 7 to 8 but very sunny. Because of that I have warned the guests to apply sufficient sun block as it might not feel that warm due to the wind but it will be dangerous. It will be very easy to figure out – the next day- who did not listen.