01 November 2011; At Sea.

Another peaceful day at sea, while we cover the 700 miles between Puerto Vallarta and Huatalco de Santa Cruz. For most of the day we can see land on the portside as we are sailing roughly between 10 and 14 miles from shore. The only thing is that the weather has been so nice in the last few days without any wind, and that creates very hazy skies and thus the shore line is not very clear. Only the outline of the inland mountain ranges shows up in a sort of darkish blue. We passed Acapulco around 1900 hrs. today and even its lights were only just visible. Still we cannot complain and if we can keep this weather for a while longer than I will take the haziness in my stride. Because it was so wind still, it was fairly windy on deck. Now the real wind did not blow, everybody could feel the wind created by the ship. As we were travelling with a speed of 17 knots, it meant that we had a wind force 5 blowing over the decks and that keep the outside temperatures quite pleasant. Noon temperatures rose to 29oC or 84oF and that is nice and cool compared to tomorrow when we are docked in the sheltered bay of Huatalco when it all will go up to the low 90’s. 

In the mean time I used the sea day to compose a power point. On November three I am going to do a full ship (all crew) meeting with a power point presentation about Hess. The Statendam has just been chosen as the best HESS ship in the fleet and that has to be announced of course. With it goes a prize of $ 3000, — for the crew fund. I would like part of that money to be used for something that the crew can enjoy for a long time to come and will also remind us about that achievement. So I will be announcing a competition as well. As a captain you always have to be the devil’s advocate and a close friend of Murphy. What can go wrong will, unless you are on top of it and if everybody has the tendency to slow down a bit when they know that they are doing well. To keep the momentum going, the HESS presentation will take place and then I will try to hype up the crew to even higher achievements.

HESS, stands for Health, Environment, Safety, Security. These four things cover, in one way or the other, everything a crewmember does on board. In the past we looked at this as stand alone items and as a result some things fell down the cracks. Now we are approaching it with a more holistic way of thinking and that ensures that everything that needs to be addressed, is addressed in the context of the issue and its underlying cause. In January we will have a big HESS inspection from our Carnival Corporate Office and we have to make sure that we are ready for that. This will be a bit of a challenge as the Holidays are in between. This is an extremely busy period where everybody has to give not the 110% as we expect but 120% in which we need to deliver what the guests expect as the normal standard of Holland America. Busy people tend to make mistakes and therein lays our challenge.

So we will rejoice in receiving the recognition (and the money……..) and then it is time to gear up to bring the HESS standards on the Statendam to an even higher level. That push has to come from the top and that means that I have to get the message across. I have no problem with public speaking but bringing a motivational message that does not sound corny “or plastic” and is easily understandable for also the non western crew with sometimes limited English is a different story. So I have been composing a power point with a mix of background info, to understand the WHY. A bit of Shoulder slapping for the GOOD and some serious points for the TO DO. It will give me time tomorrow to rehearse and to get it going smoothly and then my challenge will be to get 600 crew from 23 nationalities hyped up for the coming period.

Tomorrow we will be in Huatalco de Santa Cruz. We are the only ship in port and it will be very warm and very sunny. Although it is All Souls day in Mexcio I do not think that we will notice much of that in a way that it will hamper our operations. Huatalco is a resort and thus creates a sort of own micro world that revolves around the needs of the guests, regardless of what happens inland.