It is always nice when a theory works out in reality. By adding my “Tehuantepec off shore correction” to the local weather forecast, we did indeed get the wind that we were expecting. About 40 knots of wind was blowing for a short while, mostly in the late evening. To be on the safe side we had the ship prepared for much more wind, as the weather forecast for the tehuantepec area can be notoriously wrong but in this case it was more or less correct, as long as we applied the offshore correction.

So without worries we sailed through the night and arrived at 0700 at the Puerto Chiapas pilot station. By the time we got there it was wind still again and the only thing to worry about was the swell running in the entrance of the port. If there is too much swell we cannot get in as the fairway depth is only about 11 meters and we have a draft of 7.5 meters. That means, with a swell running, that the water height goes up but also down with the waves and then you could easily touch bottom. Not something you like to do. So apart from asking the pilot what he sees when coming out, we try to estimate the swell height ourselves by looking at the height of the breakers running against the breakwater. Today we only saw the regular swell so we knew it would be safe to go in. Still the swell pushed us a bit while going in and that makes the steering not so easy. The quartermasters are trained to keep the ship on one course, so it is for them not so easy to just try and keep a general direction which then averages out to be the right course. The port has two leading lights to help you stay in the middle of the fair way but on the initial approach you sway around a bit like a drunken sailor who is trying to walk on that white line in the middle of the street. We saw a dredger outside the port and inside the port and that indicated that things were afoot. As the fairway is nothing but a widened estuary of a shallow river, the whole port is prone to silting up. That means that on a regular basis the dredgers have to come in and keep the port at the regular depth. It was certainly needed again as I had a hard time making speed astern towards the dock after having swung in the turning basin. The only thing that makes it very nice here from the navigational side is the nice dock that they have built.

While all the guests disappeared ashore, I marshaled the troops on board for the HESS presentation of which I wrote 2 days ago. If you want to retain the interest of the crew during a meeting it is best to have two elements in your speech; money and something funny. The money bit was not so difficult, I announced a prize competition for the $ 3000, — the ship had won; for everybody to come up with an idea to buy something tangible that would remind us about the prize we had won. First prize an IPod and that always attracts attention. The humor part was achieved by running little safety clips. There is a European safety organization that issues little safety clips which tries to address safe working issues in a humorous way and that took care of the 2nd requirement. Nobody fell asleep so it must have been interesting, as ship’s crew, same as soldiers have the talent to sleep anywhere and everywhere if there is a short break. With the main gathering out of the way, we will now continue with on the job training and breakout sessions.

Although there was not much wind and sunny all day long it was not as warm as yesterday and the noon temperature just touched 84oF. About 7o less than in Huatalco. That made it very pleasant to be ashore and that also meant that a larger number of guests only returned just before sailing time. Still they were all back on board in time and thus I could pull out without delay. Going out against the swell is much easier than coming in, as the bow pierces the waves instead of them pushing against the stern.

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It is not everyday that the crew sits first row in the showlounge. Although the show might not have been that good as I did not bring the dancing girls out. They were in the audience as well.

Photo courtesy Hotelmanager Bert van Mackelenbergh

 

Tonight we have a slow ride to Puerto Quetzal as we are moving further away from the coast, in deeper water there is less build up of the waves and thus less ships movement. Tomorrow morning we will be at the pilot station at 0500 in order to be docked by 0600 hrs. We have to be this early to facilitate the tours to the Mayan ruins of Tikal and to the city of Antigua. The weather looks good again with another sunny and wind still day.