04 April 2008, Georgetown Grand Cayman.

We arrived nicely on schedule at the South-West side of Grand Cayman. It was not so difficult to do that as the average speed to maintain was only 16 knots but with the high fuel prices of the moment (a ton of Heavy Fuel Oil costs over $ 500 and a ton of Marine Gas Oil, nearly a $ 1000,–) we try to make the distances on as few engines as possible. By finding a favorable current it might be possible to run on an engine less, or swap a 12 cylinder engine for an 8 cylinder one and save a considerable amount of fuel that way. The prevailing North westerly current above Jamaica gave the ship just enough extra speed so that I was able to save about 4 tons of fuel during the night and that was also $ 2000 saved. All reasons to be happy.

The rain did travel with us during the night and there was a very dense rain cloud above the island when we arrived. A rain cloud accompanied by a lot of wind and it shed a lot of water onto the island. You could not see the ships at anchor near the shore from more than a mile away. So I slowed the Veendam down and waited until the rain cloud had moved on to open sea and then proceeded to the anchorage. The remainder of the day was beautiful with sunshine and a gentle breeze. As we were the only ship in port, the guests had really nothing to complain about as there were no lines ashore and with the ship sitting almost on top of the dock there were no waiting lines for our tenders either.

Today the environmental officer returned to the ship and that meant that the ships staff was complete again after the yearly management conference happening. The chief engineer and I had managed to arrange the end of our leave periods to coincide with the start of the first conference so we just came on board after the first conference and our colleagues are going on leave after the second conference. For the chief officer it was more complicated as the conference fell in the middle of his sailing period so a fill-in chief officer came out to cover the gap. There has to be at all times a second master license on board and the current senior navigator does not have one yet, so he could not stand in. For the Hotel manager it is much simpler, he just goes and the Culinary Operations Manager takes over. For the Environmental Officer it works different again. This is a one person department and the company wants all EO’s ashore in one go so there is not really anybody to replace him, so his/her work is looked after by one of the other staff officers. Most of the work that the E.O does is compliance work and finalizing paperwork can wait a few days. The company likes all of them together ashore so it can be certain that each EO gets exactly the same refreshment training. As the whole group is now together again we can focus on the coming Trans canal cruise which will start in 9 days from now.

We raised the anchor in the late afternoon and then sailed from Grand Cayman on a North Westerly course towards the West point of Cuba. The coming weather is supposed to be a bit gloomy with thunder showers all over the place, due to a frontal system coming down from the Mississippi area. I will be looking for a favorable current again to see if I make the run on four engines instead of five.

Note: I have added my new employee of the month, the assistant Bo ‘sun under the ship section.