06 November 2007, At Sea.

This is our second day at sea and the new weather forecast is indicating that the weather front that brings us so much wind at the moment, will dissipate during the course of the day. As we are still in the lee of the Bahamas reef, there is not too much swell but that might chance tomorrow morning when we are coming out of the lee and the long ocean swell will start to come in.

For most of the early morning we have been sailing along the coast of Cuba, with distances varying between 4 and 20 miles, depending on the curving of the land. We try to steer the straightest line possible, which is the quickest route, while in Old Bahama channel and thus the land comes closer and moves away depending on its shape. We always have guests who are concerned about being “so close” e.g. nor more then four miles at certain points. Cuba is a country as any other in the world, apart from politics, and thus has a 3 mile national boundary. Normally ships who do not call at a certain country will not go inside the three mile zone, unless there is a specific reason to do so. HAL ships normally stay about four miles out which is ample distance.

Most of the area along the north coast of Cuba has been divided in a Vessel Traffic Separation scheme, which is a sort of Highway at sea. The route is split up in a North-West bound zone and a South East bound zone and ensures that ships going in opposite directions will keep clear of each other. This also helps preventing ships from straying into the territorial waters. We get called, sometimes, by Cuban traffic control. We do not what they exactly do but we get a call occasionally on the VHF. Most of the time the passenger ships gets singled out and we assume that that is because with all our lights on, they can recognize us with binoculars. Then follows a most wonderful conversation in rather peculiar English of where we are and where we are going. The funny thing is that “Cuban Traffic control” never asks the same information each time, so I am wondering whether it just happens out of boredom.

I can just imagine that there is this soldier sitting there in a look-out post waiting for things to happen and nothing happens. Then he sees these luxurious Ocean Liners sailing by in the distance and thinks let’s give them a call. He knows that the cruise ships will answer and will also answer in understandable English and it gives a diversion for a few moments.

By lunch time we had passed the Windward Passage. Which is the gap between the island of Cuba and the island of Hispaniola. Here we normally have quite a bit of traffic on the radar as it is one of the main shipping routes to the Caribbean. Ships sailing between Europe and the Panama Canal either use the Windward Passage or the Mona Passage. The Mona Passage is further to the East. The island of Hispaniola is made up out of two countries, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Holland America used to call at Haiti, going to Port-O-Prince, but stopped in early 1982 as security became too much of an issue. The ships have not been back since. On the other hand the Dominican Republic is up and coming. Some ships already do turn over’s there and other ports are becoming more and more part of regular cruise schedules. I stopped with the Veendam in Samana last year near the end of our Amazon cruise. Reactions were about 50 – 50. Those who wanted a final shopping port ala St Thomas were gravely disappointed and those who were
into wildlife and eco tours were very enthousiastic.

Tomorrow we have another day at sea and then a late afternoon arrival in San Juan for an evening stop.