07 November 2007 San Juan.

Finally the wind died away during the night and we had a sunny day with a sea as smooth as a mirror. A bit of a wobbly mirror as there was still a long and low North Westerly swell running and that meant that we kept the stabilizers in operation.

Around 8 am., we past the Puerto Rico trench which is the one of the deepest places in the ocean. At least as far as has been measured thus far. The deepest trench is to the East of the Philippines and is called the Mariana Trench with a depth of 35,814 Feet. The Puerto Rico trench is 27,559 Feet deep and is number eleven on the worlds list of deepest trenches. So 27,559 feet is a fair distance to walk or in case of a ship a fair distance to sink. On our cruise we are coming close to another deep trench, the Cayman trench, near Grand Cayman, which has a depth of just over 25.000 feet. At least with those depths there is little chance of running aground.

The distance between Tampa and San Juan is just over 1200 miles and therefore we arrive in the late afternoon. The nice thing about that is, is that the sun is shining on Morro Castle and the old town while the ship sails into port. At least that is the theory. We had a nice and dry day but on arrival there was just this one cloud of rain hanging right in front of the entrance. Not nice for the guests standing on the outside decks as they got wet and not nice for me as the rain obscured the leading lights that I needed to sail into the port in order to stay in the middle of the Fairway. There is normally a current running just outside the entrance of the port and you need the leading lights to observe how much “set” there is. This current will push the ship off course and you have to adjust for that so you stay nicely in the middle between the boys. Luckily the rain eased off, while we were still a mile away from the entrance and so I had a good view.

Another thing is with the San Juan port entrance is, is the quickness with which the water goes shallow. Within a mile it goes from 1000 feet to 250 feet to 50 feet. That can make for a very nasty swell and that means that we keep the stabilizers in operation until well inside the fairway. On the way out we do it the other way around, stabilizers go back in operation before we exit the fairway. As there was no wind today, the swell had died down considerably and with the stabilizers going it was hardly noticeable.

San Juan started a few years ago an upgrading program of their downtown docks for the cruise ships. The first one to be finished was Dock 4, which is the big passenger terminal that can take any size ship for a passenger turn over. Then there are two docks further away from the town also for the big ships and then there is pier 1, for the smaller ships and which is the nearest to downtown. In between is pier 3, which has just been finished. This is an open pier without a terminal. The eye catcher is a steel sculpture that starts very high up at the end of the pier and then slowly comes down towards the town side. It looks a bit like a mono rail in an amusement park. However the locals call it the G-string. And indeed if you see it from aside it looks like a teeny-weeny bottom part of a bikini. I do not think that the architect meant the association but the man in the street observes and describes what he sees. And yes you do see a g-string. Something similar happened in London. When the Swiss Re company built a new head quarters. The result was a round tower with a rounded cone on the top that helped with the ventilation of the building. I can not remember what name the designer gave it but the Londoners called it the Gherkin and it is worldwide known as such.

We will have a short stay in San Juan as at midnight we sail for St Thomas to “expose” our guests to a full day of shopping. The weather is supposed to remain good and calm of wind.