17 October 2007, at Sea.

The outside temperature rose during the night from the low fifties to the high sixties as we are approaching warmer weather again. It was not really a tropical day yet, mainly overcast with a lot of rain clouds looming in the distance, but at least the “Canadian” chill was out of the air. We all switched to white uniforms today and that event alone gives a totally different edge to the outlook of the cruise. Switcing uniforms is one of the decisions a captain makes by himself and the moment of switching is as much a personal preference as a necessity arising from the changing weather. I prefer to do it on a sea day. When doing on it a port day, there is the chance that during an early arrival half the crew is still in blue and the other half already in white. Normally I go for it when the average cruise temperature for the next days is expected to be over 65oF at noon time.

Although the weather might not be that great from a cruising standard, it is still a lot better than it could be, as two days from now there is storm expected here on the coast. We passed Cape Hatteras at 1 pm. and that is the area where a lot of bad weather is created. There is a depression on the way from the middle of the USA and it centre will reach the sea near Cape Haterras. As it will flow over the Gulf Stream when it leaves the mainland there is a good chance that this depression will intensify and turn into a very nice storm. Wind itself is normally not much of a problem for a large ship but eventually the wind will whip up the waves and they will become long running swells.

I sailed for two winters with the Maasdam from Norfolk Virginia to the Caribbean and each season we had three or four times bad weather on the way back. The day after leaving San Juan the ship would hit the wave fields coming down from the Hatteras area and the pitching would start. As soon as the swell would go over the 10 feet, the bow would really start to rise, and by the time the swell went over 12 – 14 feet, the bow would come out of the water and the slamming would start. Then, for the next 24 hours, it would be a very uncomfortable ride until the ship would come under the lee of the coast and the swell would subside back to waves. As a result we were sometimes 4 to 5 hours late in port and that created havoc with the disembarkation and embarkation as Norfolk was a turn over port. The Maasdam continued to do this run for another 3 years but is returning for this winter season to Fort Lauderdale. Although the guests living in the Norfolk area loved the fact that they could go on a HAL ship without having to fly; I think that they grew a bit weary off having to pay for it at the end of the cruise with a very wobbly day.

This time we had smooth seas and apart from the occasional fishing fleets it was an uneventful day. The fishing fleets sit at the edge of the low to deep water area. The sea bottom is not flat of course and at certain places it rises quite steeply from 2000 feet to 200 feet. The upward currents push the fish up the canyon wall and the fisherman parks himself right on top of that. Only thing he has to do, is just scoop it up. We had most of the fishermen on our portside as we sailed over the flats, the shallow water areas just outside Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear. With the flats I mean only 50 to 100 feet of water under the keel.

In the afternoon I did my Holland America Line history lecture for about 500 guests and as there was no bingo directly after the lecture I was not pressed for time, so I could throw in a few anecdotes and tell a bit more about unusual things from the HAL past. Nobody walked out, so I assume that they liked the 90 minutes of looking at DAM ships, inside and outside.

The Gulf Stream held us back a little bit during the last night and today and thus it looks like that I am going to be about an hour late in Charleston. This is not a big deal as I have some lee way in the schedule on the last leg to Tampa, and so we going to leave an hour later as well, giving everybody the scheduled number of hours to enjoy in Charleston.