After a rainy new years day in Costa Maya we spent a short morning in Roatan. Costa Maya started promising at least according to the weather forecast but when we arrived we saw the dark clouds gathering. During the night the high pressure system above Mexico moved slightly to the North and as a result the rainy part of the frontal system lying off the Caribe could just touch the Cozumel-Costa Maya area. Thus it was a watery day for about 6000 people. Next to us we had the Vision of the Seas who deposited close to 4000 guests ashore with a lot of young people among those. So it was not amazing to see that a lot of our older guests were back onboard fairly early. Too much noise around the pool I suppose. Continue reading

May you have smooth seas and following winds where ever your travels may take you. May your future cruises be safe and enjoyable and, of course, with Holland America Line.

With an early arrival came a bit of consternation on the bridge as we could not find the pilot boat. The pilot boat operator has the tendency to switch off all the navigation lights when he is racing to and from the dock in Belize so we can not see him until the boat is very close to the ship and the lights are being flipped on. As the boat is mainly plastic it does not give a good reflection on the radar screen and thus we can not find the boat that way either. When you call him, the standard answer is, pilot will board on arrival, and that is it. Where arrival is, is left to the ship but if you do not know where the pilot boat is located then it is getting a bit difficult to slow down correctly and the “boarding on arrival” by the pilot can be dragged on for quite a bit. In the end I just kept going until the boat suddenly popped up and then I took some speed off until we were down to six knots which is the best speed for this sort of pilot boat. Continue reading