28 November 2007. At Sea.

During the morning we made good progress and we were nicely on schedule for a timely arrival in St Thomas. However in the afternoon a North Atlantic wave field came towards us with heights of about 8 to 10 feet, with peaks to 12 feet, and this made the ship start to pitch and that costs speed. If this would happen with the ship running at full speed then it starts to slam on the waves as the bow comes out of the water and falls down again upon it. That is a very unpleasant motion, as the whole ship shudders and the G forces can make you feel quite queasy because of it. Now it was only a dipping motion, not that unpleasant but enough to slow us down. The starboard shaft did not like it either and that meant that we had to reduce the output at times. It will depend on how long this wave field persists whether we are going to be delayed and if so by how much. I can not cut any corners anywhere and I have no other tricks on the sleeve to speed up the passage, so Mother Nature now decides how much speed the ship will make and when we arrive.

According to the weather chart the wave field is not supposed to reach the coast of Puerto Rico and as we are coming close by there, I hope that I can take advantage of it. Will see.

Highlight of the day was being buzzed by the USCG. Suddenly out of nowhere we saw a Sky hawk helicopter approaching who first passed us on the starboard side and then on the portside. I gave them a call but they were rather non-commitment about what they were doing here so far from home. Normally that indicates that they are on an anti-drug mission, trying to catch boats who use the more remote Bahaman islands for a stop over, while on the way to somewhere in North America. Buzzing is nice, if you know what it is what is flying by, but if you are not a helicopter expert it might startle you. So we made a quick announcement for the guests on the outside decks. As the helicopter was not carrying any extra fuel tanks, they must have had a base nearby, or a cutter hiding somewhere which they use as a home base. We figured out that there were several options, taking into account the time that they would like to spend at sea, but we could not track where they were exactly going or coming from.

I am getting near the end of my contract, going home on December 9th and that means that it is time to write my end of term report for the head office. This is basically a review of the past period, highlighting issues that have not been resolved and that need the attention of the very senior management. Secondly there is the hand over report to my relief which details the current issues going on. Thirdly there is the hand over file, on the computer with “things to read to get up to speed again” and fourthly there is the “in progress file” also on the computer with items still not completed. From the latter there are always a lot of them and therefore it was a great idea of the company to have two captain’s rotating on the same ship. It certainly gives consistency.

Because of the amount of material to hand over, there is also a special hand over period if a new captain would be joining. New to ship class (S- class R- class, Vista Class or Prinsendam) and new in rank, then there is a 14 day overlap. If he is new to sort of class, there is a week overlap. If he is been on the ship before, such as my relieve will be, then it is about 4 to 6 hours.

If I get half the chance, I will post the photos of the current team Veendam and the relieving team on the blog under the “My ship” sub directory before I go home.