The wind only died down in the early morning hours so I lost that one mile each hour during the night and not being able to compensate for it. Also Starboard shaft needed another slow down and thus we docked over an hour late in Dominica. I think this was the fastest docking I have ever done here. The pilot who is as black as spades got noticeably white around the nose when I lined the ship up for the dock. However the Veendam slows down very fast and by the time the bridge wing came on the dock mark, the ship had come to an exact standstill. Spring ashore and gangway out.

Today we landed another 100 matrasses and blankets for the local Red Cross and that more or less completed our exchange program for the ship. This time it were mainly double ones, from the officer cabins.

Good news is that the Chief engineer reported in the course of the afternoon that we can now put a lot more power on the portside and that should balance out the starboard side. Of course as luck will have it, I do not need that extra power until we leave Venezuela, which is a few days from now but at least it is available. Kudo’s to the whole engineering team who worked very hard over the last period to get it done. Unless nothing unforeseen happens I should be able to keep the cruise schedule for the remainder of the cruise.

As I have been moaning for the last few days about the weather and with now the wind suddenly falling away, I have attached here a weather chart that shows what I mean.

pwee91.gif
Courtesy of the NOAA.

Above Hispaniola (block 20 to 30 N, 70 to 60 W) you can see that is blows around 20 knots. (Each line on the directional arrow denotes 10 kts wind velocity) In the area where we now are (block 10 to 20 N, 60 to 50 W) it only shows 10 knots. The thick black line near the top is the next cold front coming down from the USA. We are now going to travel West with the ship to Grenada, Venezuela and Bonaire, that is in the direction of the L 1009 on the chart, so the wind will remain light as the whole system will move with us for awhile. A weather chart like this is issued four times a day and remains of value for about 48 hours unless there is an un-expected development somewhere. With normal weather I check these charts about twice a day. With hurricanes in the area, that goes up to about every three hours, as the projected path of these storms can change very rapidly and suddenly they can move in the direction of your intended route.

What is a very handy addition on the internet nowadays is that a lot of ports have real time weather. One or more weather sensors are directly connected to the internet and give a minute to minute update about the weather on location. I use it all the time for Tampa bay, to see how much wind there is at the dock. This helps to make a decision whether a tugboat is needed or not, if there would be a lot of wind in the turning basin. Tugboats normally require 1 to 3 hours notice and in this way you can already make up your mind, based on reliable info, before you get to the area. If one is needed, you can reserve on time and there is no gamble any longer based on lack of information. I have listed the URL below for those who are interested in having a look.

http://ompl.marine.usf.edu/PORTS/tampa.bay.html

Departing Dominica was the regular sideways off the dock movement and within five minutes we were on our way to Barbados. This is 14 knot run and that means that even with the North Atlantic Ocean swell coming in, it is a nice and quiet overnight trip. The chief engineer reported good things from below and so all is well in the world.