It is about 780 miles from Puerto Caldera to Huatalco de Santa Cruz and therefore we had another glorious day at sea. Almost wind still weather and that meant that on deck it was just pleasant due to the breeze created by the ships speed. The rain eased nicely off during the night and we had a bright and sunny day. That the rain moved away was not so much due to the rain itself as the fact that we were sailing away from the shore line. In this area the coast arches away from our course line as we sail on one straight line towards our next port. Only tomorrow morning around 0900 we will make landfall again when we come close to Huatalco. In the meantime I am keeping an eye on the weather. The wind in the bay of Tehuantepec is still diminishing in strength and that means that tonight we should not have much of a problem. I warned the guests, especially those on the starboard side who could face the full brunt of the wind if it is coming, to prepare the ship for bad weather. But it looks good, at least for Tehuantepec and I do not expect the winds to go above 40 knots this time. Continue reading

With the pilot scheduled for 0500 hrs so I arrived on the bridge at 04.00 hrs and the noise on the VHF was just starting. As had been expected a cargo ship had to leave the berth to make room for us and it seemed that the shore side was using the VHF for wake up calls. My Spanish is not what it used to be, and I am certainly not an expert in the local variation of Costa Rican Spanish, but whatever was communicated was working. 15 minutes before we were due to dock the container ship went off the dock and to the anchorage, with I assume a very unhappy captain on the bridge. I got him out of bed and I was delaying his cargo operations until the Statendam was departing again. Still we had confirmed docking space arranged long time ago and contracts have to be honored. With the pilot on board making important noises in his walkie talkie to somebody very far away, the Statendam went alongside the vacated berth. We are here mainly for the tours, as there is not much to see in Puerto Caldera or nearby Punta Arenas. For everything you have to go inland and “inland” is the reason we are here. Nature here in Costa Rica is so impressive that we have this call especially in the schedule to offer tours here. A gesture that is appreciated by the guests on board as we had nearly 75% of all guests on these tours. Continue reading

Golfo Dulce is about 340 miles steaming from the Panama Canal and we had a scheduled afternoon sail through. Holland America started calling here in the late 80’s as an alternative to Puerto Caldera which we had to cancel once because the swell was running the wrong way. Feedback from the guests has been so positive that we have kept the call in the schedule, whenever it worked out with the mileage to make between the various ports. If we run the cruise southbound then it is a morning call, so that we still are on time for the Panama Canal and if we are northbound, it is an afternoon call so we do not have to race all the way from Panama to make it on time for a late morning visit. Early afternoon works better anyway as we can offer the guests a full morning program with the Cruise Director. Based on that philosophy we sailed into the bay around 1pm, and arrived off Golfito Roads an hour later to embark the authorities. Golfito is a banana port and predominantly used by the Chiquita Company. As we are sailing through Costa Rican territory the ship has to be cleared and for us that works out very well, because tomorrow we are in Puerto Caldera, which is also Costa Rica. Thus we get cleared here for tomorrow as well. Because we do not touch land anywhere inbetween, the clearance stands for both calls. During our scenic cruising the authorities remain on board, to make sure that we do not stop anywhere during our scenic cruising. When we leave the bay we briefly stop at Golfito again and they leave by the boat that brought them to the ship in the first place. Continue reading

As scheduled we did arrive at 05.30 at the entrance to the Panama Canal, sailing past a large number of ships at anchor. They were either waiting for a passage time, waiting for bunkers, or waiting for orders of where to go next. Bulkcarriers and Tankers quite often sail for the spot market, e.g. going  where there is cargo without having a regular long term contract. A few were just waiting until their head office had payed the transit bill. As a cruise ship we cannot afford to have to wait for that and the purser does make doubly sure that the money for the transit (about $ 249,000) has been submitted to the Panama Canal Authority. As soon as we were in the break water the whole circus started again with boat after boat coming to the ship. Agent, Boarding Officer for clearance, Canal Technician (he brings a GPS box for the pilot) First Pilot and Fumigation officer. In the meantime we moved slowly towards the first locks and while doing so the ship got cleared and two more pilots joined. One to relieve the first pilot half way through the canal and the 2nd one to be at the stern in the locks. From there he controls the last two locomotives and keeps the ship off the lock walls. As our lifeboats are overhanging we cannot see the side of the ship from the bridge wings and therefore we require a 3rd pilot. Just before the locks the Panama Canal Crew comes on board, 19 of them. 12 go forward as 4 locomotives are secured there and 7 go aft where only 2 locomotives are being made fast. That puts the whole show on the road and off we went for our southbound transit. Continue reading

And so we sped in the direction of the Panama Canal, with the wind and the swell in the back. We were sailing just north of Colombia for most of the day but in the afternoon we started to cross that part of the Caribbean Sea that they call the Colombian Basin. At least the underwater part. Further to the West is another such area called the Clark Basin. Basins indicate underwater area’s which are relatively flat.  There might be undulations of about a few 100 feet in height difference but compared to the depth of the water 10,000 feet or more, the sea bottom is considered flat.  Thus when we sailed away from the coast of Aruba, which is nothing but a sort of mountain whose top sticks above water, we basically sailed gently over a downwards going slope until we came to the flat sea bed of the Colombian Basin. It would be amazing if we could see this whole area without water. It would put our whole perspective of the oceans in a different light. Still that is not going to be the case, so we just have to continue to wonder about what goes on there in the depths of the ocean.  As a navigator you have time to wonder about these sorts of things while keeping a good look out, out of the window for other ships. To be a good navigator you need to have a bit of a contemplative character while standing your watch, as not all the time things are happening. My wife calls it “worse than watching paint dry” and cannot understand how we do it.  But then I cannot always understand people who do not appreciate “the sound of silence” on occasion. Continue reading

 Approaching Aruba from the West gives the problem that it is hard to see. You have to look into the sun, rains clouds in the area make the light very diffuse and the island is fairly flat. It is not as if an “Aruba Mountain” is rising out of the ocean and visible for miles around. Aruba has one hill, the Hooiberg (that would translate in Hay Mountain although it is more a Hay hill) but for the rest the island is flat. When approaching the port the most significant items rising up from the land are the container stacks in the cargo port, the big casino hotel in the centre of the town and any cruise ships that might have docked there already. The port itself lays in the inner curve of the island sheltered behind a reef that leaves a natural entrance and exit. Standard routine is to enter from the West side and leave via the East side. Other way around is also possible but west –East is a more natural approach. Thus we came around the south west side of the island and so could line up directly in the leading lights which will ensure that you are approaching the middle of the channel and also indicate if you are being set away by the current and or the wind. Continue reading

 The frontal system was moving away from us today but it had a lot of wind in its tail, so for most of the day it blew about 30 knots but as there was not much swell accompanying it, the ship was mostly steady and thus it was a great day on board. By the time we will arrive in Oranjestad Aruba; the wind should have gone down to 10 to 15 knots, which is the best we can hope for when docking there. In Aruba the docks are perpendicular to the wind and if there is a strong trade wind blowing it is very difficult to keep the ship alongside while the ropes are being sent ashore. So the less wind there is, the better it is for my heart rate. Between midnight and 6 am we sailed through the Windward Passage located between Cuba and Haiti. The most southwestern point of Haiti is called Cap Tiburon and we cleared that one just after 06.00 and for the rest of the day and night we sailed and will sail through the Caribbean Sea on a south easterly course. That will bring us eventually to the West point of Aruba to end up in front of Oranjestad at 08.45  As is the case with all the ports on the A.B.C islands, Oranjestad is located on the southwest side where the bays are and also the best shelter from the strong trade winds & cold fronts coming over from the open sea. Continue reading

 We indeed had a wobbly evening with the ship taking a little lurch every time a wave caught itself under the square stern.  So by 11 pm we were out of the Gulf Stream and from then on we had normal waves with a regular amplitude and thus the ships stabilizers could ensure a regular ride. The cold front that is creating all this wind is slowly moving towards the Mexican mainland, pushed downwards by the tropical storm area called Sean and this morning we could see it coming over our ship. Sometimes frontal systems are vaguely defined and lay over an extended area, sometimes they are sharply defined and more intense. This time we could almost see the edge of it. A sharp line of rows of clouds that moved in a South Westerly direction. As this is the month of change, going from the summer to the winter pattern, the whole area is unstable and at the moment it is horrible weather in Panama, as they have the first monsoon trough of the season. That brings a lot of wind and rain and it makes for very unpleasant weather. The good thing is looking at the weather cycle it should be gone by the time we get there. Continue reading

 On the 11th of the 11th, in the 11th year of the 21st century, we approached Fort Lauderdale pilot station. As we had an early morning arrival, I could not try to get the pilot on at exactly 11 past 11 in the morning. That would have looked quite impressive in the log book; all those 1’s in a row. During the night it got indeed a bit wobbly, courtesy of the NNW wind blowing against the sea being pushed north by the Gulfstream. Then you can get a sort of short chop that does not make the ship pitch or roll but gives a movement best compared with a car driving over un-even cobble stones. As the wind pushes against the waves it neutralized some of the Gulf Stream current and instead of the normal 3 knots in the axes of the Stream we only experienced 1, barely 2 knots. At lot less than I had been hoping for, so I had to keep the engines going full out all the way to the pilot station. The pilot hopped on board right on time and 5 minutes later she had the conn and we were sailing into port. The Noordam was preceding us and I like to have a ship ahead of me, as it normally takes care of moving any small boats out of the fairway that might be there. And so it worked this time, except one. As soon as the Noordam had passed, one sport fisherman returned to his favourite spot – right in the middle of the fairway – and stayed there. While we were bearing down on him, the pilot boat was frantically trying to get him to move. Eventually he went but only when we were nearly on top of him. I would NOT be very happy to stay in a spot where you see 58,000 tons of cruise ship bearing down upon you but he did not seem to mind. My father in law used to say: “They are out there…… you just have to find them”. We found one this morning.

Continue reading

Tropical Storm Sean is still active in the North Atlantic Ocean but moving very slowly and I do not expect that it will have much effect on the weather around Florida. It will be a breezy day but that is nothing to worry about. For the time being, the weather is great, we are sailing between the Bahamas and Cuba and the numerous islands, reefs and keys are really doing a good job with taking the momentum out of the windy weather coming from the North. The only thing that I do not like is that the wind has already turned to the NNW. And that means it is a head wind and I am losing the free knot of pushing current that I had hoped for. The area North of Cuba normally has easterly winds, part of the flow generated by the trade wind system. If that flow is not interrupted it nicely starts to push the water to the North West and that gives the ship a knot to 1.5 knots of extra speed in the back. As soon as that wind stops, the current diminishes and if the wind then turns to the West or North West, it falls away completely. The ship loses that free speed and instead has to start heading into the wind. This was the case today and now I was not saving fuel but spending it, as the ship now had to push harder while going against the wind. Hopefully I will get some extra free speed tonight when we enter the Straits of Florida, although with the NNW wind blowing there, the Gulf Stream might not be running that fast as with following winds. Continue reading