Another day with perfect weather. The ms Zuiderdam is busy with making up the lost time from our late departure from Puerto Limon and made landfall off Cuba at 10.30 this morning. The remainder of the day we will spend curving around the west coast and then heading into the Straits of Florida. There we… read more of “27 Feb. 2018; At…”
The weather is finally acting according to what it should be and we had a glorious Caribbean Sea day. The normal trade wind is blowing, the sun is shining and there are only some normal cumulus clouds in the air. The guests are complaining that it is hot outside on deck and thus we have… read more of “26 Feb. 2018; At…”
Things are always exciting when you mess around with boats. The Panama Canal does it as well and thus we arrived an hour late at the Colon 2000 terminal and found a large line waiting to reboard the ship. But it was not everybody and then it turned out that for a number of reasons… read more of “25 Feb. 2018;…”
The weather gods were with us and we arrived to observe a nice dry Panama day. The schedule worked out this time and the ms Zuiderdam moved into the first lock chamber at 06.30, just when the sun was rising. And that made it not too hot for standing outside on deck and watching the… read more of “24 Feb. 2018;…”
Today we sail from Willemstad on a SSW course heading for the Panama Canal. Apart from it being too windy it is a sunny Caribbean day. The strong breeze has pushed the waves up high enough to create that corkscrew motion again which I mentioned some time ago. I am seldom poetic but every time… read more of “23 Feb. 2018; At…”
Sometimes the authorities do not make the life of a captain easy. Last cruise we docked inside at the Matthey yard and that is nice for the guests as downtown is just around the corner. But for this cruise that was not possible, for unspecified reasons, and we had to go to the new Mega… read more of “22 Feb. 2018;…”
It was not a good morning; a strong frontal system was laying over the Middle Caribbean Sea bringing very strong winds gusting up to 50 knots, and sometimes even a little bit more, with rain squalls at times. The sea was very choppy and the ship quite “lively”. Thank God for stabilizers. The Front desk… read more of “21 Feb. 2018; At…”
Today is the first sea day while we sail from Half Moon Cay to Oranjestad, Aruba. During the night the ship sailed between the remaining islands of the Bahamas and then crossed the Old Bahama Channel to dive into the Windward Passage. We had Cuba with Cabo Maisi on our starboard side and then slowly… read more of “20 Feb. 2018; At…”
