This so strange, my original post seems to have ‘thrown a wobbly’, some of the writing, photos and videos have disappeared, this hasn’t happened before, so here I am, trying to edit and rewrite……..

I was surprised that by putting a latitude and longitude into Google maps I can give you a ‘visual’ of where we are.  We are making just over 14 knots, (15.4 mph, 24 kph), almost halfway across the Indian Ocean and 2,700 miles, (4,320 kms) until we reach Durban.

The Pacific Princess leaves, 5 hours before us.

The shortest route from Fremantle to Durban is a ‘Great Circle’ track however this would take us south, into the ‘Roaring Forties’, the weather-machine of the southern hemisphere, with storms rolling around the globe.  Having been there before, on a bulk-carrier, I had no wish to go there again and so we take a ‘Rhumb Line’ track, which keeps us north of the worst of it.  Nevertheless, we still catch the northern periphery of those storms.

Our weather programme and the first of our ‘blows’

We are keeping busy, managing to do some maintenance which would, have we had guests on board, been impossible.  We are also trying to keep everyone motivated during this ‘quiet’ time, organising crew activities such as quizzes, games and activities.  It surprised me that many crew members can’t swim, so swimming classes included 🙂

We are of course doing our best to reduce expenditure, fuel=$, so every cent saved counts.  We have emergency lighting on in most areas, some areas , none at all.  Air-conditioning is only where needed, all of us eat communaly in the Lido, there are 550 of us, so much of the kitchens are shut down,………..the list is endless.  It is surreal when one walks around this beautiful ship and to give you an idea, i took the GoPro on a stroll around the ship that many of you know well.

I wrote earlier about my time on the bulk carrier.  We took iron-ore, (100,000 tonnes) from the ore fields of western Australia to Japan. here it was discharged and back we went again for another load.  We were to do the same again for my last voyage of my contract, however the cargo was sold and we had to proceed to Rotterdam to discharge, just my luck.  Here’s where the Great Circle route came into play; we went south, into the “Roaring Forties” and spent many days with our deck partly submerged and rolling our guts out, (no stabilisers).  Hence my reservations for doing so again.

We intend to arrive in Durban on 5th April, stopping for a few hours to take bunkers, (fuel), stores and provisions.

Thank you for your comments and good to see that you are back home.   Zaandam has her challenges and if you want to let the crew of Zaandam (and Rotterdam who is assisting her), know that you are thinking of them,  the easiest way to do this quickly is on social media – on  Facebook and Instagram. A few words of encouragement would do a power of good. You can tag it #HALstrong

Stay well.

Jonathan