I left you in my last post as we headed for Saipan.  I expressed my regret on not being able to go ashore owing to pressure of work.  Well, we arrived off Saipan in the early morning of the 8th.  We were pitching in a steep northerly swell and the wind was a-blowin’, around 30-35 mph.  Hmnn, not ideal conditions for entering a port, up and then across a narrow channel, heck, we couldn’t even see the leading lights through the rain.  

It’s at times such as these that my senses and experience come to the fore, weighing the pros and cons of attempting an arrival; width of channel, dangers, the swept path, (increase in beam while ‘crabbing’ sideways); stopping distances if I go in faster than we had planned, (decreasing the crabbing), is there another ‘abort’ point, (we always have a ‘commit’ point, where a decision has to be made if we are happy to proceed inward); numerous factors as you can judge.  The pilot boat is standing off, I have told him not to close (to embark the pilot) until the parameters are discussed with the Bridge team.  After years of taking such decisions, I am a good judge of character, I know how my team thinks and behaves without them even having to say anything; I could tell they had reservations even before I asked their opinion and we ran through the “what ifs”. Still slowly steaming, I called the Port Control and asked for weather conditions in the ‘harbour’, (there is little harbour, it is basically a berth open to the elements).  The VHF radio crackles; wind is 25-30 knots and then, out of the blue, “and there is an 11-12 feet swell near the berth”, in other words, even if we had tried to go in, we wouldn’t be able to tie up, let alone stay on the berth.  The decision is made for me and I reluctantly tell the port and guests that we are aborting our call and proceeding towards Osaka.  

So, we find ourselves heading north-north-west in a long swell and overcast skies.  We have a relative lull in the weather, however ahead of us, around 15-hours steaming, a storm is developing.  There is no avoiding it, the conditions stretch across our track, all the way from the Chinese east coast to northern Japan, we are unable to deviate.  I expect we will have around 30 hours of it, almost to our arrival in the Japanese Inland sea. Yesterday I considered, by way of recompense to guests, for missing Saipan, trying a scenic cruise of Iwo Jima, we pass about 70 miles to the west of it on our track. Unfortunately, the deviation is too far, time and fuel make it impossible.  

O well, we have great ship for such conditions, a ‘fine’ bow, she cuts through swells beautifully and it’s not as if we haven’t done this before.  They tell me that it was snowing in Osaka yesterday, it will be time to dig out the ‘winter woolies’ soon.

No photographs of Saipan, not that we could see it through the rain anyway, however here is an overview of Saipan chartlet, a time-lapse of arriving Guam and a brief (and not very professional)  video outside Saipan, I’m sure you’ll get the gist of it though .  😯 

Guam

Saipan.