snapped lines and a new berth

This week was very unusual. The cruise ship berth that we have been at here in Grenada is very exposed to the sea and in the middle of last week, we started to experience the ship moving a lot as swells caused by hurricanes in other parts of the Caribbean found their way to Grenada.

On Thursday afternoon, the ship was really rocking and moving around and in the middle of the afternoon, one of our mooring ropes snapped as the pressure of holding a 12000 ton ship against the quayside became too much. At the time the ship had around 500 visitors onboard, and we were very concerned for their safety. So we had to stop anyone else coming into the ship, and we held all the visitors onboard until more lines could be put out. But the first extra line put out also snapped.

So the captain had the engines started and used them and the bowthruster to keep the ship against the quayside so we could get all the visitors off the ship.

Having lost 2 mooring lines already, the captain took the decision to take the ship out to anchor so we spent the rest of Thursday out at anchor. We contacted local radio and tv stations and asked them to tell the island what had happened.

On Friday, we were able to come back into the berth as the swells had reduced and reopen again in the middle of the morning. But on Saturday morning, the ship was moving again and the forecast was for it to get worse. The captain was concerned we might loose more mooring lines and if we had to leave the berth, we might not be able to come back in to load our vans and gangways.

We prayed about it and asked the port authorities if we would be able to go into the inner harbour where there is a container berth. Would we also be able to open to the public?

The response came back to say yes we could use the other berth and the public could come on the ship. So at 10:30 am Saturday we sailed around to the inner harbour and by 1pm we had all the gangways set up again and were ready to open to the public.

Saturday and Sunday were very busy with many Grenadian's taking the opportunity to visit the ship on our last 2 open days. Despite only being open in the afternoons on both days, we had over 8000 visitors.

Tomorrow we sail to Tobago where 94 new recruits will join us in a few weeks after they have completed their pre-ship training.

Before that we expect a very busy couple of weeks with absolute minimum manning as many of our team finish their time onboard before the new recruits arrive.

We are also having several leadership changes in the coming weeks, including our ships Director, Mike Hey. Last night the leadership team went out for a lovely evening to say goodbye to Mike and Ann and 2 of the other divisional directors who are also leaving.

So it will be all change over the next few weeks.