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Much going on, weather wise. A tropical depression had been forming ahead, which they had been watching for a few days now. They didn't think it would amount to much and so planned to sail on through it. That changed late yesterday.
The tropical depression has strengthened to a tropical storm, strong enough to be given an official name. Hello Tropical Storm Polo. It's directly in our path, and it's decided that the safer course of action is to do like Odile, turn away south to go around it while it's small and go around. There are 2 container ships nearby behind us, and they follow our lead and do the same thing. Polo is not as large as Odile or as strong, only blowing about 35-40 knot winds. The problem is, we are much closer to this storm then we were to Odile. The ship is starting to bob around again.
Seems all we did yesterday was nap, but we both wake up tired a little after 8am our time to rolling seas. The a/c in our room seems to be keeping our room almost uncomfortably cold, and for me, that's saying something. I prefer cool to hot. Stacey is freezing, sleeping with 2 or 3 extra blankets on her. It's cloudy and gray outside, and Stacey asks me if it's as cold outside as it looks. I open the sliding verandah glass door and step outside.
The warm humid air gives me a jolt. I can't believe how warm it is out there. I lean over the railing to take a look ahead, since we are near the back of the ship, and call Stacey to come and take a look. "I think we're gonna have rain in our future, real soon." Stacey looks over the rail with me and I point out the hazy curtain we are fast approaching. Looks like rain alright. Not 30 seconds later, we go from nothing to a light sprinkle to a full on downpour. It is seriously coming down.
The wind picks up and we soon have wind gusting 20-30 knots. It is rough out there. We watch the cruise director's morning show on tv and even he acknowledges the rough swaying. The word from the bridge is that we should be on the safe quadrant of the storm before noon. We get ourselves showered and presentable and go down to Parrot Cay for breakfast. Very hard to walk a straight line and must use handrails on the stairs down. Getting some rollercoaster weightless moments now.
After breakfast we carefully move forward to where the Captain is scheduled for a Q & A with the guests. We are early, but we going into the room where some game is being run by staff for guests but I want to sit down. Five minutes later, the Captain's voice comes over the intercom saying that he won't be leaving the bridge today and will try to reschedule for tomorrow. He updates the weather and the ships plans, such as our course corrections and that they will have to empty the wave pools, I mean, swimming pools, for safety sake, again. Apparently a pipe ruptured in one suite overnight and they are almost done cleaning it up. He sends the Staff Captain, Svladimir from Croatia, his second in command down for the Q & A, after telling us of the news of Odile.
Odile missed Puerto Vallarta somewhat and other than high wind and good size waves came out not too badly. Cabo San Lucas, on the other hand, took a near direct hit. The messages they got from Cabo says that they had 30+ foot waves crash into the bay, sinking many boats in the marina and causing considerable damage to the infrastructure in the area.
The staff captain tells us that Odile had given us 18 to 20 foot swells in the ocean to deal with at it's worst. I'd say that today at 2pm it was worse than that as we skirted by Polo. The rain really soaked the top two open deck areas and at one point, the wind drove the rain against our cabin deck windows and doors, causing a mini wave pool on our deck that the small drain in the floor stuggled to keep up with. Incredible, since we are at least 10-15 feet under cover from deck 9 above us. About 4 cabins away down the hall I see several officers and crew heaping up towels and using shop vacs to soak up water from our corridor. Didn't hear is the water from a cabin or somewhere above us, but they were dealing with it. Our cabin steward came to check on us and if our cabin was leaking at all, but so far, we're good.
Once again, the rocking and rolling has drained us, and we've spent the day watching shows on the tv while riding our surf-bed.
The Captain has made annoucements everyday at noon and 5pm updating our situation, and has given an extra one at 10am this morning. Polo seems to be following Odile's course for now, but they're hoping it doesn't follow it exactly since Cabo San Lucas has enough cleanup to do already. The ports and airports at Cabo and Puerto Vallarta had closed and or had flights cancelled, including the flight the Captain was supposed to take to leave the ship.
The wind is still blowing pretty good, at almost 5:30pm, but the seas are starting to seem a bit calmer and the rolling of the ship is as well. Polo is now North North West of us, and the intense rainbands that we went through have abated for now. Hard to imagine anyone being able to calm a storm like that with just a "Hush, be silent". The hope is that it's now behind us and that things will calm down in the next few hours and be smoother for dinner and the dinnershows and sleep tonight.
You'd think that missing 2 port days would put us ahead of schedule, but the extra distance travelled to go around these storms have meant that we are just on track to make our timeslot for our Panama Canal Transit. Used a lot of extra fuel too, but we're told we should have enough for 2 days past our Panama Canal arrival if needed. I don't know what the food situation is like, but I have yet to see a lack of variety yet.
The staff have been outstanding! Always trying to smile and say hello or ask how we're doing or if we need anything, even though I'm sure it's been difficult on them as well. In fact, I hear a Captains message for crew only while listening near a crew only door, where I hear him praise them for their efforts even though some of them are sick as well.
I don't know if I would call us seasick, since neither of us has lost any cookies, but it's definitely tiring trying to maintain your balance constantly when everything around you seems to be in motion.
Going to try to get to dinner tonight, and watch an Elton John impersonator at the main theatre show. Looking forward to calmer water ahead. At least the Panama canal locks should be calm. Only 2 feet of clearance on either side of them for our ship, we're told. Not much room to sway.
That's it for now. How's everyone else doing?
WYWH.
Kim =) and Stacey :)
- comments
Josiah Phillips Hopefully the storms don't come back
Jasmyn We're doing good, thanks. The weather has been sunny and mild here. Is the a/c always on? I know how Stacey feels, I would be freezing too.
Kim Yes, the a/c is always on. There is a temperature dial, but even maxed to warm it seems cool sometimes. Maybe just when we're overtired. Stacey's got 3 extra blankets, and I'm doing ok for the most part. I guess I could get the cabin host to get an engineer to come fiddle with it, but haven't so far.