At 11am this morning, Captain Kevin Bairnaert hosted a very full session in the Main Stage to address the embarkation delays and answer any other questions. As he started his presentation he told a story of being a new 2nd officer on a cruise ship and being on an airplane flying home from his assignment. They were boarded on an airplane and ended up setting for a long period of time with no explanation from the Captain as to what was going on. In the end, it was disclosed the that delay was due to Air Force One's arrival, In those cases, all other airline traffic is stopped. Captain Kevin made a pledge to never let that happen when he became in command. He would be transparent with his passengers which promotes happy passengers.
He went on to say that the reason for the departure delay was due to two factors: weather and 213 passengers who had delayed connections in arriving into Santiago and transfers to San Antonio. But the biggest issue was the weather issue. He showed us copies of internal emails from the port and screen shots from the weather maps on the bridge. This port is apparently a tricky one to sail into when the weather conditions exceed 15 knots and the swell is over 1.5 meters. There is also a requirement that two tugs be attached to any vessel when arriving or departing regardless of whether the ship has its own maneuverability like the Oosterdam has with azipods and thrusters. The required tugs cannot safely operate in the weather conditions I described above. The soonest that the port would re=open was 4am. As for the delayed passengers, 90 some got on between midnight and 3am. He didn't comment on the others. As far as departures are concerned, the cargo ships have priority. Therefore the container ship Volga was allowed to leave first. Then the Oosterdam was allowed to leave which is did starting just before 7am.
He then went on to describe why we were missing Puerto Montt. That had to do with the tide levels under a major power line. The ship can only pass under it at certain times and in certain tidal conditions. Additionally the ship did not have enough speed to make it to the proper point given a late departure and the time at which the ship needed to pass under the cable. So the decision had to be made to skip the port and head directly to Chacabuco.
I really appreciated the transparency that the Captain displayed and the audience seemed to as well. As I write this we're cruising along at 18.5 knots.
We've met a few people from Cruise Critic at the M&G and had lunch with one of the couples. We're looking forward to a good remainder of the cruise.