Ovation of the seas has turned around. Any idea why?

[mr walker]

3 hours ago, Hunter69 said:

It's driven by Italian's. They only know one speed. Flat-out...

 

 

So they would be blowing the horn all the time also 🙂

 

Interesting to learn about doing the doughnuts to kill time. In my experience they have just cruised very slowly or even stopped. Must be some reason for the circling?? I had read at some time ships need to occasionally do a full 360 to re-set the compass or something similar, but that was just once a year or something like that, and the way I interpreted that was more like a spin than doing laps?? 

[MargoK]

15 hours ago, boeckli said:

 

The number of vessels had me perplexed as well, so I checked a little deeper. If you overlay ships' names, you see they're all named "Sat-Ais", not actual passenger vehicles. No idea what they are - some kind of beacon maybe??

 

What has astounded us in Milford Sounds in the mornings is the number of planes landing and taking off - lost count!

 

 

[Kiwi Kruzer]

49 minutes ago, mr walker said:

 

So they would be blowing the horn all the time also 🙂

 

Interesting to learn about doing the doughnuts to kill time. In my experience they have just cruised very slowly or even stopped. Must be some reason for the circling?? I had read at some time ships need to occasionally do a full 360 to re-set the compass or something similar, but that was just once a year or something like that, and the way I interpreted that was more like a spin than doing laps?? 

 

Yes thats true. Once a year a ship has to do a 360 spin to check the setting of the compass. It is normally done in a sheltered deep water harbour where they have plenty of room. We did it on Star Princess when the ships were still calling at Lyttleton. The harbour there was ideal for such a manouvre.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

41 minutes ago, MargoK said:

 

What has astounded us in Milford Sounds in the mornings is the number of planes landing and taking off - lost count!

 

 

 

Its almost a shuttle service from Queenstown which is not far away as the crow flys ,

or in this case the planes.

Its so close that they were talking about a monorail or gondala service at one stage......but a few hurdles as its a National Park.

[gbenjo]

16 hours ago, boeckli said:

 

The number of vessels had me perplexed as well, so I checked a little deeper. If you overlay ships' names, you see they're all named "Sat-Ais", not actual passenger vehicles. No idea what they are - some kind of beacon maybe??

 

SAT-AIS for maritime. Satellites make it possible to identify and track seafaring vessels all over the world, covering the oceans and the Antarctic.

[The_Big_M]

6 hours ago, Kiwi Kruzer said:

Yes ,there are numerous small boats that cruise Milford Sound. Heres a link to the webcam at the jetty

http://www.takeabreak.co.nz/webcams/197/milford_webcam

 

Thanks! I'd take it that they're the transponders they're carrying, but they're not registered to a ship so you just see the beacon without it identifying the name, since they're just smaller local craft.

[Essiesmom]

Sat-Ais means that they are identified by satellite, but there are no land based AIS receivers to tell us who they are.  If you had a paid upgrade to Marine Traffic you could have them identified.  But their paid upgrades get kind of pricey.  EM

[MicCanberra]

Cheers.

[MicCanberra]

On ‎12‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 4:15 PM, ozbrian said:

What he said  up there ^^^

What a difference a day makes. Other friends on the Radiance of the Seas.

[paradise4me]

this is so exciting!! There is such a small amount of info on the Ovation and we are going next week!! Thank you!!!

 

[mr walker]

2 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

What a difference a day makes. Other friends on the Radiance of the Seas.

We're hoping for something like this photo for Jan 31 on Radiance, but know that maybe that won't happen. On our previous visit in Jan 2013, we lucked out with great weather for our morning visit - this time it will be late afternoon. Fingers crossed

[MicCanberra]

Yeah, it is very hard to get the timing right, they do get around 13 metres of rain there a year, so to catch it when they do not have rain is difficult.

[teigenes]

We will be on Solstice in Milford Sounds on Dec 30th and as we all know the weather is always unpredictable.  This will be our 4th sailing thru here and each time the weather on our previous voyages has been different but I have to say the changeable  weather has its own beauty and during or after rain the waterfalls are amazing. Then on a beautiful fine day there are other sights that make the heart sing!!

[MicCanberra]

Yes, I have been lucky and managed to get into the sounds every time so far. Nearly always different weather as it changes so quickly as well.

[boeckli]

41 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Yes, I have been lucky and managed to get into the sounds every time so far. Nearly always different weather as it changes so quickly as well.

Same here - will be there again next week

[Russell21]

2 hours ago, teigenes said:

We will be on Solstice in Milford Sounds on Dec 30th and as we all know the weather is always unpredictable.  This will be our 4th sailing thru here and each time the weather on our previous voyages has been different but I have to say the changeable  weather has its own beauty and during or after rain the waterfalls are amazing. Then on a beautiful fine day there are other sights that make the heart sing!!

I agree, the first time we were in there it was after a storm the night before and there were waterfalls everywhere. We were there a bit over a week ago in dry overcast weather and realised that previously the waterfalls had totally consumed us and this time we were overwhelmed by the grandeur of the mountainous territory surrounding us without the distraction of the falls.

We have promised ourselves at least one more trip there, hopefully more.

[MicCanberra]

I am sure you will enjoy it no matter what weather you have.

[Kiwi_cruiser]

On 12/9/2018 at 2:47 PM, ozbrian said:

plenty of traffic in the sound but Ovation hasn't sent out a signal for 11 hours on marine traffic which is where I saw her do the long slow circle as David said.

 

There is No / poor AIS coverage in Milford sound, so the data for that area can be out of date or wrong.

[MicCanberra]

Thanks David, that would explain it.