Thursday13th September 2012 ­ Hurricane Update

For the record I thought it might be interesting to show just why we needed to avoid Hurricanes Leslie & Michael – described by the Captain ‘as our friends!’.  The chart shown in the photo is for 10.00am on 11^th September.  If you look on the extreme right bottom youwill see a small boat with a diagonal line plotting our current course from the Azores to Port Saguenay on the St Lawrence River Canada.

If you look at the top half of the photo at the line coming diagonally down you will see another small boat on the edge of what was Hurricane Leslie.  It shows the position the Balmoral would have been in had we followed the original course from Cobh to Halifax, Nova Scotia - clearly not a good position to be in!!

As I write this posting it is 6.00pm on Thursday 13^th September and we are about 900 miles NW of the Azores and we are feeling the affects of Hurricane Leslie which by now has passed Newfoundland and heading across to Iceland and the north of Scotland but decreasing in power and intensity. The ship, however, is rocking around tonight so much so that I have decided against the gym since on Deck 11 the motion is magnified and walking the treadmill is like being on a roller coaster!!

The weather should begin to calm down now which is good news since we still have 3 full days at sea before we arrive in Port Saguenay on 17^th Sept.

There is another Hurricane – Nadine winding herself up to the south but this should not affect us although there is still time for storms to develop for the return crossing of the Atlantic at the end of September!