Our first two ports in the Mediterranean Sea are tender ports where the ship anchors and we get off via a smaller boat and taken to shore. As mentioned in the Suez Canal post once we hit the Mediterranean area we encountered heavy swells. This appears to be due to a weather system over the eastern Mediterranean. The problem is that with swells in the anchorage area it’s unsafe to get onto a tender from the ship and as the prediction is for worse conditions tomorrow the Captain has decided to cancel the first two port visits in the Mediterranean. This means we will only see Santorini as an outline on the horizon as we arrived there this morning but could not get off the ship. And, we won’t see Crete at all.
In place of those, the Captain has decided that we will be two more days at sea and on the 27th of March, when we were scheduled to be at sea, we will, instead, be at Corfu, Greece. So, if you are following the schedule in the initial post or the map on my door, cancel Santorini and Crete and insert Corfu on Tuesday, 27 March.
It’s too bad but safety dictated the change and one has to expect such changes when you are on a voyage that was scheduled so long ago without knowledge of the conditions.
A photo of sea conditions off the bow of the ship is included so you can see what we are encountering. Keep in mind that it’s much worse at sea level as the photo was taken from my balcony which is eight decks up. Santorini is also shown in outline against a brightening sky.
