World Cruise day 6/152 - What the heck is PVSA? And...boobies!

Cruise day: 6/152
Ports: 2
Ports days: 2
Sea days: 4
Countries: 2
Continents: 1

 

If you read yesterday's blog and caught the late update at the end, you already know that while today was supposed to be spent in Cartagena, Colombia, that didn't happen.  Colombia changed the allowable percentage of infected folks from 2% to 1% and we are just over that limit.

The Captain rerouted us and we are heading to tomorrow's scheduled stop, Colon, Panama.  We are scheduled to get there tonight, so I am calling this a port day, at least for now. UPDATE - we didn't dock until 7 PM and couldn't get off, so I changed it to a sea day.

With the cancelation of Columbia, folks on Cruise Critic started questioning whether we now have a PVSA issue.  Huh?  If you Google "PVSA", you find things like:

• Presidential Volunteer Service Award (est. 2004)
• Post-Vasectomy Semen Analysis

I'm pretty sure that's not what the writer was questioning.  Here's the one that matters:

PVSA, Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886. It is a protectionist piece of legislation related to foreign vessels carrying passengers to and from US ports.

No foreign vessels shall transport passengers between ports or places in the United States, either directly or by way of a foreign port, under a penalty of $200 [then - now $762] for each passenger so transported and landed.

Further:

The Passenger Vessel Services Act, however,

• does not prohibit foreign-flagged ships departing from and returning to the same U.S. port, provided the ship visits any foreign port;
• does not prohibit foreign-flagged ships departing from a U.S. port, visiting a distant foreign port, and then continuing to a second U.S. port. However, in order to embark in a U.S. port and disembark in a second U.S. port, the vessel must visit a distant foreign port outside of North America (Central America, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and all of the Caribbean except Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, count as part of North America);

That second bullet is where we fall.  Cartagena satisfied the "distant foreign port" rule.  Without that port, when we dock in LA and disembark passengers that embarked in Port Everglades, the ship will be in violation of PVSA.  Yeah!

I really don't care - this is a Viking issue.  Plus, I'm sure there must be provisions when a good-faith itinerary with the required stop was interrupted through no fault of Vikings.  Either way - not my problem!  But people sure love drama!

We attended our second bridge lesson.  There is a lot of "what" instruction, and little "why", leaving us confused. To understand, we really need to know why we do something, not just what to do.  Perhaps it will clear up as we gain more knowledge.

At noon, the Captain made his daily sea announcement and then added COVID comments.  Currently, 11 are positive for COVID and in isolation, and 4 are in preventative quarantine as close contacts.  Overall, he was upbeat about our progress.  Fingers crossed...

On a positive note, we have boobies!  Brown boobies to be exact.  There were at least three following us and a bunch more as we got closer to Panama.  It is always fun to watch them fish alongside the ship.

At 12:30 PM, we were off to the Star Theater to defend our trivia title. It did not go well!

What country claims this flag? 

Turns out, it is Estonia.  We didn't know that as well as several other items.  Oh well, there will be more.

It was a slow cruise kind of afternoon. Arlona downloaded a new book on her Kindle. We were able to hang out on our deck, which was nice. We were close to Panama, but couldn't dock until 7 PM so we were moving very slowly.  At about 6:40 PM, the local pilot came aboard and he directed us into port.

As we were waiting to port and the sun was setting, we got a view of the tons of ships sitting outside Colon, Panama, presumably waiting to transit the canal.

We noted that they finally retracted the roof over the pool, and it made for a very nice view into the pool area.

Here's a look on all sides of the ship at Colon, Panama as we are docked.

Tomorrow, we will take a tour in Panama, and the following day, we will make a full transit of the canal, all the way to the Pacific.

I had a conversation with a senior crew member tonight.  They assured me that Viking is committed to continuing the cruise after Los Angeles.  They also confirmed that we are holding steady at 11 cases onboard - nine passengers and two crew and that nobody is seriously ill.  That is all very encouraging and we remain hopeful about the cruise.  We also were able to request excursions for Los Angeles tonight.  It is all positive news.

Until tomorrow...