And We Wait

January 03, 2012 / Robert Minkus

We spent the weekend watching a port in Honduras, Puerto Cortes.

The nominated vessel, Da Qiang, was at anchor along with a lot of other vessels. About 9:45pm our time on the 1st, we watched as one vessel after another weighed anchor and proceeded to tie up at the docks. My speculation is that that the holiday was over, and the 1st shift of 2012 was beginning.

It was not until around noon our time on January 2nd that the Da Qiang moved into position on the docks after the earlier boats had vacated one of the five berths.

I got excited this morning when I got the following message from VesselTracker.com.

Name: DA QIANG http://www.vesseltracker.com/en/Ships/Da-Qiang-I5410.html
IMO: 9153903
Time: 03-01-2012 12:03:40 UTC

OUTRANGE: The vessel DA QIANG has left the reception area of vesseltracker at region Gulf of Honduras

I hoped that it meant that the vessel had left port and is heading to Port Everglades, Florida.

The update from YachtPath, after five days with no updates, is that the vessel is still in Puerto Cortes loading and will not leave until January 5th, with a planned arrival in Florida on the 8th.

I cannot confirm this independently. None of my online tracking services say they have contact with the vessel. It means that the vessel is on the high seas, out of land-based AIS receivers, or that they turned off their AIS transmitter.

Therefore, we are left with the last update from YachtPath as the best information. I’ll keep trying to get an independent verification, but until the AIS on Da Qiang comes back alive, I’m in the dark.