Day four in Charleston and we again have fantastic weather. Students and staff have been making the most of the great beaches, top quality restaurants, and even some golf at Patriot’s Point.

As we prepare to get underway today, there are changes to our itinerary we want to explain and hope to clear things up with this post. In February, as is customary, the Academy announced our desired foreign port list to MARAD (the owner of the training ship) who then contacted the US State Department to gain diplomatic clearance from those ports. The diplomatic clearance is an agreement between the two governments as to the status of the federal vessel and its crew while in that foreign port. When we were notified that France had denied diplomatic status to training ships, we made the change from France to Scotland in our request. To date, we have not received diplomatic clearance to enter Scotland and MARAD can not give us assurance that the diplomatic clearance will be received. As a result, we have decided that sailing across the Atlantic without the clearance to enter any port when we arrive is imprudent. Port arrivals and departures are critical evolutions in the development of both Deck and Engine students and our revised itinerary can guarantee these opportunities.

When we leave Charleston today, we will sail to Tampa, Florida to arrive Saturday, May 28. We plan to be in port through May 30, departing May 31. Our next port of call is still to be determined but will likely be Galveston, Texas. While the revised itinerary is a disappointing turn of events, the change in ports will not affect our students’ ability to fulfill their sea time and training requirements on cruise.

In the meantime, we continue to work with MARAD and the State Department to resolve the delay in diplomatic clearances that would allow us to preserve our planned itinerary for the second half of cruise (Cruise B). We will provide updates as we receive further information.

DISCLAIMER: Due to the Training Ship’s Limited connectivity to the Internet, blog postings are delayed and are not intended for real-time communication. To communicate with your student, please send messages to his or her issued e-mail address.

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