A Rescue At Sea

The sinking of the Titanic was in the back of our minds. Halifax, Novia Scotia is where most of the victims of the Titanic are buried and that is where we had spent the day. Of course, we weren't worried about our ship sinking. Princess cruise ships don't sink. But still, when you're in the North Atlantic, the Titanic does cross one's mind.

After we were back on the ship, a storm struck. It doesn't seem like twelve foot waves and high winds should affect a huge cruise ship, but we were being tossed from side to side. Thunderous blows sent shudders through the ship, loose stuff was banging the outside of the ship and sometimes the ship would go up and just drop. To amuse ourselves, we would bet how far we could walk without being thrown against a wall.

Another source of amusement was watching the tsunami-like waves coming out of the swimming pool. And then, we heard the ship's horn blow. Being in the North Atlantic in a storm and hearing that sound freaked us out. Something terrible must have happened. We've only heard the ship's horn in ports, not at sea. We vaguely remembered that something like seven blasts in a row meant to prepare to abandon ship. We didn't know what one blast meant. It seemed like a good time to go back inside.

Careful to maintain our cool demeanor, we walked over to the first employee we saw, who was busy stringing up yellow "do not cross" crime scene tape across the doors to the outside. Cheerfully, he replied that in the fog, the ship has to blow its horn periodically. I wasn't sure I believed him, but that was the official answer to our question.

Feeling a little queasy, I wanted to go get a piece of bread to coat my stomach. The problem was that the food was on the fifteenth floor and Lindsay was afraid to go up there. Normally, Lindsay was very happy to go to the fifteenth floor, but this time we knew the rocking would be worse up there. After a while, he bravely agreed to escort me up there. We quickly ate and got out of there.

It was getting late, so we decided to go to bed. Sleep was difficult. With all of the booms, rattles and rocking, we just laid there. Then, we heard a sound that caused us to jerk in fear. The room intercom chimes went off, followed by an announcement about an emergency on board. A passenger was critically ill and needed blood. I would have liked to help, but I was the wrong blood type. We didn't know what had happened, but it didn't seem like there could be a good outcome unless the patient got off the ship as soon as possible.

Around one a.m., the chimes sounded again. This time, it was the captain waking everyone up. We were expecting the worst. The captain of a cruise ship isn't going to wake everyone in the middle of the night unless something bad is happening. He spent way too long apologizing before getting to the point. In the meantime, I couldn't believe this was happening. Surely, he was going to tell us the ship was going down. When the captain finally got to the point and told us we had to go back to Halifax and meet the Coast Guard for a helicopter evacuation of the critically ill passenger, I was so relieved. I was looking forward to watching the rescue operation, but we slept through it.

I later learned that the top floors of the passenger cabins had been evacuated, the lifeboats were lowered into the water and fire fighting equipment was set up on the deck. With the rocking boat, high wind and darkness, there was a possibility that the helicopter might crash into the ship. The basket was lowered three times before they got it right, but the passenger was eventually safely pulled up into the helicopter and taken to a hospital.

Early the next morning, the captain once again woke us up with some bad news. After he finished his apologies, we learned that the rescue operation had been successful, the passenger was still alive and in stable condition, but that we were behind schedule. There would be no port day in Sydney, Novia Scotia. Of course that was fine. Considering all of the things that could have gone wrong, missing a port was not a problem at all.