Emergency Detour


Last night at 10:30pm the Captain interrupted everything to announce that, in case anyone had noticed, he had made a 180 degree u-turn and the ship was heading back to the Falkland Islands.

One of the passengers was in critical need of medical attention beyond what could be provided by the ship’s doctor and the senior doctor made the call that he had to be taken off the ship. Therefore, we were proceeding at full speed back to the Falklands and at the same time a message had gone out to a Search and Rescue team on the islands and the captain was waiting to hear back from them. Either they would medivac the passenger out or, he would be taken off on land, whichever came first.
At midnight the announcement came for all ship’s hand to take up “flying positions” and everyone was asked to vacate the open decks on 14, 15, 16 and 17 and no flash photography or video was allowed. We spoke to a couple today whose balcony was on the side where the helicopter landed, and he said it was out there about 40 minutes.

The evacuation went like clockwork and the patient is undergoing treatment at the hospital in Port Stanley. Hopefully, all will go well. We lost some time but the captain says that we had some speed in hand and that we’ll arrive on time in Montevideo, Urugay, on Thursday.

And in other news, we lose yet *another* hour tonight! We will now be at Greenwich mean time less 2 hours. Amazing. But if you look at the map, you’ll see that the west coast of south America is nearly lined up with the east coast of north America, so I guess this continuous chipping away at the hours makes sense.

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