WATCH ABOVE: When an Edmonton woman set sail on a cruise ship two weeks ago, she never expected it would turn into a rescue mission. While en route to their first port of call, officers made a discovery, floating on the water not far from their ship. Shallima Maharaj reports.
EDMONTON – An Edmonton woman who recently took a cruise through the Caribbean says there were some exciting moments during her first day at sea.
The Norwegian Sun left its home port of Tampa, FL. on Sunday, April 12. When Darlene Robertson woke up on Monday she noticed the ship wasn’t sailing.
“I was alarmed. I looked out the window to see what was going on and sure enough we weren’t moving,” she explained. “There was a raft in the distance and then all of a sudden I see the rescue boat going towards it.”
Nine people were stranded on the raft in the middle of the ocean, somewhere between Florida and Honduras. Robertson says the raft appeared to be nothing more than a few pieces of wood and styrofoam with a sail on it.
“It was just a very small surface with nine people on it,” she said. “I could see a few water jugs that were tied to a pole in one of the pictures but they looked empty.
“They were out in the middle of nowhere … a long ways away from any land.”
Robertson says the sight had the entire ship buzzing.
“I wanted to know what their story was. I said, ‘That’s a movie right there.’ I wanted to talk to these people, if they spoke English, to find out what’s going on in their life that was so terrible that they had to leave their country and put their life at risk.”
After noticing the people on the raft the ship’s captain decided to alter the vessel’s course to see if they were in distress.
“They started making brief announcements over the PA system because everybody was concerned,” Robertson said. “They said, ‘We’re taking into consideration your safety as our passengers and that’s our first and foremost concern.’ So that made me feel quite happy.”
Crew on the ship learned the people had been at sea for three days. A spokesperson with Norwegian Cruise Line says officers immediately implemented rescue at sea measures.
“Following a security debrief, the individuals were brought onboard where they received medical care, food and clothing,” Christina Baez said in an email to Global News.
While Robertson said the whole ordeal was rather exciting for her and fellow passengers, she wonders what might have happened to those nine people had the ship not been there.
“Travelling at night on those oceans, there’s a lot of big ships that travel the waters, there could have been so many things take place that you don’t know. But I imagine they would have died.”
As per maritime protocol, the ship notified the authorities at the next port of call in Roatan, Honduras. The three women and six men taken aboard the Norwegian Sun were transferred to Honduran authorities when the ship arrived in port.
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