Today was day 11 of our cruise to NZ. While we were dining, the captain addressed the ship over the intercom. He said we are turning around and heading back to Hawai’i because of a medical emergency involving one of the passengers. We left Maui last evening during dinner. Apparently, we will rendezvous with a Coast Guard Helicopter 16 nautical miles off Hawai’i (the big island), where the passenger will be airlifted off the ship and back to a hospital in Hilo. The captain further added that a number of cabins on our deck will be evacuated at around 6 A.M., because of a concern for fuel spills from the helicopter. Fortunately, our cabin is not one of those to be evacuated. It was interesting experiencing the ship turning around and feeling the increased speed as we are heading back. While I was walking on the deck tonight, I could see the increased wake and spray from the bow as well as the louder sound of the engines aft.
When my family returned from NZ sixty years ago, we had a death on the ship between Tahiti and Panama. An older gentleman had played tennis, or engaged in some other strenuous activity, and when he jumped into the pool to cool off, he had a heart attack and died. I think my parents had dined with he and his wife at times. They had a funeral on deck and he was buried at sea. It was the first funeral I ever recall attending. It was a strange experience seeing his body wrapped up with weights sliding off a chute into the ocean. I think cruise ships today have morgues, but the ship we returned from NZ on, the Rangitane, apparently didn’t (it was also both a passenger and a cargo ship about a fourth the size of the ship we are currently traveling on).