At Sea

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Last night after leaving Bonaire, at approximately 10:00 p.m. the ship received a call from the Dutch Caribbean authorities stating that a yacht named the “blue Whale” had a sick crew member on board that need to be evacuated. The captain altered course and headed to the yacht as did a rescue helicopter from the Dutch Caribbean to try and evacuate the ill sailor. Unfortunately the chopper could not make a rescue due to wind and sea conditions, and prior to this some cabins at the stern of the ship had to be evacuated in case the chopper could lift the sailor off the yacht and land him on board. This is done as a precaution in case the chopper crashes etc. A high speed inflatable boat was launched from the ship and in difficult conditions the sailor was transferred on board the Dawn Princess at roughly 2:00 a.m. this morning. This has put our entering the Panama Canal behind schedule by about 2 – 3 hours, I don’t know how this affects our place in the queue, now at least we don’t have to be up at 4:30 a.m. to see us entering the Canal. All this happened while we were sleeping soundly, the Captain advised us all of the events this morning.

During the daylight hours we continued our voyage on a Westerly Course across the Caribbean Sea towards Panama. The entire area of the Caribbean Sea, the numerous islands of the West Indies, and adjacent coasts, are collectively known as the Caribbean. The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas and has an area of about 2,754,000 Sq. Km. The seas deepest point is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica at 7,686 metres below sea level.

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