It was only last week that I shared with you the story of how Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 recently came to the rescue of solo Atlantic rower Mylene Paquette, yet stories are already emerging of another cruise ship helping out fellow see-goers in distress; this time, Royal Caribbean’s Radiance Class vessel Jewel of the Seas.
In this instance, however it wasn’t a distress signal picked up by the Jewel of the Seas’ captain which triggered the rescue but the diligence of one of the ship’s passengers. Kendra Nagy was asleep during the first night of the ship’s week-long Caribbean cruise, when she woke up at 4am and opened her balcony door, only to hear a number of men crying for help.
Straight away, she called the ship’s main desk, the staff at which in turn alerted the ship’s captain, who immediately turned the ship around, issued the person overboard alarm signal and deployed the vessel’s floodlights to sweep the surrounding ocean. It took around an hour of searching until the lights picked up a white area of the ocean.
Mrs Nagy’s husband Roy picked up the story, saying: “When it finally hit on something that was clearly sticking out of the water a little bit, that was a rush. As the ship got closer, we saw the guy there waving. That’s when we really got goose bumps.”
The ship ended up rescuing three men, who had been in the ocean for around 10 hours after the speedboat they were in had capsized during its journey between St Thomas at St Croix. After being helped on-board the ship, they received food, water and medical treatment before being dropped off at St Maarten.
A statement from the line read: “We are just glad that we were at the right place at the right time to help them.”
As well as enjoying their Caribbean ports of call, the couple spent time on-board posing for photos with the rescued sailors and received gifts and praise from the captain, crew and fellow passengers.
By Simon Brotherton
Google
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