As we went to bed last night, we hadn’t noticed that the ship had not only sped up, but was also heading north, away from the Panama Canal, rather than towards it.
When Sue and Darryl joined us at breakfast, the real story started to unfold. At about 1:30am, they were awoken from their deep sleep by someone hammering on the door. They were simply told that there was a medical emergency and to vacate their cabin and head down to the Vista lounge. There, they were joined by all the passengers from section 7 on the ship, (we are in section 6).
Ross and Susan (yes, a fair few Susans on this ship…) didn’t wake immediately, and someone in full hi-vis protective gear burst in through the door and ordered them out – and that must have been freaky.
Apparently, the Dawn Princess had answered a distress call from a yacht (the ‘Blue Whale’?) where a crew member had been badly injured (broken leg?). A helicopter had also been called but due to the weather and sea conditions, they couldn’t get a medic onto the yacht, but remained hovering at the rear of our ship (hence the evacuation) whilst the ship despatched its own HRC (Highspeed Rescue Craft) to the yacht.
The crew member was shifted to our ship and his condition stabilised by our own medics and then the helicopter left. The passengers returned to their cabins and the crew – particularly the entertainment staff who had not long finished the deck party – returned to theirs, but unlike the passengers, they couldn’t sleep in.
Just as we were discussing this at breakfast, the Captain and his lady had just sat down opposite us, when Oswaldo, the Hotel General Manager came and had a quick word with him. With that, the Captain immediately went up to the bridge to tell everyone what had happened and to firstly, assure us that the injured man was OK and secondly, to tell us that it would delay our arrival at the Panama Canal by a couple of hours. Hopefully, the Canal authorities would be able to slot us in OK.
We had quite a busy day with trivia, coffee, then a dance class – ‘The Evening 3 Step’. Up in the buffet afterwards with Darryl and Sue, instructor John joined us just as Vasco was giving us his version of the night’s events. Vasco, had been chatting up (if that is the right word) a 94 year old female passenger. He claimed (in jest) at dinner that he’d see her later. When she got the knock on the door at 2am, she got all excited, only to be disappointed at the real reason for the call.
Whilst talking to John, we mentioned that out of the four of us, only Paula could do the Viennese Waltz, so he kindly offered to spend 5 minutes (it was nearer 15) with a private session, but we did it on the carpeted passageway behind the theatre. Not ideal, but he resolved a couple of issues I had with it.
No point in mentioning trivia…
I had lamb chops for dinner – and very nice too. Off then to the theatre for a new production show “Vintage Vegas”. Once again, although the costumes were good, the background had no glitter (Las Vegas = glitter?) and as most of the songs had been done by previous entertainers – including one or two genuine vocal impressionists – the overall impression was that it wasn’t exactly the best show we have seen. It did come alive with the dancers and once again, when all 4 singers were in harmony, but as a production show, just too much solo singing for our liking.
Mark relayed the revised Panama schedule and the two hour delay will probably work in our favour, as with the clocks back another hour, no need for an early start.
Once through the canal, we are of course back in the Pacific Ocean – which has a direct link to NZ, just that it will take over 3 weeks to get there.
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