Evening, St. Thomas

As we were dressing for the evening, Captain Pomata announced that the ship would be slowing significantly and then turning in a bit of a circle because a small dinghy had been spotted adrift just 30 minutes or so off the St. Thomas coast. Now this is something we don't encounter every day. The ship pulled up very close to the dinghy so that those on the bridge could look down through the glass floor in the bridge wings to see down into the dinghy. The port side decks were lined with spectators, dressed in everything from swimsuits to tuxes (and it was the hot, sunny side of the ship). Eventually, Captain Pomata announced that no one was in the dinghy (we later learned there was a scuba air tank in it), and that he had been instructed to stay along side while a Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched from Puerto Rico. Why it didn't come from St. Thomas (still easily within view) is anyone's guess. We ended up waiting about an hour for the Coast Guard to arrive.

Meanwhile, there were no bridge officers available for the Captains Circle party, although eventually the staff captain was able to attend and he brought us up to date.

Such excitement! We can only hope it was simply a dinghy that floated away from a buoy and not that a dive equipment failure that left a diver in distress under the water.

Meanwhile, we are now two hours late in our journey to Grand Turk, although Captain Pomata said he was trying to make up lost time for an on time arrival at 1pm tomorrow. We'll see, but I'm not concerned. If it had turned out that this was a rescue situation, being a few hours late into Grand Turk would have been inconsequential.

Dinner was lobster for me, beef Wellington for G. Entertainment was not to be; although we're moving our clocks back an hour tonight to EST, the day has caught up with us and sleep is our only option.

Photo: from the Captains Circle party and the staff captain explaining the ongoing dinghy situation to us