The Most Traveled Passenger party was this evening in The Adagio Lounge, and immediately upon entering we noticed that Captain Pomata and the staff captain were both missing...highly unusual. Instead, Hotel General Manager Peter Hollinson stood in, and we had our photo taken with him. As soon as we sat down, at about 7:40pm, Captain Pomata announced from the bridge that, due to an urgent medical emergency, the Emerald Princess was immediately returning to St. Thomas under Coast Guard instruction.
61 cruises and this is the first time we've seen this happen. My first inclination, after 12 years of Catholic education, was to say a Hail Mary, but I was at a cocktail party, so I thought a Hail Mary instead. We could feel the ship make its turn, and could tell that it was truly speeding back to St. Thomas. As we were nearly two hours out from St. Thomas, this process was going to take awhile, and we settled into the party and had the best time ever, talking with Larry and Ileana, the most traveled passengers and Hank and Enid, who we met while boarding on December 17 and have run into constantly over the past 18 days. It never fails to amaze me that, with over 3200 passengers on this ship, I see several hundred every day who are new to me, but then I see others several times each day.
By the time the party broke up about 9pm, we walked out to the back of the ship and saw that we were already at St. Thomas. What we didn't realize at first was that we were already docked at Havensight, not up close but somewhere between the second and third berths. The panorama of the Charlotte Amalie harbor at night, with lights dotting the hill sides, was spectacular.
Can you imagine the effort it took make this whole process possible? From the medical center to the navigational bridge to security who blocked off the Promenade Deck from looky-loos, to the Coast Guard to the dockworkers called back to secure the ship at the dock to the deckhands who set up a gangway and all the people who did all the things I can't even imagine...it boggles the mind.
Mindful of the reason for our return (the rumor mill immediately shot into overdrive and we were told it was a male stroke victim and that it would have taken the Coast Guard longer to do a helicopter rescue from Puerto Rico than to do what we did), we actually enjoyed our nighttime visit to St. Thomas. The view was gorgeous and our phones worked. Our world was good even while someone else's was falling apart.
Isn't life perplexing sometimes?
Photo 1: tonight's sunset- another winner
Photo 2 the lights of Charlotte Amalie
Photo 3: something we don't notice during the day: the dark areas are so steep that there aren't any roads on them and nothing can be built there
Photo 4: it's blurry, but look at the green lights on the hillside that guide in the many floatplanes that land on Charlotte Amalie harbor
Photo 5: finally, the Fiesta Bowl on MUTS. It was a busy evening!