March 25, 2022
Saint Loo-shuh
Good morning from Saint Lucia, again. This time we were told we couldn’t get off the ship unless we were on an organized ship’s tour, etc., etc. Last time we were here (March 13) it was a Sunday, and things were pretty quiet. (Sorry, I haven’t finished that post yet.) There are more signs of life today, but Castries is basically a very small capital city in a very small country. It doesn’t have much tourism infrastructure. We will stay on board.
I got a manicure and just took things slowly. It was pleasant sitting on our balcony, which overlooked the town market.
As small as this city is, there certainly were a lot of sirens and ambulances throughout the day. Puzzling.
Speaking of sirens, we heard a medical emergency call for one of the cabins on our deck around lunchtime. It was noisy where we were and we didn’t hear exactly where the problem was.
We had lunch at the outdoor grill. I had forgotten that Princess does not do a good job on hamburgers. The meat seems to have some kind of seasoning in it that tastes terrible. I asked for medium rare (MR) and I got rarer than rare. Let’s call it “medium uncooked.”
Evening at Sea
Shabbat services were early. It was a small, unfriendly group. Enough said. We then tried three times to find a welcoming place to eat dinner. First we were seated at a table where two other couples had already been seated. We said hello but they ignored us and continued talking to each other. They kept talking to each other and did not look at us. I felt invisible. They kept ignoring us. It got more and more awkward. One couple told the other they were from Orange County and the other couple said they were also from Orange County. Still no acknowledgment of our presence. So we just got up and left. All I can think is that they saw we had masks on when we approached the table (though we removed them once we were seated), and they had very strong feelings about that. Everybody else we have met has been friendly and has carefully avoided any hint of politics.
We ended up with two very pleasant couples at a different table. Glad we left, rather than staying to endure a tortured dinner.
After dinner things really started to get interesting, though I have no photos from that part of the day.
Rock Opera Reprise
We got to see Rock Opera. The problem with the stage was fixed, and the schedule was juggled to make two evening shows possible. The theater filled up for the late show, and the air was full of anticipation for the final Final Show for the “original” cast.
(I may not have mentioned that two sign language interpreters have been present at all of the evening shows to assist a few passengers who use sign language. I have never seen this on a cruise before. I love watching them interpret sounds as well as speech. It was going to be interesting to see what they do during Rock Opera. I’m also curious who pays for them. Do they work for Princess, or for the passengers? Are they given the words to songs, etc., in advance?)
The show started at 9:30 with the full cast on stage, not to mention a band and a small string section. The costumes were slightly futuristic. The opening song came from The Greatest Showman. The dancing was great. There was a strong drumbeat. During this number I realized that some of the singers and dancers were signing during the song. Note: signing, not singing. It was so well done that it just seemed like a natural part of the performance.
The show proceeded through several familiar rock songs, as well as a couple of opera renditions, including the famous O Fortuna from Carmina Burana. I felt that there was probably a story, but it was not easy to figure out what it was. However, the singing and choreography were terrific. Some of the singers performed solos with great flair.
Everything flowed seamlessly from one song to the next until, suddenly, around 10:00 the chimes that precede an announcement could be heard and the house lights came up. The cast froze, the audience gasped, there were groans of “Not again.” The Commodore came on the PA and asked if there might be a cardiologist onboard who could help the ship’s doctor with a very sick patient. The cast had been frozen in position for 4 or 5 minutes. But then the show went on.
The final number was a very high-energy rendition of This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. The entire cast sang, danced and signed. The sign language interpreters stopped signing and just turned around and watched.
The audience loved the show, and there were many curtain calls.
Shabbat Shalom.
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The Rest of the Story
Around 12:45 am I became aware of a man’s voice in the hallway. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I was annoyed at him for standing outside our door and talking so loudly. Then I realized it was an announcement from the bridge.
I jumped up and ran to open the door so I could hear what he was saying, but he finished about the time I got there. Then I saw a couple of stewards running down the hall. I asked one of them what happened. He told me a helicopter was coming and we should stay in our cabin and should not go out on our balcony. I realized they were going to be evacuating the cardiac patient.
We were going to go back to sleep, but within 5 minutes I could hear the distant thump, thump of a chopper. The ship had slowed down considerably. The chopper grew louder. We both jumped up and ran to the door of our balcony. We opened the curtains, but stayed inside our cabin. (Our neighbors, of course, ran out on their balconies, turned on lights, took flash photos, and shouted to each other.)
Soon we could see the red, white, and green lights of the approaching helicopter. To me, with my cataracts, it looked like a flying Christmas tree, with many tiny lights. It hovered off the aft briefly, then it moved over the ship and out of our sight, but not out of our hearing.
Many people don’t realize that helicopters can’t land on cruise ships. Now you know. We imagined the unseen chopper lowering down a basket and crew members from the ship taking the basket off the line.
The helicopter moved away from the ship and hovered off the aft for a while, where we had a good view of it. We watched it and imagined the ship’s medical staff loading the desperately ill patient into the basket.
The helicopter again flew right over the ship, where we could not see it. We imagined the basket being connected to the helicopter’s line and being pulled up. The helicopter moved toward the aft of the ship and flew off into the distance.
About 5 minutes later, the helicopter returned and hovered where we could see it, then hovered over the ship where we couldn’t se it, then left. Our imagination did not supply us with an explanation for this set of maneuvers.
This dramatic series of events stirred up a lot of thoughts, which I will discuss in the next section.
The next morning, the Commodore made another announcement from the bridge. The patient was now in an ICU on Martinique. The ship had actually turned around at some point and headed back toward Martinique to get as close to the island as possible for the rescue. We will be about 3 hours late getting in to Antigua due to the rescue. Thanks were extended to the MRCC (Martinique Search and Rescue Corps), and to those passengers who had to vacate their cabins during the helicopter operations last night. I presume those would be the passengers on the highest cabin deck, who might be in danger if the helicopter had an accident.
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On Privilege and Security
The extraordinary efforts taken by many individuals to save a life made me think about how privileged we are, in so many ways. If we need help, on land or at sea, we can usually expect an ambulance or helicopter will come and get us. If we need it, there will be a hospital for us, with an ICU, whether or not we are a citizen of the country that rescues us.
Those of us who are privileged know this, have always known it, without thinking about it. We take it for granted. That’s one reason why the past two years have been so difficult. My sense of security was undermined. My basic assumptions about help were no longer reliable. Our local hospitals were full. The ICUs were full. I might be turned away. I might not be able to get help if I needed it.
When we lose this sense of security, it eats at us. Even if we don’t actually need the hospital, the hospital has always been there. So, when it’s not there, there is a subtle shift. Whether or not you think about it much, on some level the awareness of being less safe is a constant, if minor, source of stress. It’s disconcerting to lose a safety net.
Yet, it’s reassuring to see that a ship carrying 3,000 passengers and 1,700 crew members will not hesitate to inconvenience itself to save a life. It’s reassuring to be reminded that there are people who make Search and Rescue their life’s work. Maybe knowing this restores the balance to some small extent. But it also shows us (briefly) what it feels like to walk in the shoes of a Ukrainian, or a subsistence farmer threatened by drought, or a refugee. How do we trust that the world is a safe place?
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