Carnival ship avoids disaster full story here.....

[DIVECOZUMEL]

This is from scubadiving.com chat board. Might want to keep an eye out while diving Las Palmas or Paradise in the future........



This is an email response from Bill at Aqua Safari. I sincerely hope this story or this incident does not bring your business a bad name. There are many of your fellow divers around the world that are merely interested in hearing the truth and we thank you for your response. We all hope they answer for this dearly.


How can you write the story before assembling the facts?
Who'd you talk to?
The basic theme is the Inspiration fell asleep
and went broadside to the wind as the front came in.
came close to broadsiding the Grand Princess at dock,
GOT INTO the national park,
and put my divers into the waring blender.
It is amazing no one was killed.

It also amazes me that no one else made a complaint or filed a charge.

There is a video that shows what happened topside;
should you care to view it as a basis for your story,
but as a dive operator - I have to think this is not good publicity
for the island, and to have Aqua Safari's name associated with a close call
does not do me any good.

The video has been provided to the Harbor master, the park,
and is on the way to the Director of Navigation @ Carnival,
and to the Florida Caribbean Cruise Assoc.
so they can see there is no exageration;
the ship was no more than 5 feet from running aground.
They simply fell asleep got caught flatfooted.
The video shows numerous small craft in the wind - in control,
and this huge cruise ship totally out of control in the national park.

Saludos,
Bill

 

[ShakaZulu]

That's the full story hey, how about some background for us uninformed???

 

[DIVECOZUMEL]

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[miketsp]

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How so 10 posts down?
I believe you wanted to say 10 threads down.
The order of the threads changes as people post.

http://www.scubaboard.com/t91188-cruiseship-narrowly-misses-divers.html

 

[scubawife]

I work for the cruise industry (please, don't hate me), and was a bit surprised that this story didn't make any of the industry enews letters today. Wasn't on anything specific to the cruise industry or those that go to travel agents. For now, I suppose that's good for Cozumel dive ops who are concerned with this hurting business. When or if it does appear, I'll make sure to post it.

 

[archman]

I work for the cruise industry (please, don't hate me), and was a bit surprised that this story didn't make any of the industry enews letters today.

Is it routine for this sort of news to be circulated in-house? It's been my understanding that one has to look up NOAA or Coast Guard reports in many of these cases, as they're rapidly hushed up. Kinda like DisneyWorld.

 

[scubawife]

archman - Par for the course is that if an incident or infraction is witnessed, it's reported in the industry trades. As the industry's association representing 19 lines and 17,000 travel agencies, we usually get PR responses and talking points from our member lines about everything, even those items that don't get reported, just in case we get inquiries or our member agents need to address it. This one is remarkably quiet. The first our PR guys heard of it was met telling today. Considering that we hear about every minor infraction and alleged infraction that occurs in FL, Alaska and most of the Caribbean, it is odd to not be hearing anything about this one. Carnival does own Princess, so maybe they're keeping that part of the incident "in the family," but to have entered the marine park waters and endangered divers, that is very serious.

I hope that is properly investigated and whatever happened doesn't happen again. This may not be the ship's captain though. A Harbor Pilot boards the ship and takes control from the time the ship enters the official harbor until it leaves. During that period, the Captain must be on the bridge, but the ship is under the control of the pilot, who I believe is at the helm.

 

[DIVECOZUMEL]

supposedly will be open to the public after tomorrow.............
If anyone can get their hands on the video it might be worth some big $$$ to CNN or FOX or 20/20 or Dateline or MSNBC etc....etc.........



Tomorrow Wed. the persons closest to the Carnival Imagination on Paradise Reef
the 17th of March, deliver the formal denuncia to the harbormaster.
Once the harbormaster has it, including half a dozen tourist diver's accounts,
and the Park has a copy, anyone interested can access the documents and view the video.

The documents and video will also be sent to Carnival and the FCCA.

It defies comprehension that the crew of a cruise ship, who should have known a front was approaching,
did not look out the window and at least turn the bow into the wind.

The ship failed to take any precautions, and was pushed broadside to the wind
narrowly missing the Grand Princess docked at Puerta Maya, and practically grounded;
divers saw the props and rudders a mere five feet above the bottom,
from a distance of as little as 15 feet away.
God must have been watching, and gratefully no one was killed.

Sinceramente,
Bill

 

[DIVECOZUMEL]

I would guess from this story that the ship was possibly backing into the pier? Does anyone know why some do this and some don't? When I was there in Feb I saw almost this same thing happen except on the far north side of those 4 piers. I was at Hog Town cafe having breakfast and watching this ship try to dock. It started to drift too far north and had to go way out into the ocean in a big circle and try again. We were laughing and thinking it looked like parking practice. Well I guess it doesn't seem very funny anymore knowing that they have that hard of a time docking depending on the wind.

 

[Web Monkey]

I've been on most of those ships and the manuvering precision is awe-inspiring. If you taped a toothbrush to the bow, you could brush your teeth.

If the ship drifted anywhere, somebody wasn't doing their job.

I can't wait to hear them try to explain this away.

The only good part is that maybe Cozumel can extract a wad of cash for damages and use it to protect the area better.

Terry

I would guess from this story that the ship was possibly backing into the pier? Does anyone know why some do this and some don't? When I was there in Feb I saw almost this same thing happen except on the far north side of those 4 piers. I was at Hog Town cafe having breakfast and watching this ship try to dock. It started to drift too far north and had to go way out into the ocean in a big circle and try again. We were laughing and thinking it looked like parking practice. Well I guess it doesn't seem very funny anymore knowing that they have that hard of a time docking depending on the wind.