20170119: Sea Day, Helicopter Medical Evacuation to Tasmania

Thursday, January 19, 2017 Sea-Day, Rescue at Sea

We awoke to see land off our starboard side. We had cruised to the Banks Strait, between the northeast corner of Tasmania and Clark Island. The sky was clear, and it was a little less breezy, but it was cool with temperatures in the 60's. The forward part of the Promenade deck was closed, so it was not possible to walk all the way around the ship, but walking the open part yielded 0.25 miles per lap. We had breakfast in the buffet and eased our guilt by walking 0.75 mile on the Promenade.

We attended the start of a lecture on Dunedin and Akaroa to prepare us for our land excursions on the South Island. We left before it ended because Jack wanted to compete in a trivia contest at the other end of the ship. It turns out we tied with one other group for high score, and won Princess Carabiner key chains for our efforts.

The ship's captain made an overhead announcement during the lecture that the ship had changed course back to Tasmania because one of the passengers had become gravely ill and had to be evacuated by helicopter. Another passenger we ran into in an elevator said the ship had backtracked 4 hours to get within range of the helicopter, which had launched out of Melbourne. We saw an Australian coast guard fixed wing plane arrive on scene first. This plane orbited above, apparently overseeing the rescue operation. The helicopter arrived and circled the ship. It then approached the ship near the open pool deck and hovered in the incredibly confined space created by the ship's antennas, open pool deck, and exhaust stacks. The helicopter dropped off a paramedic, emergency gear and rescue litter onto the ship's decks. Then it zoomed off towards Tasmania to refuel. It would take an hour for the helicopter to refuel and then return to the ship. 

We went up to the Skywalker lounge, which is situated in what looks like a giant spoiler at the rear of the ship because it has windows that look forward, and all the upper decks were closed for the rescue operations. They even evacuated several blocks of cabins in case there was a crash of the helicopter, and the ship's fast rescue boat was readied for launching, closing parts of the only other outside decks. From our Skywalker lounge vantage point, we could see the helicopter return, get into position and retrieve a large bag of equipment from the deck. It then circled around a second time and this time it retrieved the patient in a litter with the rescuer diver tethered together. The Skywalker lounge broke out in applause as the helicopter pulled away from the ship with it's successful rescue mission completed.

The ship's captain reassured us that because we had two sea days to catch up and that the necessary speed (19.6 kt) to make up the difference was well within the ship's capability (23.6 kt) we were most likely going to make our itinerary without having to cut out any stops.

Following completion of the rescue operations, we had lunch at the buffet and then we attended a cultural Maori presentation on how to dance a Haka. After demonstrating the basics, they had the men in the audience come up to do the dance. Jack and I went up, but after we were up there, the instructor had us all take off our shirts. That was a bit awkward, but the women got a good laugh out of seeing all our huge white bellies on stage. We did our best to look fierce, but the best we could manage was scary.

Ben got in a run on the treadmills after the Haka, but there was a wait for the treadmills. It is possible to walk all over the ship and get a workout just doing stairs and the Promenade deck, but the only place you can run on the ship is on a treadmill, so Ben was a bit miffed that most of the treadmills were occupied with kids and people just taking a leisurely stroll, while there was a line of runners waiting to get a turn.

Next on the activities list was afternoon tea with Sharon. Jack had gone for a swim in the ship's pool instead. He said the water was a bit cold. The ship had drained the pools in preparation for the helicopter rescue operation, so perhaps they didn't have enough time to get the pool refilled and reheated for Jack. 

Ben, Janet and Sharon had tea, seated at a table with about 8 people. It was difficult to hear or understand people because there was a lot of talking going on and lots of different accents. I could make out that the couple to our right were Aussies from Melbourne. 

A lot of people around the table had no idea where Washington State or Seattle were, and were astonished that we would fly halfway around the world to be on this cruise, when they just had to drive less than an hour from their homes to the cruise dock for this trip. It was surprising how often when we said we were from Washington State, people would respond "Oh, that's where Obama has been living". I guess Americans aren't the only people in the world with poor geography knowledge.

Ben and Janet had a Princess Captain's Circle presentation in the afternoon, where return Princess customers were entered into a raffle for prizes and the ship tried to encourage return business with perks like expedited boarding and at the highest premium level, free laundry service. I think you had to have over 50 cruises to qualify for free laundry. The top prize was a preview of the Elite black card benefits for the rest of the cruise (basically free laundry). The second and third prizes were bottles of champagne. We didn't win in the raffle, but they did give us complimentary drink tickets as we left, so we didn't end up leaving empty handed.

Meanwhile. Jack and Sharon did another trivia game, but without our assistance, they didn't walk out as winners this time.

Dinner in the dining room was ok except that they served a deep fried banana dessert to Janet that looked like a pair of deep fried tiny rodents, and unfortunately, it also tasted like that. The head waiter was concerned that Janet hadn't eaten the dessert and offered her another dessert. Jack and I both had a tasty pineapple flambé while Sharon had a yummy fruit cobbler with ice cream. The waiter took our room number and assured us that the chef would be notified about our dissatisfaction with the deep fried bananas, but we're sure nothing will come of it. During our British Isles cruise, Price had discovered a brass wire bristle in his steak, the kind that has caused people to have perforated GI tracts. The head waiter at that time was also concerned and took our room number, but nothing came of that encounter.

The stage show for the evening was a musician that specialized in 70's music that Aussies seem to have a real fetish for, including Neil Diamond and Johnny Cash. 

The guy was a decent musician and singer, but he was mostly entertaining because he was manic. One woman shouted out during the show "How many energy drinks do you have each day?" when he was soliciting the audience for requests. His back up band, the Princess production musicians were quite good, and the Aussies really ate it up. He got two standing ovations and one encore Johnny Cash song in.

We entered a Princess Pyramid Gameshow in one of the lounges where one person gives clues for a word that appears on a screen behind the guesser. Janet was the guesser, and Ben and Jack gave Janet clues. We did OK, scoring 12 points, which was a better than average score, but one team scored 14 and another scored 13, so we ended up in 3rd place with no prize. Dejected by the loss, Jack and Sharon headed to another lounge with their bottle of wine to dance and drink, while Janet and Ben headed off to the buffet and bed.