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Royal Caribbean cruise rescues 12 people stranded on crumbling raft in Caribbean Sea
Enchantment of the Seas rescued 12 people from a raft after rerouting to avoid storms. The group was brought aboard and given water before reaching shore.
A Royal Caribbean cruise ship picked up a group of people stranded at sea on a homemade raft, according to The People report.
On the evening of Sunday, Sept. 28, the Enchantment of the Seas changed course to avoid bad weather, putting it in the Caribbean Sea. While navigating around Hurricane Humberto and Tropical Storm Imelda, the ship encountered a raft carrying around 12 people. It was traveling from Tampa, Florida, to Costa Maya, Mexico.
Footage posted online by a passenger, and shared by Cruise News Today, showed the ship approaching the raft, which was reportedly falling apart. A rescue boat was launched. The people were brought aboard and given water.
According to Come Cruise With Me, cruise ships typically transfer rescued individuals to the authorities when they reach land.
This is not the first time Royal Caribbean has responded to a similar situation.
A different rescue operation by Royal Caribbean
In February, Brilliance of the Seas had just departed New Orleans for a seven-day cruise when it picked up 11 people found on a small boat between Cuba and Mexico, according to CNN.
“The captain calls me immediately as the charterer of the ship to let me know that they are going to turn around and investigate, and that’s exactly what they did,” Randle Roper, a passenger and the CEO of VACAYA, told CNN. “They sent a pilot boat with Brilliance of the Seas crew members out to the stranded vessel.”
Roper said, “I can only imagine the fear that they must have been feeling to be out in the open Gulf with no other vessels around.” He said the group was waving a white flag when the ship got close, and many passengers watched the rescue from the decks.
“They had determined from a distance that there were 10 or more people … on the boat. They could also see that they were clearly in distress,” Roper said. “The refugees on the boat were literally bailing out the water out of the boat, so their boat had clearly become stricken, and they were just adrift [at] sea and taking on water.”
Roper described the people rescued as “pretty malnourished and exhausted,” but “in great spirits” once on board.
