A newspaper in Sweden reports that a man, described to be in his thirties, fell off of a cruise ship in the early morning hours yesterday.  The unidentified Swedish passenger fell into the water at around 4.30 am on Tuesday from the Silja Symphony cruise ship.  The vessel was sailing around 30 kilometres south of Örö in the Finnish archipelago.

A Finnish sea rescue crew was dispatched to search for the man along with several other cruise ships.

After a 90 minute search, a helicopter spotted the overboard passenger and lifted him to safety.

The man was taken to hospital in Turku and is reported to have suffered no serious injury.

"He had a slight injury in his leg and was cold, but he was in pretty good shape," said Samu Hiljanen of the Finnish Lifeboat Society.

According to Hiljanen the water temperature at the location of the accident was around 15-20 degrees Celsius.

The newspaper does not explain or speculate why the passenger fell overboard.

Over 180 people have gone overboard from cruise ships since 2000, according to Canadian Professor Ross Klein.

Photo credit:  Wikimedia via The Local