May 2013

Over the weekend, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued a cruise passenger who suffered a heart attack from a cruise ship 150 miles off the coast of North Carolina.

The rescue involved a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and an HC-130 Hercules aircraft to assist.

The video below shows the crew aboard the Jayhawk helicopter hover over cruise

Nina Elizabeth NilssenOver three years ago, a U.S. cruise passenger, Nina Elizabeth Nilssen, age 30, was murdered while vacationing in Antigua near the English Harbour / Falmouth area. She had been cruising with her parents, an uncle and aunt, sister and brother-in-law aboard the Royal Clipper, a tall masted ship operated by Miami based Star Clippers. 

The

Carnival Spirit Cruise ShipNewspapers in Australia are reporting that two passengers disappeared from a Carnival cruise ship. A 26-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man were unaccounted for when the cruise ship docked in Sydney Harbor today.

The couple were last seen on deck last night, but failed to disembark when the Carnival Spirit cruise ship docked in Australia.

The New York Times Travel Section published an article today about the topic of cruise ship "mishaps" such as collisions, fires, evacuations, groundings, and sinkings.

The problem is that there is no centralized agency collecting data about such incidents. Plus the cruise line industry is notoriously secretive about events that are inconsistent with the notion

Cruise lines hate U.S. governmental scrutiny of their business operations.  

The whole purpose of incorporating their businesses and flagging their cruise ships in foreign countries is to avoid U.S. taxes and the scrutiny of federal regulators. This business model permits the cruise lines to pay virtually no U.S. taxes and to avoid U.S. wage, labor