The Port Authority of Genoa is engaged in the research of a 75 year old woman who disappeared last night from the MSC Opera arriving from Civitavecchia to the port of Genoa.

An Italian newspaper says that the passenger was not aboard the MSC cruise ship when it arrived in Genoa.  

Searches are under

BBC News reports that a "severely ill" passenger had to be evacuated from a MSC cruise ship. 

The MSC Opera was anchored off Guernsey. According to the BBC, the Guernsey Coast Guard described the patient’s illness as severe. 

Guernsey is an island near Normandy in the English Channel between France and England. 

Photo Credit: Guernsey Harbours via

Last week I was away from my computer traveling in Jamaica to visit crewmembers while the story broke about the U.K.’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency detaining the MSC Cruises’ Opera cruise ship for safety violations.   

The incident was the type of event which I would normally and quickly write about.  But by the time I returned to Miami the cruise

My Brazilian friend, Alexandre Gonçalves da Rocha, alerted me today to an accident which recently occurred at the port in Buenos Aires when the MSC Opera struck the dock. 

Alexandre is a Brazilian who works as a maritime pilot at the port of Itajai since 1998 (no, he was not piloting this cruise ship!).  He writes a great maritime blog