I Survived!

Raft accidentally deployed

45* to port

45* to starboard

It's been a few days since what some are calling "Wave Day" and others "The Day That Never Existed" and we finally have a course set for Hawaii, not Japan as originally planned. It was the night of the 26th and like the previous week or more the seas were choppy and our ship was being tossed around. At around 3am I woke up in mid flight heading towards the desk in my room. Fortunately I was able to catch myself and shortly after, "The Voice" came on over the PA system announcing that we had just been hit by a massive wave and that everyone needed to put on their life jackets and move into the hallways. This was not a drill. As Adam (my roommate) and I opened the door we peered up and down the hallway seeing everyone frantically putting on their vests and sitting down in the hall waiting for further word. I brought my video camera and have some amazing raw footage of this happening.

Rocking down.....

....looking up....

After a few hours of sitting in the halls talking to everyone, the captain came on over the PA and told everyone to make their way to their muster stations (life rafts). As we all moved into the stairwell, a crew member walked up to myself and a few others and moved us to the front asking us to assist in the boarding procedures once the order was given. It was very hard throughout all this to maintain any sort of balance as the ship continued to be rocked by easily 30 foot waves. I found out from the crew that the ship had lost engine power keeping the captain from turning the vessel into the waves to keep the rocking to a minimum.


A few more hours passed when the captain finally gave the all clear. A cheer echoed around the ship as relief set in while at the same time, some cried after experiencing such a humbling trial. Roughly 1,000 people on a small craft, thousands of miles from any land on the verge of capsizing is a life changing event. We survived. I survived.

...and back down

Walking around the ship it looked as though a tornado had torn through it. Glass doors were shattered, planters were over turned with dirt spilled everywhere, furniture was tossed around, even the baby grand piano was flipped and smashed to pieces. When Adam and I made it back to our room, it looked like someone had broken in and was looking for something. Our beds were tossed, closets were wide open with our clothes strewn about, and our computers were off our desk and on the floor. Fortunately they both still worked. We had the insight prior to getting out of our room to make a duct tape cage around our TV....that was the only thing that was still in it's original place. The damage internally to the ship was astounding.

Destroyed library

Over the ensuing days, many of us pondered if we really went through what seemed like something out of the movies, if in fact we had starred death straight in the face and came out unharmed. We joked about how that very night, we had crossed the international dateline three times and therefore, January 27th 2005 was a day that never existed for us.

I was able to visit the ship's bridge (I was suppose to tour it the day the wave hit us) a few days after the incident and a student raised the question to Cpt Buzz wondering how close we were to capsizing. In the calm voice he had every time he came over the PA that day, he pointed to an instrument panel that showed just how much the vessel was rolling port to stern (left to right). He said that at the worse moments, we were rolling 45* one way, than 45* the other. In all, had we gone another 2-3* more in either direction, we would have capsized and sank in 10min (the upper decks are all make of giant glass windows that would shatter and water would rush in). He said that if it hadn't been for his crew, and their quick action, we may not have been so lucky. He recalled that the nearest merchant vessel was over 18 hours away, a Coast Guard seaplane was able to do a fly by around noon (9 hours into the ordeal) so we were very fortunate.

In all, one senior passenger had suffered a bruised ribcage and one crew member (an engine room worker) had broken his arm trying to get the engines back online. There has been a rush of phone calls through various sat phones some people had purchased for this trip so I was able to call home for a few minutes. There has been a rumor going around that once we land in Hawaii, some students are calling it quits. Not me! No way!

The plan that we know so far is we are heading to Hawaii until the ship gets fixed and then back to sea. It looks like right now, Japan and Korea are being cut from the program but the hope remains that the program in its entirety will continue on once the ship is again seaworthy. Looks like we'll be in Honolulu for a few days (thank God they opted against Midway Island!).