Cruise ship rescues 24 stranded Cubans
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/travel/carnival-cruise-rescues-stranded-cubans-irpt/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1
Matthew Sudders has been on plenty of cruises, but he'd never seen anything like this.
The civil servant from Paris was aboard the Carnival Paradise on Tuesday when he noticed the ship had started to slow down in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Then an announcement came over the public address system: The captain had spotted a small boat in the water, and it appeared to be in distress. The Paradise would try to help.
It appeared to Sudders that the cruise ship's captain was trying to shelter the small boat from the waves. Once they were close enough, ship staff lowered a platform down to the water and threw a rope and life jackets to the stranded craft.
Eventually, the 24 passengers from the boat, all of Cuban nationality, were able to board the Paradise. They had been stranded for five days, according to an announcement on the ship's PA system, said Sudders, one of two passengers who posted accounts of the rescue on CNN iReport.