refugees – silverfox175

Island Princess

Although we joined the ship at 1.00 pm on Thursday we didn’t sail until lunchtime on Friday.
What a departure as we sailed along the Grand Canal past St Marks’ Square. The weather was perfect, the passengers on the ship were friendly; we all shared good spots for the taking of just one more photograph of Venice.

Approaching St Mark’s Square (top picture) and passing St Mark’s Square

Our first port of call would be Istanbul in Turkey. My last visit to this city was in 1965, and it would be my wife’s first visit.

As we watched the sunset during our pre-dinner drink the Captain spoke to the passengers and ship’s crew over the loud speaker.
The Greek coast guard had requested the Island Princess to divert, because a small vessel was in distress. Because the law of the sea demands that all ships will go to the aide of those in distress that Captain didn’t have a choice. We watched some of the crew make ready a fast tender, while donning life jackets and preparing the tender for launch. As the evening light turned to darkness we waited, but couldn’t see anything as full night arrived so made our way to the dining room. After dinner we checked again and little had changed re the crew and the fast tender, so we went to bed. During the night (which we slept through) the ship had stopped in the Ionian Sea to pick up 117 Syrian refugees from a small sailing boat. I did hear later that the small boat sank shortly after the refugees were rescued due to the increase in the wind and the waves. Our new passengers were confined in the aft area and  were given food and hot drinks after their ordeal.They were kept under guard by the ship’s security.

We then sailed to Katakolon, which is a sea port near Olympia, where we were met by  military and coast guard vessels.