A Carnival cruise ship was held off the Florida coast for several hours on Sunday while authorities searched the vessel and arrested a drunk passenger on bomb hoax charges, the Coast Guard said.
No explosives or hazardous materials were found and the ship, the Carnival Sensation, was allowed to dock at Port Canaveral on Florida's Atlantic coast Sunday morning, Coast Guard petty Officer 1st Class Christopher Evanson said.
The ship carried 3,470 passengers and crew and was headed back to Port Canaveral after a three-day cruise to the Bahamas when a passenger reported hearing another passenger make a bomb threat, the Coast Guard said.
The man was quoted as saying, "We are jihad. Come to the top deck and watch the bomb. The bomb is going to blow," Evanson said, adding that the Coast Guard was told that the man was "highly intoxicated."
Jihad is the Arabic word for "struggle," though it is sometimes used to describe an Islamic holy war.
Brevard County sheriff's deputies arrested an American passenger, Ibrahim Khalil Zarou, 31, of Leesburg, Virginia, on a state charge of making a false report of a bomb. The felony count carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
Newly proposed restrictions would limit the amount of pollution cruise liner ships can emit in waters 200 miles around the coast of the US and Canada. The proposal is about to be adopted by the UN's International Maritime Organization, and is supported by many governmental groups, including the EPA. In fact, according to Reuters, the EPA argues that adopting the pollution controls would clear the air of particulates in port cities--and would save 8,300 lives a year. Which would mean that unregulated pollution from cruise lines is currently killing 8,300 people a year in the US and Canada
Here's the report, via Reuters:
Proponents, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, say the plan would clear the air around polluted port cities and save up to 8,300 lives a year in the United States and Canada. It would limit emissions of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, pollutants that are linked to asthma and cancer. The Environmental Defense Fund activist group cheered the plan, saying "the dangerous air pollution from these floating smokestacks is a serious health threat to tens of millions of Americans who live and work in port cities."
Of course, the cruise industry execs are crying foul--they complain that the pollution controls would force them to pay up to 40% more for low sulfur fuels, and that they would no longer be able to burn any of the fuels they currently use within 200 miles of land. To which I say, Good.
To cruise ship executives: I am sorry that your fuel expenses will rise--perhaps you will have to increase the price of admission for your monolithic floating tributes to excess, in order to prevent some 8,300 people from dying every year for the crime of happening to live in port cities.
Okay, so that may have been a tad melodramatic--but it seems to me that there's a pretty strong case for limiting pollution from ships, and that the industry's case against doing so rests only on the complaint that it would be expensive. Thankfully for the 8,300 folks whose lives are likely to be saved by the measure, the proposal looks likely to be adopted by the IMO--leaving the world a slightly less polluted place.
Crime in the popular tourist destination is on the upswing, especially on New Providence Island, where the capital city, Nassau, is located. And we're not talking just petty thefts or purse-snatching, but far more serious violent crime.
This island nation finished 2009 with a record 87 murders -- a statistic tourism officials probably won't be trumpeting in their next "It's Better in the Bahamas" ad.
More recently, on Feb. 25, an American tourist was attacked in his hotel room on usually tranquil Harbour Island (60 miles from Nassau) by two men wielding a cutlass, according to the Tribune newspaper. The victim survived and suspects are in custody, but the incident prompted police and Ministry of Tourism officials to meet with concerned Harbour Island residents last Monday.
Bahamian officials from Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham on down have publicly acknowledged the problem and taken steps to address it, putting more police on the streets in Nassau, especially after 18 cruise ship passengers became victims of an armed robbery in November.
The criminal activity has prompted the operators of the world's largest cruise ship, Oasis of the Seas, to warn its passengers to "be mindful of their personal safety," the Nassau Guardian newspaper reported.
CoGo isn't waving sun-seekers away from the Bahamas, because most of the violent crime seems to have occurred in New Providence's "Over the Hill" neighborhoods, where few tourists venture. Would-be tourists should also know that crime hasn't been as much of an issue in the Bahamas' less populated Family Islands, such as Exuma, Bimini and Abaco.
Even so, "be mindful" seems like an appropriate mantra for visitors, especially in Nassau, where the State Department has reported "assaults, including sexual assaults, in diverse areas such as in casinos, outside hotels, or on cruise ships."
Some Bahamians attribute the crime wave to high unemployment (hovering around 15 percent on New Providence Island, according to the Guardian) and the nation's status as a gathering spot for drug traffickers.
On a personal note, CoGo saw no evidence of criminal activity during a recent three-day stay in Nassau, if you discount the scruffy young man who whispered "coke, weed, coke, weed" as we strolled along Bay Street, the main shopping drag, one evening.
Google your ride
Here's another reason to bike your way around town: You can now get bicycling directions on Google Maps.
Google has partnered with D.C.-based nonprofit Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) to offer the feature, which allows users to type in their destination and get directions for the best bicycling route. CoGo, for instance, was pleased to find out that it would take just 10 minutes to bike from the heart of Adams Morgan to downtown Washington.
Google has already been offering this service to drivers, walkers and transit riders. Now Google users in all 50 states will have access to RTC's database of more than 1,600 rail-trails and connecting corridors for free. RTC has been offering its trail maps gratis on TrailLink.com, where demand has grown in the past year.
"Bikers all over the country now will be able to explore new trails or find specific directions in their local community with just a few clicks of their mouse," Shannon Guymon, product manager for Google Maps, said in a statement.
Travelers weigh in
What are travelers' biggest gripes these days? Limited legroom on planes and fees for checked baggage and other in-flight services, according to TripAdvisor's second annual air travel survey.
The survey of 3,200 U.S. respondents revealed some other interesting traveler sentiments. Sorry, Kevin Smith, but 74 percent said they think that travelers of size should pay for two seats on their flights. (Actor-director Smith waged a Twitter campaign against Southwest Airlines after he was forced off a flight for being too big to fit comfortably in a single seat. Southwest later apologized.)
Thirty percent said that they would be more likely to book a ticket on a flight offering WiFi. Some travelers -- 45 percent -- said they want Internet access so badly that they would put up with a seatmate accessing inappropriate content. Another 27 percent, however, said that they would alert a flight attendant and 22 percent would ask their seatmate to shut down any lewd sites.
And what of those controversial full body scanners that can see through your clothing? Seventy-nine percent had no problem with them.
BARCELONA, Spain — The Mediterranean was heaving as the 68-year-old Italian stood in the cruise ship lounge. A moment later a monstrous wave shattered the windows and sent shards into her head, leaving her bleeding on the floor and calling out for her husband.
Torrents of water gushed into the Louis Majesty, pouring through several floors of the ship.
"I thought I would end up in the sea, drowned," said Anna Lita, who had a black eye and bandages on her head and hand Thursday.
The three waves that struck the Cypriot-owned ship Wednesday claimed two lives off the coast of northeast Spain. The vessel was carrying 1,350 passengers and 580 crew members, from a total of 27 countries.
Lita's husband Carlo, 69, who had been beside her on a sofa, was thrown in the air and ended up with five stitches in the head and a leg injury.
Raw Amateur Video Of The Wave Hitting The Ship
Another Italian, Giovanni Zanoni, said that after the waves blew out the windows of the lounge, the ceiling caved in and pandemonium broke out.
"People were screaming, panicking. They were grabbing life vests," Zanoni said. He said he saw one huge shard of glass hit a man in the face, killing him. It took a while to find the body because he was under the wreckage of the ceiling, Zanoni said.
The ship's owner and operator, Louis Cruise Lines, said the vessel was struck Wednesday by three "abnormally high" waves more than 33 feet (10 meters) high that broke glass windshields in the forward section on deck five, which is one of 10 used by passengers. Two people died and 14 were slightly hurt, the company said.
Large waves are not rare in the Mediterranean, but ones that size occur only once or twice a year, said Marta de Alfonso, an oceanographer with the Spanish government.
This accident happened in an area of the Mediterranean called the Gulf of Leon, which is known for big waves when storms hit.
The ship was on a 12-day cruise from the ports of Genoa and Marseilles in the western Mediterranean, calling at Tangiers, Casablanca, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Cadiz, Cartagena, Barcelona and had been due to return to Genoa on Thursday.
Passengers said the weather was terrible as they left Cartagena in eastern Spain Wednesday, and the captain announced he was skipping a planned stop in Barcelona and heading straight for Italy.
"I remember when the wave hit," Lita said. "It broke all the windows and I was rolling and rolling and did not stop calling out for my husband."
Amateur video footage taken by a passenger and aired on Spanish television showed a huge, foamy wave hitting what appeared to be the lounge area, sending water gushing in and people scurrying for safety.
"Suddenly we saw a wave that went up above our level, and I said to my husband, 'tonight we will not have to wash the windows,'" said Claudine Armand of France, who was in her cabin at that point. "Right then we heard we heard a loud noise, and it was the wave that hit us."
"When we came out of the room we saw the wave had flooded everything," she told Associated Press Television News.
Pierre Languillon, also of France, said damage was extensive and he saw many people with superficial injuries.
"They called for doctors, as many doctors as there were. Luckily nothing happened to us, but I think we averted a catastrophe."
Louis Cruise Lines spokesman Michael Maratheftis said 14 passengers who suffered only minor injuries were taken to hospital as a precaution.
Arrangements have been made to fly all passengers home Thursday and the ship will carry on with its normal schedule later this month after repairs are completed, he told the AP from Cyprus. By the end of the day most will have left the ship.
Maratheftis said the two dead passengers – a German and an Italian – suffered fatal injuries from the glass shards and ripped-out window frames and furniture.
"It was three waves, one after the other. The damage was done by the second and the third waves. We are talking about waves that exceeded 10 meters in height. This was unforeseen and unpredicted because the weather was not really that bad," Maratheftis said.
De Alfonso said there was in fact a big storm in the area at the time and the waves might have been stirred up by fierce winds. Waves often come in threes, she said.
Another passenger, Jean Claude Fery, of Marseille, said he was in his cabin looking out the porthole at tremendously turbulent seas. "I have never seen waves so big. It was unbelievable."
A Louis Cruise Lines statement said the waves smashed windows in a public area on deck 5 on the forward part of the vessel.
Louis Cruise Lines' Web site says the ship is 680 feet (207 meters) long, and features 10 passenger decks and 732 staterooms along with various bars, pools, restaurants and shops.