Day 2 - What The Hel-E-Vac Is Going On?

 With a small craft weather advisory in effect when we left Seattle Saturday night, our captain set a northerly course toward Alaska. The 10 foot seas were no match for our huge ship, although we could feel and hear the engines at times as we rolled across the water throughout the night.

Some of our group got up early (too early it seems, since our clocks did not automatically change to Alaska Time) for breakfast. Others slept in, or simply enjoyed a leisurely morning getting ready for the day ahead. 

The itinerary called for a 1:00pm arrival at Icy Strait Point, where we all were going on a whale watching cruise beginning at 4:00pm.

Jim was the first to notice that at sometime around mid-morning, our ship began sailing south! We continued south for at least the next hour or two. The rest of us realized something was up when we came to a complete stop in the open ocean. 

Shortly after we stopped, a large yellow helicopter began to fly in wide circles above us. The markings on the chopper identified it as a Canadian ‘sauvetage’ (rescue) aircraft. The Canadian rescue crew was standing in the open doorway as they flew over, and we knew we were about to see an emergency air evacuation take place.

Our ship does not have a helipad, so the evacuee was wheeled out onto the open foredeck on a gurney.  In order to provide optimum conditions for extraction, the ship had to be positioned correctly so that the waves and the wind would allow the helicopter to hover just above the deck. This process took well over an hour and involved multiple flyovers. Carla was on the observation deck checking things out (see photo below).

Once everything was in place, the rescue crew and their gear were lowered by cable onto the deck. Then they hooked up the cable to a basket containing the evacuee and winched it up in the air and into the side door of the helicopter. After this, the rescue crew were lifted up and the  aircraft flew away to the cheers of all us onlookers.

From what I could gather from multiple sources (none of this could be verified), the evacuee was a woman who entered into some sort of medical distress sometime on Saturday night. After onboard medical consultation and observation throughout the night, the staff ordered an emergency air evacuation. Because we were in such remote waters, and had already passed through Canadian territory (at least the populated part), the ship had to turn around and head back toward Canada in order to get us in range for a helicopter rescue.

By the time we finally turned around to go back northward, we had lost (according to Jim’s estimate) more than 5 hours of travel time.

Needless to say, we did not arrive at Icy Straits at 1:00pm. 

Our group met up at 5:00pm for a rousing, and slightly unruly, game of trivia and cocktails. Then, it was off to dinner and a show.

During dinner, the captain came onto the P.A. and announced that the rescue operation had put us so far behind schedule that (1) we would be at sea again for the entire day on Monday; (2) we would not arrive at Icy Straits until Tuesday morning: (3) the entire Skagway leg of our trip was now cancelled; (4) all onshore excursions for Icy Straits would either be refunded or rescheduled - Skagway’s excursions would simply be refunded.

We tempered some of our disappointment by attending the ‘Choir of Man’ floor show, which featured 9 energetic guys dancing and singing Scottish/Irish pub songs. By the end of the performance, the entire audience was singing along.

NEXT: Another day at sea…