We just got back from our 10-day cruise to the Panama Canal, and we wanted to share the story of 16 refugees rescued by our ship, the Coral Princess, on the last day of the cruise (yesterday, January 17).  Attached are several photos of the rescue.  

The short version of the story is that our ship stopped when it encountered 16 Cubans in a tiny boat, when we were sailing past Cuba.  Through our binoculars, we could see them bailing water out of the boat, and the waves rose above the sides of the boat.  When our ship sent a small rescue craft over to tow them to the cruise ship, it appeared that some of the men were waving the rescue boat away.  We have since learned that Cubans refugees found at sea are returned to Cuba; if they had made it to land, they would have been able to stay.  It's sad thinking that these individuals likely will be going back to Cuba, after all of their efforts, but if the cruise ship had not rescued these refugees, they may well have drowned.  We heard a few people say the refugees had been at sea for five days, and that their mast had broken.  We also heard that one woman had suffered kidney failure. They received medical treatment once on board our ship, and within a few hours, the Coast Guard came to our ship and took the refugees into the Coast Guard's custody.  Within an hour of the rescue, the sun set, and the area was pitch black.

Here are the photos.

1.    The first gives you a sense of the scale of their tiny boat and our
huge cruise liner, which carries almost 3,000 people (including crew).
2.    The refugees.  The captain said there were 16 on board.
3.    The rescue ship circled several times around the refugees.
4.    A close up view of the boat after most of the refugees had been
brought on board (four remained).  The Coral Princess had no way to retrieve the boat, so the crew painted it orange so other ships would not hit it and left it out at sea.