Monday morning the Coast Guard issued a news release which said, “Crewmembers from a pilot vessel rescued a man at about 6:50 a.m. Monday, about one mile southeast of Mullet Key, in Fort Desoto, in St. Petersburg.”

Apparently, at about 4 a.m.Monday morning a passenger identified as Larry Miller had fallen overboard from the Carnival inspiration. The Inspiration was returning to Tampa, Florida from a western Caribbean trip which departed June 11th. Apparently, at about 4 AM the passenger climbed onto one of the rails in order to get a better view of the pilot boat. Upon climbing onto the rail of the Carnival Inspiration Mr. Miller slipped and fell overboard (once again proving that passengers going overboard or more often than not the result of a careless action on their part).

Interestingly enough, Carnival had no idea that the man went overboard until the reports of his rescue surface over the newswire. Not unlike some others I don’t blame Carnival for being unaware of the incident sends cruise lines have no reason to take a count while a ship is at sea. The only time a count would be taken as if someone had reported the passenger is missing. Luckily the passenger was able to cling onto one of the pilot markers in the shipping channel.

This is just another in a growing trend of accidents that have happened on board cruise ships. I don’t mean to make light of the situation or to use Larry Miller as an example but the truth is what he did was stupid, plain and simple. I have no doubts that this man is normally an intelligent, rational person who got caught up in the excitement of seeing something “new” while cruising and did something stupid. Let this serve as yet another reminder that the most important

This is the subject that I purposely stayed away from this year. After the last couple of incidents the cruise industry really talk of public relations at, and I didn’t feel the need to pile on. However, just this past weekend another passenger has fallen overboard a cruise ship. This time the person involved was a young adult.

At approximately 9:45 PM Sunday night passengers witnessed an 18-year-old boy fall over the rails of the Carnival Fantasy. The passenger was identified as Bruce O’Krepki from Hammond, Louisiana. The Carnival Fantasy was about 165 miles from Key West when the passenger went overboard. O’Krepki who is from Hammond, Louisiana had just graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas high school and was on board with a number of recent graduates. Currently the fantasy is on a seven day cruise which originated in Louisiana and makes stops in Key West and Nassau.

The statement from the cruise line indicates that the Coast Guard as well as the crew of the Fantasy participated in search and rescue operations until about 2:50 AM when the ship was released. After which, the ship continued on sailing to Key West where it docked somewhere around 1 PM Monday afternoon. Even though the ship had to leave in order to fulfill its obligations to the rest of the guests, the Coast Guard is continuing the search through Tuesday using helicopters, a C-130 airplane, and a Coast Guard cutter. The Carnival Fantasy’s current cruise wraps up back in New Orleans on Saturday, May 20.

At this time no one is reporting any details on what caused the teenager to go overboard, but I do feel comfortable saying that falling overboard a cruise ship is not a normal occurrence. This unfortunate incident is just another reminder that even on vacation we must still be on guard against accidents. Over the past year it seems that these types of accidents are becoming more and more common on board cruise ships, a trend that is seriously damaging the reputation of presentations. Those of us who are experienced cruisers already know how difficult falling overboard may be, but new cruisers really have no way of knowing. Here is a blog post I wrote a few months ago about falling overboard a cruise ship, please take some time to read it if you’re new to cruising.