June 18th: The Fire Aboard the Royal Princess-- Part 5

It was a whole lot better on the deck. FRESH AIR!!! You can imagine how bad it was getting in the muster area with all those bodies, no air conditioning, and no chance of opening any windows.

More and more people were coming out onto the deck.

I was happy to be out on the deck because I was worried about what would happen if the fire got out of control and started racing through the ship and we couldn't open the windows to get out. At least here, we could go over the side if necessary.

I went back and forth between the two areas since my sister and her daughter were still in the muster station. Crew members started walking around with bottles of water and Coke (FREE!!) and later sandwiches as the hours dragged on.


HELP ARRIVES, SORT OF

There were quite a few ships anchored off the starboard side. I don't know if they were there to aid us or waiting to go through the Suez Canal. A tug from Port Said came out and offered to help. Over its loudspeaker, we heard its captain asking the Princess to get on a certain channel. I don't know if that ever happened. The tug stayed there all night and into the next morning.

I was surprised that there were no other emergency vessels near us, Egyptian or US. Especially since there were almost 500 Americans on board.

A Breath of Fresh Air. --RoadDog