Headmaster confirmed what we all knew – no stop in Manta, Ecuador. The Foreign Office had advised U.K. travellers not to go there, since the beginning of the year. As a compensation, he has arranged for a stay in Panama. The plan was for us to sail through the Canal without a stop – apart from the locks – but we will now have the opportunity to go ashore.
At about 7am, there were frantic announcements for a sous chef – Richard Tan – to report for work. It was finally determined that he was not on the ship and had last been seen at 1:30am.
The ship came to a halt and we retraced our course to our 1:30 location, where we began a search pattern, with a helicopter coming to assist.
When it started to get dark, the Captain said that we would remain in position and restart the search at first light.
An hour later, there was an announcement, saying that we had to return to Callao, to evacuate two seriously ill passengers.
Many of the passengers had been on the decks and balconies during the day to lookout for the missing crew member and there was a genuine sadness throughout the ship.
It’s a different environment to a hotel and although there are about 1,000 crew members, you get to know many of them.
For the record, we were joined by two new Trivia team members and equalled our best score of 17 – just 2 behind the winners. Perhaps we are contenders for a gold star.