A terrifying thought about a medical emergency and rescue at sea…See our photos…

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We posted this photo on June 10, 2015, while we were cruising on Royal Caribbean Legend of the Seas. A passenger also had to be evacuated, but in the basket, when rough seas prevented the helicopter from landing on the ship’s helipad. The patient was wrapped in an exterior covering the basket, and paramedics held onto the passenger. Scary. See that post here.

The Medevac team prepared to land while we were on a Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas cruise in Australia in 2016. Medical personnel were ready to act to save a passenger. See the post here.

Nothing is more frightening for a cruise passenger than becoming so ill that they must be evacuated to the nearest hospital. Often, these hospitals are sub-par and can’t handle the case, requiring additional cstly transport. With good emergency evacuation insurance, a passenger can be taken to a hospital in a larger city that is more well-staffed and equipped to handle such emergencies.

It’s imperative to check with one’s travel insurance to familiarize yourself with the process in case of such an event.

That’s why being in reasonably good health when embarking on a cruise is so important. Still, as seniors and sometimes younger passengers, medical emergencies arise out of the blue, requiring immediate care. Passengers must acknowledge that medical care on ships is marginal at best.

Medical professionals, such as doctors and nurses, may be on board. Still, they are not equipped to perform surgery to treat many medical emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes. In most cases, they can treat flu, colds, and shipborne illnesses, but if a patient develops serious complications, they must be evacuated.

Some ships have helipads, but others do not. Weather conditions play a massive role in determining whether a helicopter can load on a helipad. Emergency personnel are cautious in protecting and handling ill passengers to the best of their ability and based on available equipment.

All of this is better handled when the passenger has emergency evacuation insurance. If not, attempting to secure funds from various sources the passengers may have available becomes a nightmare. The cost can be prohibitive.

From Cruise Industry News at this link, today’s story;

“Medical Emergency Causes Three-Day Delay for Royal Caribbean Ship

November 11, 2024

A medical emergency onboard the Explorer of the Seas is causing a three-day delay in the ship’s arrival at PortMiami.

Currently offering a 12-night trans-Atlantic crossing, the ship was initially scheduled to arrive in Florida on Nov. 14, 2024.

According to a statement sent to guests onboard, the Explorer of the Seas will now dock in Miami on November 17, 2024.

“Our medical staff determined that one of our guests needed urgent medical attention, and as a result, we are making our way to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria,” the company said.

After visiting the Azores on Nov. 7, the ship was scheduled to remain at sea before arriving in Miami next week.

Following the medical emergency, the Explorer changed course, docking at the Spanish port on Saturday.

As part of its new itinerary, the vessel is now expected to cruise for another week before arriving in the United States on November 17.

“This situation is evolving,” Royal Caribbean added in its statement, noting that additional details for the arrival in Miami are still being finalized.

“We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused, and we appreciate your patience and understanding. We know we’d do the same for you or a loved one with a medical emergency,” the company said.

Royal Caribbean offers guests onboard a complimentary voucher for a 60-minute internet package and phone assistance in making necessary arrangements.

“We know you may need to communicate with family, friends, or airlines/hotels to start planning your return home,” the company added.

Passengers who booked flights via Royal Caribbean’s Air2Sea Team will have their return flights automatically adjusted to reflect the new arrival in Miami.

Guests with independent travel arrangements are asked to contact their air carrier directly. The company said it will cover any air change fees of up to $200 for domestic travel and $400 for international travel, per person.

Royal Caribbean also offers guests discounted rates for those who extend beverage and internet packages for the additional three days of the cruise.”

We can only imagine the fear a passenger and family member (s) would feel being airlifted to the nearest medical facility. Understanding the process in advance can significantly reduce anxiety and apprehension.

Be prepared. Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, November 11, 2014:

1109usgsLava01
The lava flow on the Big Island in Hawaii in 2014 broke out again, and its first house was taken the day before this photo was taken. For more photos, please click here.

A potentially life saving tool for yourself and others in the event….

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This morning’s view as I sit at my new ergonomically correct spot under a cabana by the pool.

“Sightings on the Beach in Bali”

This morning, three dogs running and playing on the beach.

Today’s story is about saving your life, the lives of your loved ones and the lives of others in the event of a disaster when a fresh water supply isn’t available. But first, a little background on how Tom (and eventually me) came to a point of following Bob Rinear’s daily posts, not unlike how many have many readers throughout the world have been following our posts.

Tom has been reading Bob Rinear’s financial newsletters, Invest Yourself, for the past eight years.  The first few years Tom only read the free edition and later, convinced it was well worth the expense, signed up for the for a lifetime membership for access to the full site and more in depth newsletters. It’s served us well. 

Bob’s newsletters not only discuss financial issues in the US and the world, but also includes topics relevant to many of us far beyond the scope of financial matters.

Although Bob is not a stock broker or a licensed financial planner, he shares with his 1000’s of readers “what he does” not what “we should do.” Thus, there’s no pressure to buy investments from him. He doesn’t sell them, nor give advice. However, his wisdom is vast, and we’ve learned a lot from Bob continuing to do so over time. 

The first view of the ocean of the four to five hour harrowing drive.

Today’s post is not intended to advise our readers to pay for a website. That’s entirely up to you and we reap no financial or other gain should you eventually decide to do so.

You may or may not agree with some of Bob’s philosophies, although his well thought out, researched concepts and opinions make for some interesting dinner table conversation. You can decide on that.

What makes us excited about Bob are the truisms he espouses that at many times can easily be incorporated into our lives of travelers.  On August 24th, he posted a story about how to save lives in the event of a disaster when fresh water supplies are unavailable.

In reading his post, we were literally in awe of the wealth of information and we encourage our readers to read his post as we’ve shown below, quoted directly from his site, the post entitled:  The Water Story.

Next view of the ocean during the long drive to the villa.

Here’s Bob’s post (although very long), is well worth reading in its entirety:
“8.24.2016 – Financial Intelligence Report Bookmark

on August 24, 2016 in Free Newsletter by BOB RINEAR

The Water Problem

Here it is, late August and the West coast of Africa is tossing off a line of unsettled weather, that crosses the lower Atlantic and ends up as a depression, Tropical storm or hurricane on our shores. I’m pretty darned familiar with such things as living through Super Storm, Sandy was the ultimate teacher of Preparedness.
 
I mentioned the other day that I think some form of “event” is going to take place over the next 6 months. Whether that’s a war, an economic disaster, a political assassination, etc., it just has a creepy feeling to it. So, with Hurricane season on us, the insane flooding in Louisiana, the fires out west…I figured it was time to do some articles about self preservation, both physical and financial. Let’s start with the most important life force….water.

Water is the most amazing fluid on earth, and yet we take it for such granted that no one gives it a moment’s thought. It isn’t just the “cool” facts about water that make it intriguing; such as the fact it is one of the only substances that exists in three states, being liquid, solid and gas without needing extreme temperatures to create each state. Water, for instance, is the only natural substance found in all three physical states at the temperatures that naturally occur on Earth.

 
But water is much more than “some wet stuff” we use to drink, cook and bathe. Studies have shown that water actually has a form of memory. Water can dissolve more substances in it than any other material known to man. Water is somewhat unique as it is one of the very few materials that increases in volume as it freezes. By expanding in volume by up to 9%, the density of water in its solid state is lower than it is in its liquid state. This gives ice the ability to float. Water has even been found to have “memory” something scientists are working with. (Continues below photo).
During the long drive, we crossed over many rivers, streams and waterways.

I could go on and on about the mystery that is indeed plain simple water, but for today I want to focus on the importance of it when we’re faced with a situation where there doesn’t seem to be any. Imagine for a moment if you will, a power outage that stops the town pumps from operating or your well from operating. Or maybe a disaster situation such as a flood, or Hurricane, or tornado.

While we take for granted the availability of water; when something ugly happens, water soon becomes a very serious focal point in your immediate life

Not to get terribly graphic, but even such things as personal hygiene become an issue when there’s no water around. Not only can’t you brush your teeth or bathe, the act of “going to the bathroom” becomes a major problem. If the toilets can’t flush, it won’t be more than a matter of a single day for a family to find out that they’ve got a serious sanitation problem. So, not only do we need water to survive, as the medical folks tell us that we can only last about 5 -7 days without water… We need it for much more than simply drinking.
 
So here’s the question. If something ugly happened… Say some natural disaster did knock out the power in your area for several weeks, and you were faced with the fact that the faucets weren’t going to work for quite a while, what would you do? Standard disaster preparing suggests that you have a gallon of water per person per day stored up, and you should have at least 3 days worth. Well, that’s fine if the disaster only lasts 3 days and all you’re doing is drinking it. Again, I’ll ask… How do you flush the toilets???
 
(Note… A lot of folks don’t know this, but you can flush your toilet simply by dumping a gallon and a half or so of water quickly -right into the bowl from a bucket. The toilet doesn’t care where the water comes from to flush, it works by water pressure in the bowl).  (Continues below photo).
A stream we crossed on the long drive.

If your home is secure, meaning you can live there, then, any old water will do as far as flushing the toilets. Get a 5 gallon bucket and fill it from the pool, a stream, a retention pond, a creek, a lake, Rain water you’ve collected etc. It doesn’t matter, you’re simply dumping it to flush the toilet. While certainly not convenient, just about everyone lives within a short walk of “some” body of water. Be creative in your thinking. When Sandy hit in NJ, and knocked my house down, my son and I had to move into an RV we had in a local campground. We had to take turns carting water from a small lake nearby, to keep the toilets functioning. It sucked… But it works. 

But what about drinking water? What about that morning cup of coffee or mixing up a can of soup? (Yes, I know this will require “cooking” and we’ll explore that in another issue. We’ll talk about easy ways to boil water and cook in the future) If you don’t have a store of water built up, are you destined to dry up and blow away? Not at all. But here’s why it is called “prepping” folks. You have to prepare ahead of time and have what you need on hand for when the disaster, outage, etc., hits. Once the power is down, once the water isn’t flowing, it is too late. You’re stuck.
 
I am certainly not against storing up gallons of water in your garage (again, remember seasonal temps …frozen water is a real problem if your house is just as cold as it is outside) or basement or what have you. The problem is of course that it is bulky stuff. It’s heavy and takes up a lot of space. You can easily store up enough to get you through a few days. But after that?? Now what? So what you need to do is have the tools on hand that allows you to “make” drinkable water from unlikely sources.
 
One of the remarkable things about our advancements in technology is that things that were impossible just 100 years ago, are very possible now. In the field of water purification, that is very evident. So let me ask you something. Did you know that there’s a water filter so advanced, that you can take stagnant creek water, and in ten seconds, produce clean clear drinkable water? Well, there is. In fact, there’s several ways to do this and we’re not talking about some thousand dollar giant set up here folks. I’m talking under 200 bucks. Later I’ll show you how to cut that to under 20. (Continues below photo).
This morning as the tide rises.

Some people have heard of the “life straw”, but many haven’t. While not the ultimate solution, this thing is cheap, works incredibly well and will keep you alive in ugly situations. It is a filter used by one person, to get a drink out of creeks, lakes, ravines, you name it. For 20 bucks a pop, it is something that everyone should have a few of. But they also make bigger units for filtering enough water for families to use.

http://www.vestergaard.com/our-products/lifestrawThe unit they call the “Lifestraw family 1,” will produce enough clean water for a family of 5 for 2 years. Yet it costs just 80 bucks. So “technically” you could go to a rain puddle, scoop up a couple quarts of dirty water, pour it through this thing, and end up with a quart and a half of clean drinking water. I quotation marked “technically “ simply because I’d take it one step further and boil the water that comes out, to make 100% sure it is sterilized and completely healthy. 
These units are used all around the world in humanitarian situations where they’re trying to help folks in Africa and other far off places with no clean drinking water, and it works. Is it perfect? No. It takes quite a while for 2 quarts of water to filter and although 99.99999 % effective, I’d want the last step of boiling or at least adding a drop of chlorine bleach just to kill that last chance something got through.
 
There’s another choice in the “portable” water filtering arena that bears mention for sure. This is called the Lifesaver Bottle. And it costs considerably more. It is 169 bucks for the personal version. But, I quote from the front page…
 
The LIFESAVER® bottle is the world’s first portable water bottle to remove all bacteria, viruses, cysts, parasites, fungi and all other microbiological waterborne pathogens without the aid of any chemicals (like iodine or chlorine) or the need for any power or UV light. Filtering down to 15 nanometers, that is 0.015 microns. With the smallest virus known being Polio at 25 nanometers, you are safe in the knowledge that LIFESAVER® filters all bacteria, viruses, cysts and all waterborne pathogens from your water.  (Continues below photo).
Ocean view when we stopped for one break during the drive.

On the site, they show the inventor drinking out of a polluted tank that they’ve tossed garbage in, rabbit poop in, you name it. He puts the bottle in, pumps the handle and drinks the clean water. It is quite amazing and yes,they have a larger version for more than personal use. It costs 209 dollars, and holds 18 quarts at a time. It too comes with the guarantee of removing virtually everything that can hurt you from a supply as ugly as swamp water. Amazing technology. Find it here…

www.lifesaverusa.com
Now for the more “handy man” of you out there, you can actually build something fairly similar to the Lifestraw family 1, for about 40 bucks. All you need is two food grade 5 gallon buckets, and a couple of these filters…
 
http://www.amazon.com/Doulton-Sterasyl-Ceramic-W9121715-W9121709/dp/B003VT5TEY/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
What you do is take one 5 gallon bucket and drill two holes in the bottom. Take these filters, and “stand them up” so the black plastic flange goes through the holes you just made and use the nut that comes with them to hold them in place. Take that bucket and place it on top of the other bucket. Pour your dirty water in the top bucket, and it will be forced by water pressure through the filters and drip into the bottom bucket. While certainly not as well as the lifestyle or lifesaver, if you started with relatively clean water, all you’d need to do is boil the cleaned water for 3 minutes and you’d have perfectly drinkable water.
 
For those of you with a few extra dollars to spend, you can make that same sort of bucket to bucket filter system with Berkey’s integrated filters. They cost about 107 dollars for two, but they are indeed state of the art. They not only get rid of parasites and bacteria, they remove like 70 different chemicals to “undetectable amounts”. You can find them here…
 
http://www.directive21.com/products/black-berkey-elements/
If you really want state of the art filtering, then you want one of the true life savers like the “big Berkey”. It will filter out the chlorine and other chemicals you don’t want to be drinking. They’re expensive units, but pretty attractive and work very well. Many people buy them just to run their household water through to get rid of fluoride and chlorine, etc. This is my favorite system, especially for a family.
 
http://www.berkeyfilters.com/
So obviously here’s my point folks. Yes, you should have some bottled water on hand for an emergency. But if the emergency outlasts your supply, you have to have some way to make water for hygiene and drinking/cooking. Those methods exist and they’re what I’d consider dirt cheap.
 
As far as finding water, again, most of you live at least “nearby” a stream, lake, pond, creek, retention pond, storm run-off pond, etc. From there you can get creative. Do you know how much water falls on your roof during even a small rain shower? It’s hundreds of gallons. Take one of your downspouts and run it into a food grade barrel or even buckets. Use one of the filters I mentioned to clean it up and then finally boil it for a few minutes for absolute safety.
 
I mention boiling because I’m paranoid. Yes, these filters are amazing, but I don’t want that one lone “tough guy” bacteria getting past it and infecting me. Science says boiling won’t reduce chemical pollution, but it kills viruses and bacteria. So if I can find what I might consider chemical free water, such as rain run off, then all I have to do is filter and boil and I’m good to go.
 
As you can see, the technology exists to take virtually any fresh water source and turn it into life saving, life sustaining drinkable water. It isn’t as convenient as turning on your tap, of course, but when the taps don’t work, it’s a true life saver. For the prices we’re talking, how could you not want a few of these things on hand?   (Continues below photo).
The river created by high tide waters next to the villa which is filled at low tide as well.

So here’s an action plan for you all. Get one lifestraw for each member of your family.They’re 20 bucks a piece. Keep them in your glove compartment or your kids backpack or whatever. They’re for emergency use only, of course, and not the most elegant way of getting water. But if you were stranded somewhere, it could keep you alive.

 
Buy either the lifestraw family 1, or the Lifesaver “Jerry jug”, or the Big Berkey for your family. The Lifestraw family 1 is 80 bucks, the Jerry jug, about 200, Big berkey about 230. They’ll all work well, I just give the edge to the Berkey.Then get yourself some food grade 5 gallon pails with lids. I get mine from the local “firehouse subs” joint. They’re the ones they get their pickles and other stuff in. They charge 2 bucks for them.
 
Look around your immediate block for sources of water. Because you usually view a little creek or pond as “icky” you probably didn’t pay attention to how many of them there really are. Find the closest one to you and then figure out the best way to transport water from it to your house. You might use a pull along wagon, your car if it has gas, a wheelbarrow, etc. Get yourselves a few larger food grade barrels, and figure out how to divert rainwater into it. You can grab it coming off a shed, your house roof, etc. If you only need it to flush toilets, toss a bunch of bleach in it, and it will stay for a long long time.
 
As you can see, there is now NO reason to not be able to produce drinking water for washing, bathing, drinking and cooking. A few simple steps now could mean a big difference in your quality of life in a bad situation. So, do some research on the things I’ve presented and get “prepared”.”
 

Tom reads Bob’s newsletters aloud to me a few times each day. After reading this newsletter about water we, along with many of his other readers, were appreciative of having this invaluable information.

Today, continuing our time in Bali, water surrounding us more than ever we find ourselves grateful for this useful and meaningful information. As a result, today’s new photos are all about water since we arrived in Bali a mere four days ago.

You can easily sign up (without any spam) for Bob’s free newsletter, if you’d like by clicking here.

Have a safe and refreshing day with ready access to a fresh water supply at your fingertips.

Photo from one year ago today, September 5, 2015:

The sun rising over Yorkeys Knob, photo taken from our veranda as we wound down our time in Trinity Beach. For more photos, please click here.