Yesterday we made an unplanned stop at the island just on the other side of Cape Lopatka, below the Kamchatka Peninsula as there was a medical evacuation needed. Interestingly, we had only been to a talk two days ago where the dr on board explained all about the medical centre and dealing with emergencies at sea. We arrived after lunch, it had been a nice sunny day but very, very windy due to the winds coming off the typhoon.
There seemed to be only a very small township there.
About 5 minutes before I took this picture one of the volcanoes (the peak is just poking through the clouds) decided to have a bit of a spit and it blew steam and black dust up into the air.
It was very windy and cold up on the top deck. The ship moved around slowly so that the tender was in the least amount of wind to take the patient to shore, five people left the cruise with him.
Then the helicopter flew in and landed in an area just to the left of that pale building. They loaded up the patient for transfer somewhere else.
Interesting to watch it happen and certainly confirmation if you can’t afford travel insurance, you can’t afford to travel!
We are still turning our clocks back an hour each night – so I’ve been up since 1am. Imagine having daylight savings changeover every day in a row for a few weeks…
Now we have changed our route to avoid the typhoon which is currently over Japan. We turned left int the Sea of Okholsk, sailing towards Sakhalin Island – the island we visited on our last Japan cruise. The plan is to then sail back in after the typhoon has passed. Its no where near the conditions we had last time, just very windy, no rain yet and not even much rolling of the ship.
We should be on track for Japan tomorrow unless there are more changes today.