It’s taken me a while to finish off my story of our rescue at sea from the Viking Sky last March. While I had written it in the most part, I couldn’t quite bring myself to finish it until now. It’s a strange mix of emotions to relive the experience all over again.
On the first day onboard the ship in Bergen, I said jokingly to Mum, “I’m going to get off when we get to our last port of call, get a train to Oslo and fly home.” For some reason, I’d always been a bit worried about coming back across the North Sea at the end of our trip. But little did I know what was to come towards the end of our Arctic cruise in search of the Northern Lights.
23rd March, Hustadvika Strait, Norway
The captain began speaking again and I took a sharp intake of breath. “Ladies and gentleman…I can report there is no change.” I breathed out a silent sigh of relief. Even though we’d been sitting next to the clanging lift cables, trussed up in life jackets, for what felt like hours, I was again happy to hear him announce that our situation hadn’t worsened. It hadn’t improved either, but, for the moment, that was sort of ok.
Conditions had started to deteriorate the day before. Having left Tromso on Thursday night of 21st March, we were due to arrive in the town of Bodo on Friday morning. But the captain had announced the wind was too strong for us to safely dock there. Mum and I were disappointed. We would have liked the chance to stand on firm ground for a short while. Nevertheless, we had no choice but to continue south to Stavanger, where we weren’t due to dock until Sunday lunchtime – 48 hours time.
Due to me feeling quite poorly with flu, we ended up spending most of Friday in our cabin, just about managing to venture upstairs for a quick dinner in the evening, then returning to watch the film, Bohemian Rhapsody. As the evening wore on, the sea got rougher. While neither of us was queasy, we both felt a bit uneasy and ended up reading our books until about 5am.
After a couple of hours sleep, Mum offered to go up to the restaurant to bring some breakfast bits back for me. By mid-morning, she was getting scared how rough it was, saying, “I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t spend another day in this cabin.” We tried to think which section of the ship would be most stable. I changed out of my pajamas and we headed down to the atrium, which was mid-ship on Deck 1 to get her a coffee. Walking down there was a feat in itself, as we clung onto the stair rails as the ship slowly heaved from side to side.
Having ordered her coffee and sat drinking it for all of five minutes, we realised conditions weren’t any better and thought we’d prefer to be back in our cabin on deck 4 after all. One of the crew was cleaning it and we sat on our beds as it was impossible to stand. As the sea seemed to get even rougher, Mum got off her bed and sat between the bed and wardrobe feeling safer on the floor, while the crewmember leant against the wall to stay upright. I kept reminding Mum, “Don’t look out the window” as this seemed to increase our fear when we saw how far the ship was listing to each side.
Suddenly, without warning, the ship lurched violently to the port side and all our possessions went flying across the cabin. Thankfully the bed was fixed to the floor, otherwise Mum would have got squashed between it and the wardrobe. I know it was rough, but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t supposed to happen. A minute or so later, we lurched all the way back in the other direction with our possessions sent flying. We were both pretty scared by now, sitting together on one bed, and Mum called after the crewmember to leave our door wedged open so we didn’t feel completely alone.
Then the power cut out. Our TV screen went blank, the lights went out and the sound of the vacuum cleaner in the corridor stopped. We heard the Captain over the tannoy with what sounded like, “Codec, codec, codec.” A feeling of dread came over me. What was this ? A coded mayday message? I said nothing to Mum but thought this sounded bad. What on earth did it mean? A few minutes passed and then we heard the disturbing sound of the emergency signal – those seven long beeps we’d heard back on the first day of our cruise when we’d light-heartedly taken part in the emergency drill.
Thinking quickly, we put on our coats and grabbed our bags. I stuffed a jumper into mine, but made the decision to leave my treasured camera with all my Northern Lights photographs on it behind. After all, we’d only be away for a short while wouldn’t we? I put my snow boots on and Mum slipped on some light pumps. Then we were away. We made our way steadily down the corridor. Crewmembers shouted to hold onto the handrails. We joined the throngs making their way down the stairs. Due to the earlier practice drill, we knew where we had to go, to our muster station – the restaurant on deck 2.
The ship was lurching aggressively from one side to the other as we made our way into the restaurant. It was all we could do to keep our balance. After some confusion, we found our designated section – group 4. We huddled on the floor amongst a crowd of people and held hands. It wasn’t safe to stand. Every so often, we heard the shockingly loud crash of breaking glass. We realised it was all the crockery, glassware and glass-fronted fridges full of wine bottles smashing to the floor.
A short while later, we saw crewmembers start to dish out life jackets. If it wasn’t serious already, I felt it was starting to get more serious now. Perhaps this really was an emergency situation. Were we going to be put into the lifeboats? In such treacherous seas, this was a terrifying thought. Now in a state of slight panic, I couldn’t remember exactly how to tie my life jacket and a member of the crew stopped to help us.
While still huddling in the same position on the floor, there was another violent lurch. We suddenly found ourselves engulfed by a tidal wave of water that had swooshed through the restaurant. Thoughts of the Titanic rushed into my head. Were we sinking? Was this the end? Mum called out, “Don’t let go of me.” No. I wouldn’t.
#vikingsky emergency pic.twitter.com/9bxdRpB2zV
— David Hernandez (@oxman78) March 23, 2019
As we lurched back the other way, the wave washed back out. We were now soaked to the skin by icy water from our waists all the way down to our feet and shaking in disbelief. We were thankful to discover, shortly after, that we weren’t sinking, but a freak wave had burst through a heavy metal door. Thank goodness we weren’t nearer that door, as we spoke to a lady later that had clung on for dear life, terrified that she would be washed out to sea.
Due to the water and broken glass, we were told we must vacate our muster station and move elsewhere. Moving slowly along the rocking corridor and down the stairs, we eventually found ourselves back down in the atrium on deck 1, where we’d gone for Mum’s coffee earlier that morning.
Mum and I found somewhere to sit on the end of a row of chairs with our backs against a wall. The lady next to me was bleeding from a nasty gash on her leg and an elderly gentleman opposite us later found out he’d broken a leg. His daughter was surrounded by a cloud of feathers spilling out of her down coat, which had been ripped apart by broken glass.
The crew were walking around checking to see if everyone was ok. They started asking if anyone needed medication from their cabins as we weren’t allowed to go back there. Mum asked a couple of times if someone could get her some dry shoes. Eventually someone came back with two pairs of her boots. Fortunately it meant I could have a dry pair too.
Later, I managed to grab a more senior member of the crew and told her I was still sitting in soaking wet clothes. She kindly accompanied me up to our cabin. We gripped the handrails as we walked around passengers sitting on the stairs. I was shocked to see our cabin in a complete mess, but quickly located some fresh clothes to change into while the ship still rocked and rolled.
Back downstairs, and now in dry clothes, all we could do was sit and wait. Then, suddenly, the ship lurched sharply to the starboard side. Our row of chairs, with me sitting on the end, went flying across the shiny marble floor straight towards a grand piano, which was anchored to the floor. There was nothing I could do, but brace myself for the crash.
My wooden chair took the brunt of the impact and broke underneath me. I had a bruise, but nothing worse. A fellow passenger kindly hauled me up and motioned for us both to sit alongside him and his wife against the back of the lift shaft. At least we were now on fixed seating which couldn’t move.
This was where we continued to sit and wait for the next 18 hours. The noise of the lift cables, which shook and clanged each time the ship lurched, terrified Mum who was now trembling with fear. She pleaded with me to let us move. “We need to stay here. It’s safe here,” I said. At least, I hoped it was.
The thought of going to the bathroom was even terrifying. I’d sit there for ages trying to will myself to get up and walk across the room to the Ladies’. I kept thinking I’d wait for things to calm a little, but they didn’t. So in the end, I just had to take the plunge and go for it.
The Captain made announcements over the tannoy every half an hour or so. Each time I heard his voice, my mouth went dry for fear of what he’d say. We learned the engines had cut out and they were trying their best to restart them, but it was proving extremely challenging. We were informed tugboats were on their way to help us. While one arrived relatively quickly, it was too dangerous for it to tie up to us and we were told the other tugs were a long way off.
At some point later, the Captain announced he had taken the decision to start evacuating passengers from the ship by helicopter, but they could only take 15 to 20 off at a time. There would be four helicopters flying back and forth. Injured passengers would obviously be prioritized. Ray, who had helped me up earlier, suggested this could take about 30 hours!
We then discovered, to our horror, that a cargo ship, which had come to try and help us, had got into difficulties and capsized. It meant two of the helicopters would have to abandon our evacuation to rescue its crew. We knew our rescue helicopters were carrying passengers from deck 8, whereas we were all the way down on deck 1, leaving us to think we would be some of the last off. Our forecast of 30 hours, turned into 60. Oh it was going to be a long, long wait.
By this time, the Captain had dropped the anchor to try and hold Viking Sky’s position. We were close to rocks, but we didn’t realise until we saw the footage on TV afterwards, just how perilous our position had been.
Darkness fell, which for me wasn’t a bad thing at it meant I couldn’t see the violent seas out the window. Courtney, a member of the crew, came by to check we were ok and told us a passenger over the other side had asked her to sing. We asked her if she’d sing for us and she said she would when she next returned. When she came back, she stood in front of us in her lifejacket and broke into ‘Hallelujah.’ Oh my goodness, what a beautiful voice and poignant song. Tears immediately pricked at my eyes and I tried my best to stop them spilling down my cheeks.
Watch the video to see Courtney singing to us.
Courtney’s singing seemed to calm Mum a little. She didn’t seem to panic as much each time the lift cables clanged. We sat mostly in silence. We were too tired to speak, even though it was impossible to sleep due to the motion of the ship, fear and discomfort of sitting in our coats and lifejackets. Every so often, the crew would appear with food they must have sourced from the next day’s breakfast. They offered us cookies, then pots of yoghurt, chunks of melon and whole punnets of blueberries. Unusually for me, I wasn’t hungry and only managed to nibble a bit of cookie.
During the evening, the Captain informed us they’d managed to start three of the ship’s engines. We were riding the waves, bow first, to try and keep us as steady as possible. They would try and connect up to the tugs when daylight came.
I had a What’s App message from a friend ping through. She asked if I was on the Norwegian cruise ship with engine failure. Yes, I was on it. Word got round and I had a few messages from friends that had seen footage of the plight of Viking Sky in Norway’s treacherous Hustadvika Strait on the news. They were getting in touch to check I wasn’t on it. It was nice to hear from people back home and a bit of a distraction too. Around 11pm, my friend Helen messaged again to say she’d heard that 159 passengers had been evacuated so far. Out of 950 passengers and 500 crew, that meant there was still a long way to go.
24th March, Hustadvika Strait, Norway
Every so often we’d catch sight of a small group of passengers walking along the floor above us. We assumed they were going to the helicopter. Around 2am, a crewmember came down and told us that it would be our turn to leave soon and we couldn’t take any bags with us. My big Arctic-style coat had lots of pockets and I crammed them with useful things including my house keys, cough sweets, tissues and a bit of cash. Who knew when we’d next be reunited with our belongings, if at all?
Some while later, members of the crew came back down with boxes, which they unpacked to reveal emergency ration biscuits. These were supposed to give us an energy boost before our helicopter ride. Mum took a bite of one and pronounced it disgusting. It was like cardboard and she couldn’t swallow it. That was enough for me, I didn’t care about energy, I wasn’t going to be eating one.
Instead, now finding myself feeling quite queasy, I made the arduous journey along swaying corridors and down the stairs to the ship’s doctor in search of seasickness pills. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually seasickness as I’d been fine all the way along until now. It was either part of my flu bug, or perhaps even fear of our pending helicopter evacuation.
Around 7am on Sunday morning, we were asked if we would like to be evacuated by helicopter. It seemed now there was the possibility of staying onboard and waiting for the storm to pass and be towed into shore. Mum and I looked at each other and immediately said yes. While we were anxious about being airlifted, we didn’t want to stay onboard for who knows how much longer.
A group of 20 of us were guided up seven decks to Deck 8. Climbing fairly quickly up around 14 flights of stairs was hard work. I suggested we stayed at the back of the group so we would go up to the helicopter last. My reasoning was I’d sooner be on the ship in strong winds, rather than on a hovering helicopter in strong winds.
We stood on the stairs and waited nervously. Mum was told to remove her glasses. The couple before us disappeared out the door and we were beckoned closer to it. We could feel the cold, fresh air from outside and hear the noise of the helicopter above.
Standing side by side, a sling was put over our heads, which sat just under our arms. We were motioned onto the deck and had our first experience of being outside in the cold, strong winds. As we hadn’t seen anyone else winched up, I was still assuming (or hoping) that a helicopter crewmember was going to come up with us. But it seemed not. It would be just Mum and I. On our own.
We turned to face each other and grabbed onto the winch as it came down. Then…woooosh. We were suddenly yanked off our feet. I was determined to keep my eyes open to take it all in. And there it was, the angry sea below and the red helicopter above. I said to myself, “Please let it be quick.”
We reached the door of the helicopter and were tugged onto the floor. My overriding thought was to get away from the open door as quickly as possible. Ray’s wife, Cindy, helped Mum and I into a sitting position. It was a snug fit with everyone onboard. Then, high fives all round. We were wind-swept, exhausted but delighted we’d made it! I noticed a female member of the helicopter crew looking quite emotional too.
Footage of our arrival into the helicopter. Video filmed by fellow passenger, Ray.
From my position on the floor I couldn’t tell if we were flying or still hovering, but eventually I felt us come into land. I was pulled off the helicopter first and a man grabbed me by the arm and quickly walked me inside the sports’ centre at Molde. A group of people were waiting for us and one of them said, “Welcome.” I was overcome by a wave of emotion and fought back tears. I was relieved we were safe and everyone was being so kind. The Red Cross, police, military and local volunteers had come out to look after us. We were given tea, biscuits and a blanket and asked if we were ok.
A coach brought us to a hotel in the town of Molde. You’d think we would have been starving, but we just nibbled on a bit of food. The locals had donated clothing if we needed anything. The chairman of Viking had flown in to hold a meeting with us, and, as we arrived for it later in the afternoon, we saw our ship, Viking Sky, limping back into port. Mum and I felt strangely protective of her and hoped she was ok.
A Norwegian TV crew asked to interview us. By this point, I’d lost my voice so Mum did most of the talking, with an occasional croak from me. Viking kindly arranged to open up a local shopping centre on that Sunday afternoon and gave us an allowance to spend, but we were too exhausted and just wanted to lie down.
After a chaotic few hours, we learned we would fly back to the UK around midnight. We were given just a short time to return to our cabin to pack up our luggage. Everything was in disarray, although the Viking crew had done their best to try and tidy up as much as they could. Sadly we had lost some of our possessions, but the main thing was we were safe and we’d be back in our own beds by the next evening.
Both Mum and I would like to give our heartfelt thanks to the volunteers and people of Molde who gave up their weekends to look after us. You can read more about the rescue here. We are also so grateful for the kindness of the Viking crew, who must have been as scared as we were.
To find out why the Viking Sky suffered engine failure, you can read this article about the preliminary findings of the Norwegian Accident Investigation Board.