Last year the cruise industry reported that 24 passengers had disappeared between 2003 and last March. The information emerged after a US Congressional subcommittee found itself with an unlikely task: to examine the threat posed to citizens by booking a cruise holiday. Since then, at least 10 more passengers and two crew have been reported missing or overboard, including one Scottish pensioner lost in the Atlantic last November. These figures do not include known suicides and those who, for one or reason or another - a drunken argument, perhaps, or misplaced bravado - are known to have deliberately jumped. Of those who have gone mysteriously missing, some may have killed themselves; other incidents may be alcohol-related mishaps; but in at least one case, the death of a 52-year-old woman on the Island Escape in Italy, something more sinister may have gone on.
For those of us of the literary bent: This peculiar bit of the real world reminded me of that great story by Bob Stone from a few years back, "Under the Pitons." (See Best American Short Stories 1997.) Not exactly a cruise ship, but wow--could it be any more chilling?
There is a coroner's inquest going on and on and on here in Sydney over the 2002 death of Diane Brimble on a cruise ship. http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2006/s1632470.htm The different discourses swirling around this story are fascinating, as a google search on her name will reveal.