On April 4, Blue Lagoon Cruises had an incident involving one of their ships.
During a seven-day cruise, the ship struck a reef near Monuriki Island in Fiji, where Cast Away was filmed. According to People, the incident was caused by poor weather conditions in the area.
In a statement, the cruise line said, “Whilst it is very early in the investigation, conditions upon the ship anchoring in the area were calm, and it appears a severe squall caused the ship’s anchor to drag towards a reef whereby it became grounded.” A squall is a sudden increase in wind speed that lasts for several minutes.
About 30 passengers and 30 crew members were on board during the incident. The passengers and non-essential crew disembarked with their luggage, then rode a ferry back to Port Denarau. They were accommodated at Denarau hotels.
“No guests or crew were injured, and many were thankful to Blue Lagoon Cruises for our response,” the cruise line said. They also stated that their main priority “is to reduce and/or eliminate any environmental risk and to finalize a plan to recover the ship, noting that the current weather forecast is not in our favor.”
According to the itinerary on the official Blue Lagoon Cruise website, Monuriki is the first stop on the Escape to Paradise trek. Activities included seeing the filming locations for Cast Away, the 2000 survival film starring Tom Hanks, about a man who ends up stranded on an island after a plane crash.
The website also states that they use flexible cruising. “What this means is that we're prepared to alter our itineraries, for weather-related reasons or when an exciting opportunity arises. For example, if there is some special event taking place in a local Yasawa Village, which you really should see, then we will alter our cruise route to take you there. Or, if we think that our destined anchorage for the night is not going to be as sheltered as a bay on the other side of the island, we'll up-anchor and move.”
