The announcement came blaring over the public address system at about 1:30pm.

"This is the Bridge . Oscar, Oscar, Oscar; port side."

"Oscar, Oscar, Oscar" is the Royal Caribbean code for "Man Overboard." Radiance, when traveling at 15 knots (I am told) requires about one mile to come to a dead stop. You can feel it when the Captain shoves her into reverse. The life boats aboard Radiance are on Deck Five so, having been in my cabin at the time, the trip up one deck took only a minute or so and by the time I arrived, an emergency boat had already been lowered into the water. I don't know how they accomplished that in so short a time but they did.

In the distance astern, an orange life jacket could be seen in the flat sea. We had earlier been in a dense fog bank, blaring our fog horn as we steamed slowly in a southeasterly direction. The Captain had canceled his 1:45 presentation in the theater saying he could not leave the bridge in these conditions. But, we had cleared the fog before the Oscar announcement came . That was a lucky thing because, in the fog, nothing much was visible. The fog itself was also lucky when you consider that for fog to exist there really can't be much wind. Wind causes choppy seas. Choppy seas would also mean reduced visibility to find someone in the water.

From another passenger who witnessed an exchange between a ship's officer and a passenger, the Oscar came because a man on his balcony on deck nine had seen "people in the water, trying to swim, just below the balcony."

Within a couple of more minutes a second emergency boat had been lowered because the first one could find nothing other than the lone floating life jacket. Soon after, a tender was lowered and, as Radiance first reversed herself using thrusters to "turn on a dime" and later circled the area, the smaller boats made a coordinated concentric search of the area where the passenger had seen the people in the water.

Two fishing boats converged on Radiance to assist . The U.S. Coast Guard dispatched a plane with thermal cameras to fly overhead. We could not see the plane due to dense fog as a cloud that remained above us but we could hear it. Soon, the Holland America ship Amsterdam arrived on the scene and slowed to help.

In the water, I could see quite a bit of debris in the form of large logs, kelp, and smaller bits of floating wood. There was no sign, however, of anything that would have represented a damaged vessel.

The search continued and about ninety minutes into the process, the public address system again crackled and, among other facts conveyed by the Captain, it was noted that the water temperature was about sixty degrees. Passengers moaned as they considered how long a human being could survive in such cold water.

Another ninety minutes passed with no sighting of people in the water.

Finally, the PA crackled again . "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Captain Goran speaking. We have found no evidence of a person or people in the water and have come to the conclusion, in consultation with the United States Coast Guard, that what our passenger saw was most likely not people but dolphins. We have been released from our search and rescue procedures and will be recovering our small boats so that we may continue our journey to Vancouver. Please be reassured to know that we will still arrive in Vancouver at the regularly scheduled time. We, of course, take any and all reports of Man Overboard seriously. Please enjoy the remainder of your day."

We did.

More beautiful scenery and more Orcas graced our path as seabirds soared overhead. Relief was replaced by peace as the Alaskan wilderness embraced us on our way home.