A woman fell overboard from a Princess cruise ship and spent almost an hour in the Pacific before being rescued.
The cruise passenger fell off the ship between Brisbane and New Caledonia on Friday, February 17.
Shortly after 4:00 p.m. on Friday (4:00 p.m. NZT) the "man overboard" announcement came over the bridge. The ship was immediately turned around in the hopes of locating the woman. Two life rings were deployed to mark the approximate location of where the passenger went into the water.
It took about 15 minutes for the ship to completely turn around and make it back to the same area. A zodiac-type life boat was then deployed from the ship to conduct a search.
Shortly after 4.30pm (7.30pm NZT) the woman was located by the zodiac vessel, hauled aboard and returned to Sun Princess. In total, she was in the water for about 45 minutes. It was not clear how the woman came to be in the water.
The ship was expected to arrive in Noumea, New Caledonia on Sunday.