An American best-selling novelist stuck aboard a quarantined cruise ship prefers “death by chocolate” to death by coronavirus.
Gay Courter, 75, who is among the 2,600 passengers stuck on the Diamond Princess, called the ship a “rather posh penitentiary” with decadent sweet-tooth offerings.
American novelist Gay CourterGay Courter“We’re lucky to have a slightly larger cabin with a sofa. We can go out on the balcony and the meals have been getting better and better,” Courter said in an interview posted by Sky News.
“The real hero for me on the ship is the pastry chef. He’s determined that death by chocolate is preferable to the virus and he’s sending us all kinds of wonderful, delightful desserts,” she said.
Courter and her husband Phil Courter, 77, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, are stuck on the Diamond Princess, which is docked in the Japanese city of Yokohama.
The Carnival ship’s 3,700 passengers and crew are expected to remain under quarantine until at least Feb. 19. There are 135 confirmed cases of the virus on the vessel.
“There are currently thirty-something ambulances, some with their headlights on,” she told Time magazine in a phone interview that painted a less sanguine outlook of their predicament.
“There are men in military uniforms and more executive-looking types holding clipboards,” the Florida resident said Monday. “People in white hazmat suits are getting out of their fire trucks and heading towards the ship. I’m assuming something’s happening.”
Courter spoke to the mag the day the captain announced that 66 more cases of infection had been confirmed on the ship, making it the largest cluster of cases outside China.
“Today has been the most distressing,” Courter said as she watched the ambulances carry passengers away.
“(My husband Philip and I) are 75 and 77 years old, we have health risks and we are a bad category to get sick … We are not safe in our rooms,” she told CNN.
Courter said she had contacted her insurance company, Medjet, which is willing to send a crisis extraction team to evacuate the couple – but the US and Japanese governments won’t permit that, the network reported.
“We can be taken in quarantine, and extracted in quarantine and arrive in the United States safely,” she said. “We are not sick at the moment but there is a major concern that circulating air on this ship can make people sick.”
Courter said the US could take them to the nearby Okinawa military base for evacuation.
“This was a trip of a lifetime, and I used all of my credit card points. The way out was divine but right now I do not mind how I go home,” she added. “I (just) do not want to go home in a box.”
