OCT. 4, 2012 WESTERDAM 30 DAY Pacific/Tahiti HELP TO FANNING Mission

Due to another succesful mission to help Fanning Island during the May 10, 2012 Volendam sailing to Fanning Island, another opportunity to help Fanning Island during the Oct. 4 sailing on the Westerdam took place. The Pacific Coastal  portion of the cruise was an opportunity to get more information to the passengers before their continuing 30 day cruise, and also bring some supplies on board thanks to a delivery by Alan and Desire Johnson

The ship allowed PCM Director Rich Smith to give an informal presentation before arriving San Diego. There were about 70 people attending who had heard about the presentation at the Cruise Critic Meet and Greet gathering and other word of mouth advertizing. The passengers all seemed to gain so much information from viewing the videos presented and the question and answer periods.  Many of the guests had been asked to help deliver some of the supplies that were brought onboard and they graciously accepted the request. Our hope is that they were able to continue on to Hawaii and obtain more needed supplies and personally be able to deliver them when arriving Fanning Island. Sadly, the Westerdam ship staff did not want to assist the passengers with collecting and offloading their supplies. A disapointing situation with this ship sailing.

At the date of this posting (10/24/12) the passengers have been able to visit Fanning but no information has been received about their success.

The needs on Fanning are so great, and there is only one more HAL Westerdam sailing in April 2013 that plans to call on the island. Thankfully, the Statendam was able to visit Fanning instead of Christmas Island during their future 2 Pacific/Tahiti cruises but the weather and surf conditions did not allow them to go to shore nor offload their supplies. See that post for more information.

For those traveling on future sailings, a list of important needs is currently available on the Wish List page.

Please keep returning to the home page for continuing updates. If you would like to assist please contact rich@pacificcaremissions.org

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