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The uninhabited Scottish island of Little Cumbrae (also known as Wee Cumbrae) has now become the Peace Island (Shanti Dwipam in Sanskrit) of Patanjali Yog Peeth (UK) Trust (PYPT).

Some interesting features of Little Cumbrae, the Peace Island are:

• PYPT aims to make Wee Cumbrae accessible for everyone as a worldwide destination for the whole family, to experience the rejuvenating and healing powers of Yog Pranayam and Ayurved.
• Has an area of 277 hectares (684 acres) and has a length of approximately 1.8 miles (2.9 kilometres) and 0.9 miles (1.5 kilometres) at its widest point.
• Nearly thousand people joined the ‘Hawan’ celebrations on September 27 led by Baba Ramdev, co-founder of PYPT.
• Sam and Sunita Poddar, Scottish couple of Indian origin have purchased the island for £2 million and have pledged the use of the island to the PYPT to establish the first five star Pranayam Yog and Ayurved medicine retreat outside India.
• Sunita Poddar is the international coordinator and a trustee of PYPT, UK.

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Deployment of USS Dubuque (LPD 8), an amphibious transport dock ship is postponed as a crew member onboard has a confirmed case of H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu). 50 more crew members are also presenting flu-like symptoms.

As a precautionary measure, the vessel’s deployment as part of Pacific Partnership voyage to provide Humanitarian Civic Assistance is cancelled.

Read more from Pacific Fleet Commander’s blog.

View video clip from The Pentagon Channel Report: Flu Outbreak On Ship

Here is the photograph of USS Dubuque from U.S Navy.

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Last week, four crew members of Korean ship MV Bright Star died onboard due to stomach ache, diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration. This happened when the vessel was near the coast of South India. The vessel had total 20 member crew and the remaining crew also became sick. Indian Coast Guard immediately assisted the ship’s crew. Preliminary investigations suggest a case of extreme food poisoning.

The sequence of events are:

• The vessel carrying animal fodder sailed out from Kandla port in Gujarat on February 09. The vessel was bound for Singapore.
• The crew after consuming tinned meat and fish on the night of February 10 developed stomach ache, diarrhea and vomiting.
• Due to extreme food poisoning, four crew members one after the other died onboard on February 11. The dead crew are:
  • Jophil Pin, age 22 and Goseong Gaan, age 19 from South Korea.
  • Saw Myohtut, age 32 and Saw David, age 29 from Myanmar.
• As the remaining crew also started falling sick, the vessel contacted Korean Coast Guard for help.
• Korean Coast Guard further contacted Indian Coast Guard for necessary assistance.
• On February 13 morning, Offshore Patrol Vessel “Vikram” and Inshore Patrol Vessel “Ahalya Bai” of Coast Guard with a medical team approached MV Bright Star to assist and found the vessel afloat near Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin).
• The Coast Guard found four sailors dead on board the ship and all the remaining were severely ill. The condition of the Captain, Kim Kio, 40, of Korea and another crew member, Minsin Chai, 28, was very critical.
• All the crew members were then taken to Nagercoil for treatment.
• Arrangements are being made to hand over the dead crew to clearing and forwarding agents of Kochi.

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Incidents of food poisoning in ships are not a surprise. Recently on January 08, at least 340 passengers of MSC Sinfonia, docked in Salvador, Bahia suffered severe vomiting and diarrhea. It was reported that an inspection found problems with the amount of chlorine in the ship’s drinking water and with the storage of some perishable food items, notably mayonnaise.

Ensuring food safety onboard is a team effort and here are some tips to avoid food poisoning in ships:

Storing

• Check goods before taking onboard
  • Source of supply: to be from approved vendors/brands
  • Check for expiry date
  • Do not accept damaged or open packages
  • Inspect frozen goods: to be in hard frozen state
  • Store frozen and chilled goods first
  • Do not store rotten vegetables and fruits
  • Follow FIFO (First In First Out) for using
  • Cold/Cool rooms: Check temperatures regularly and report problems if any
  • Cold/Cool rooms: Check indication lights are working and door seals on closure
  • Cold/Cool rooms: Check internal safety alarms, opening mechanisms operation
  • Use protective clothing to enter cold rooms and freezers
  • Carry goods safely

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When a seafarer falls sick at sea or when there is medical emergency, timely medical treatment is necessary. On many occasions medevac (medical evacuation) is unavoidable. Till medevac takes place, correct medical diagnosis has to be done and right treatment has to be provided to the patient. This requires

• Assessment of the medical emergency by interacting with the patient and Stabilization of the patient.
• Where necessary, online medical advice has to be taken from ashore for the right diagnosis, treatment.
• Necessary medical supplies have to be maintained onboard.
• Again where necessary, after medical advice has to be taken from ashore.

All the above activities have to go on, in the shortest possible time. To achieve this, the Ocean Medical International (OMI) provides Medical Kits and Medical Training for ship’s crew.

OMI medical system comes with

• OMI Assessment and Stabilization Guide.
• Necessary medical supplies depending on the type of vessel.

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Seafarers can not perform if they are depressed. WebMD has listed the physical symptoms of depression.

Do you have ?

• Headaches
• Back pain
• Muscle aches and joint pain
• Chest pain
• Digestive problems
• Exhaustion and fatigue
• Sleeping problems
• Change in appetite or weight
• Dizziness or lightheadedness

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This weekend alert is about Dry Drowning. Drowning is immersion in water or fluid that cuts off air supply to lungs in the body. Due to lack of oxygen in the body, drowning causes death. This drowning can also be called as wet drowning.

Here is something different. Death can be due to Dry Drowning also.

What is Dry Drowning ?

• causes death due to lack of oxygen but not immediate death like drowning
• death caused due to a delayed effect of a small quantity of water inside the lungs
• this can happen even after 1 hour to 24 hours after coming out of swimming pool
• about 15 percent of drowning victims have experienced dry drowning
• persons suffering from asthma may also be at risk of dry drowning
• water boarding can also cause dry drowning
• prolonged breathing in any gas other than oxygen that does not cause death on its own (like working in confined spaces where there is lack of oxygen)

Symptoms of Dry Drowning:

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Here is weekend alert to water sports enthusiasts. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report dated May 30, from Centers for Disease Controls (CDC) gives a warning note to water sports enthusiasts. Six cases of Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM) were reported to CDC in the United States during June to September in the year 2007. All six patients unfortunately died.

What was the reason for these deaths ?

All the six from Arizona (1), Florida (3), and Texas (2) were the victims of brain infecting ameba called Naegleria fowleri or N. fowleri. All the victims were found to be recreational water sports enthusiasts in swimming, wakeboarding, diving.

Here are alarming features of Naegleria fowleri:

• Naegleria is an ameba that thrives in warm freshwater and soil. Naegleria fowleri which belongs to this species of Naegleria, infects people.
• it causes a very rare but severe brain infection that causes death.
• while in water, the ameba enters through the nose to reach the brain and spinal cord to cause infection.
• initial symptoms found within 14 days of infection: headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, and stiff neck.
• later symptoms: confusion, lack of attention to people and surroundings, loss of balance, seizures, and hallucinations.
• causes death within 3 to 7 days after the start of symptoms.

As Naegleria fowleri is found only in warm freshwater, water sports enthusiasts in lakes, swimming pools, rivers have to be careful. As sea water is not having this ameba, water sports in beaches are safe.

Here are the precautionary measures to be taken to avoid Naegleria fowleri infection:

• keep your nose water tight or use nose clips while sporting in bodies of warm freshwater such as lakes, rivers, or hot springs.
• do not dig in or stir up the sediment if you are in shallow, warm freshwater bodies.

The foolproof way to avoid this infection is to refrain from water related activities

• in bodies of warm freshwater, hot springs.
• thermally polluted water such as water around power plants.
• during periods of high water temperature and low water levels.

If you want to know more about Naegleria Infection, here is the fact sheet.

Here is the full report of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report dated May 30 from CDC.

Here is an interesting video clip of Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM).

Yoga synchronizes body, mind and soul. Baba Ramdev is planning to conduct Yoga at Sea for a week. The program is organized by Patanjali Yogpeeth, Hardwar of Baba Ramdev and Vishwa Jagriti Mission Trust, Kolkata. The interesting features of Yoga at Sea are:

• to be conducted from May 31 to June 07, 2008
• to be conducted on cruise liner SuperStar Virgo of Star Cruises
• about 1000 yoga learners have already enrolled
• tour costs vary from Rupees 1,40,000 to 58,900 for an adult and Rupees 32,000 to 14,500 for an infant

Here is the route map and the ship

Here are video clips of SuperStar Virgo and Baba Ramdev.

More information about Yoga at Sea are available here.

Update: June 06

Here is onboard news report from thaindian.

The Intelligent First Aid Talking Kit is now available. The interesting features of this kit are:

• designed by medical and educational experts
• combines supplies, visual instruction cards
• has an audio module for verbal guidance to manage the most common injuries
• the kit is separated into individually labeled and color-coded injury packs so the user has all the supplies
• has easy to follow instructions for managing a specific injury
• on pressing a button, the audio module in each injury card narrates step-by-step instructions to manage the injury, pausing and repeating when necessary for accurate response
• the case includes a guidebook, with first aid instructions for additional medical emergencies, such as choking, frost bite, heatstroke, asthma
• also included is a product manual with audio instructions
• a book light/flashlight and a shoulder strap

Here is an audio sample from the bleeding pack of the Intelligent First Aid Talking Kit.

Click the icon to listen.

This Intelligent First Aid Talking Kit will be very useful in the ships where timely First Aid is very important.

More details are here at intelligentfirstaid.

BBC reports fatigue among seafarers as a reason for accidents and near misses at sea. DNV study says 51% of marine accidents are caused by only 25% of all the ships worldwide. One of the reasons for these accidents is fatigue experienced by seafarers.

What is fatigue ?

Fatigue is experienced by us as physical fatigue and mental fatigue. Early stages of fatigue lead to loss of productivity whereas advanced stages of fatigue lead to accidents within the ship or cause groundings, collisions even to the extent of sinking of ships.

Signs of a seafarer suffering from fatigue.

• looking dull with frequent yawns
• half closed eyes
• loss of concentration in work
• unable to listen, understand and act
• non synchronization of body and mind

What causes fatigue to seafarers ?

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Gamucci electronic cigarette is now available for smoking seafarers.

The electronic cigarette has

• a replaceable cartridge which comes in different flavors like tobacco,chocolate,apple,cherry,mint
• atomization chamber
• electronic smart chip
• built in rechargeable battery
• an operating indicator at the cigarette tip

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Total Fitness is nothing but Physical and Mental Fitness. In this fast moving world, work related stress is increasing day by day. One has to overcome work related stress to increase productivity. Your success depends on your total fitness of your mind and your body.

Now, are you looking for

• total fitness of your mind and your body
• fun and relaxation
• improved cardiovascular health
• relief from arthritis
• control on your diabetes
• a peaceful sleep
• control on your body weight
• relief from back pain
• relief from depression

Well, all these above can be achieved through Aquatic Fitness Systems (AFS). In the Aquatic Fitness Systems you can do any thing you feel like; you can walk, run, jog, swim, row.

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An article in the Japanese Journal of Marine Medicine reports about a survey conducted on the life-style of fishermen in relation to smoking habits and drinking habits. The survey found that

• about 60% of seamen in passenger ship have regular drinking tendencies and 56.8% smoke.
• Rating members under age 44 smoke more heavily than other age groups.
• males had a higher tendency to be smokers.

Another report finds that Danish seafarers, especially men, face an increased overall cancer risk, in particular a risk for lung cancer and other tobacco associated cancers. One more report confirms that female seafarers adopt the high risk lifestyle of male seafarers.

This post brings out the reasons Why Seafarers become Smokers and Alcoholics ? This post in no way justifies smoking and drinking.

1.Relieves stress

The job of a seafarer is tough and as a means of relieving stress, prefers to smoke and drink.

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Virus in Cruise ships. What is the relevance? Well. wikipedia lists the following as cases of Noroviruses or Norwalk disease on Cruise Ships so far occurred this year.

• In January 2007, several cases were discovered aboard the cruise-liner Queen Elizabeth 2 of Cunard Line in what the Center for Disease Control (CDC) called an “unusually large outbreak.” Seventeen percent (276 out of 1,652) of the passengers on board reportedly fell ill. 28 crew members were also ill.
• On its 1 April 2007 voyage, the Princess Cruises ship Caribbean Princess had at least 79 passenger and 4 crew member cases of norovirus, or Norwalk disease.
• In late May 2007, nearly 200 passengers and 10 crew members aboard Royal Caribbean’s newest ship, Liberty of the Seas, contracted Norovirus.
• In late August 2007, in excess of 500 passengers and unknown number of crew members contracted Norovirus aboard the Celebrity Cruises cruise ship Millennium, sailing between Barcelona and Venice (Aug. 17-29, 2007). Outbreak happened before the end of 12-day cruise, mostly older people fell ill, unknown, but considerable number of them were hospitalized in ship’s hospital and after disembarkation around 10 of those patients/passengers were sent home (mostly to the U.S.) on stretchers. Italian ambulances were delivering them to Marco Polo Airport in droves.

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