Missing Cruise Passenger Found

A cruise ship passenger who officials feared had fallen overboard was located Saturday, alive and well at her home in suburban Detroit.

Alaska State troopers in Ketchikan called the Coast Guard in Juneau to say the woman, Sherry Caminita, 73, had been found.

Caminita, reached Saturday night at her home in St. Clair Shores, Mich., told The Associated Press that she cut short her cruise because of a disagreement with a traveling companion.

“You know, she’s telling me what to wear, and I thought, `I don’t think so,’ so I just left,” Caminita said. “I just got sick of it.”

She apparently got off while the Dawn Princess was docked in Juneau on Friday, carrying just her purse and leaving all her belongings on board, said Randy Holloway, the Coast Guard’s search and rescue coordinator in Juneau.

Caminita said she didn’t remember where she caught the plane to Detroit.

The ship’s captain had alerted the Coast Guard on Saturday morning that the woman had not been seen since Friday afternoon. An employee assigned to clean the woman’s cabin found her bed had not been slept in.

The Coast Guard had sent two boats and a helicopter out in heavy fog to retrace the cruise ship’s path along a 225 mile stretch of water between Juneau and Ketchikan before officials were notified that the woman had been found.

Officials said the ship’s crew had checked the ship’s computerized system that notes each time a passenger or crew member boards or departs the ship, but found no evidence that Caminita had left in Juneau.