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and gone down off the coast of Morocco that he especially wanted to search for during his retirement journey. He made one final call to the bridge and was told all was normal before he drifted off to sleep.
     
    A t 4:10 A.M., Second Officer Charles McFerrin thought he caught a distinct whiff of smoke as he made a routine tour of the ship. Sniffing the air, he gauged the smell to be strongest at one end of the shopping avenue where the boutiques and gift shops were located. Mystified, because no alarm had been sounded, he followed the acrid scent along the avenue until he stood in front of the wedding chapel. Sensing heat on the other side, he pulled the door open.
    The interior of the chapel was a raging mass of flames. Stunned, McFerrin stumbled backward away from the intense heat, tripped and fell to the deck. He quickly recovered and called the bridge on his radio communicator and shouted a series of commands. “Wake up Captain Waitkus. We have a fire in the chapel. Sound the alarm, program the damage-control computer and engage the fire-control systems.”
    First Officer Vince Sheffield automatically turned to the fire-systems console. All the lights were green. “McFerrin, are you sure? We have no indication here.”
    “Trust me,” McFerrin shouted into the mouthpiece. “It’s an inferno, and it’s out of control.”
    “Are the sprinklers activated?” Sheffield demanded.
    “No, something is radically wrong. The fire-extinguishing system is not operating, and there was no heat alarm.”
    Sheffield was at a loss. The Emerald Dolphin had the most advanced fire-alarm and -control system of any ship at sea. Without it, there were no options. Staring at the console that showed all was well, he wasted precious seconds vacillating while standing in frozen disbelief. He turned to the junior officer on the bridge, Carl Harding. “McFerrin is reporting a fire in the chapel. Nothing shows on the fire-control console. Go down and check it out.”
    More time was lost while McFerrin frantically fought the growing conflagration with extinguishers, but he might just as well have tried stopping a major forest fire by beating it out with a burlap sack. The flames were spreading beyond the chapel as he fought them alone. He simply could not believe that the automatic sprinklers were not operating. The flames were unstoppable unless crew members appeared and turned on the water valves and attacked the fire with hoses, but only Harding appeared, walking leisurely down the shopping avenue.
    Harding was stunned when he saw the extent of the holocaust, more so when he found McFerrin fighting a losing battle by himself. He called up to the bridge. “Sheffield, for God’s sake! We’ve got a raging firestorm down here and have nothing to fight it with but portable extinguishers. Call out the fire crew and engage the fire-control systems!”
    Still wallowing in disbelief, Sheffield hesitated before switching on the manual override on the extinguishing system in the chapel. “System is on,” he called to the men at the chapel.
    “Nothing is happening!” McFerrin cried. “Hurry, man. We can’t stop this alone.”
    As if in a daze, Sheffield finally called and reported the blaze to the fire-crew officer and then woke Captain Waitkus.
    “Sir, I have a reported fire in the chapel.”
    Waitkus came instantly awake. “Are the fire-control systems taking care of it?”
    “Officers McFerrin and Harding, who are on the scene, report the systems as inoperative. They’re attempting to contain the fire with extinguishers.”
    “Call out the fire crew to man the fire hoses.”
    “I’ve seen to that, sir.”
    “Have the lifeboat crews man their stations.”
    “Yes, sir. Right away.”
    As he hurriedly dressed, Waitkus could not conceive of an emergency that would call for him ordering 2,500 passengers and crew to board the lifeboats and abandon ship, but he was determined to take all precautions. He rushed to the bridge and immediately