Judy and her friends now knew the crew of the Star Princess was not going to do anything to help the men in the stricken fishing vessel.
Still concerned about the men they had seen waving for help, Judy returned to her cabin and made note of the ship's position and the current GPS coordinates, which were available on one of the television channels in her cabin. She said "I went down to our cabin and got the coordinates which are posted every few minutes on a TV channel in the cabins. I wrote down the coordinates a little while after we passed by the boat. That location was at position 06° 12? 25? N, 083° 29? 08? W on 10 March 2012. So the photo I sent you was of the boat we saw just SW of these coordinates."
Now the cruise ship was steaming away, and the castaways were fading towards the horizon, but Judy still would not give up. Determined to do something to try to help these men, she returned to her cabin and actually sent a message to the United States Coast Guard, in a frantic last-ditch effort to get help for the men on the fishing vessel. This is the text of the email Judy sent to the US Coast Guard;
"Sent to US coast guard at 6 pm local time ( between CR and Ecuador) While on a cruise ship the Star Princess, between Ecuador and heading to Puntarenas Costa Rica, 3 of us are birding off the starboard deck with good optics and spotted a boat at about position 06 12.25 N and 083 29.08 W today, possibly about 10 miles SW of that location. The boat appeared to be a disabled fishing boat with one person aboard and nets strung up from the masts. The person was actively waving a shirt or fabric object up and down with both hands. Since we were so many miles off shore and had not seen ANY watercraft all day, we summoned a representative from the ship and asked him to phone the bridge. The rep then came back after calling the bridge of the Star Princess and looked through our scopes himself and could see the man waving something. By this time, he appeared farther away and was now waving a red flag. We took this to be a sign of distress. The boat could be disabled and the man adrift. The Star Princess did not turn around or appear to make any active attempt to deal with the information so we were bothered and decided to send information somewhere ourselves although we realize this is NOT US waters. We are 3 birders with a lot of experience at sea and were using Swarovski binoculars 10/50, a Swarovski spotting scope at 30 to 60 power and my KOWA scope at 30 to 60 power. We have no doubt whatsoever that we saw a man appearing to be in distress and want to be sure that someone who is able to communicate such information knows about it. Respectfully submitted, Judy Meredith, Bend, Oregon, 97701, but presently at sea and unable to make a phone call."
Even though she had done everything human possible to help those poor people, the sight of the men frantically waving for help continued to haunt Judy. Upon return from the cruise, two weeks later, Judy saw the reports of the rescue of Adrian "Santi" Vasquez and the plight of the "Fifty Cent" on the news. She immediately suspected the boat they had spotted that day on the Star Princess might have been the stricken Panamanian fishing vessel. But, she had no way of knowing for sure, and she decided to try to find out. Judy started reading all of the news stories published on the Internet about the rescue of Adrian Vasquez, and eventually she saw the articles I had published on the Panama-Guide.com website.
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