Okay, the weirdest thing just happened!
We awoke to the Captain announcing the ship turnaround and the evacuation. We discuss for a bit and then I get up to go to the bathroom. I walk into the open closet area which is where the bathroom door is and the light automatically goes on, and there in front of the bathroom door is....a sea bird!
Yes, we had been sleeping with our balcony door partly open. We know you aren't supposed to. But yesterday we were talking to some people and they said how their room is so creaky at night, but opening the door a bit equalizes the pressure a bit and makes it less creaky, so we did it, too. Plus, we like the sound of the ocean. Back to the main story.
So I gasp! My gasp makes the bird jump a bit and I back away and say something like, "Oh, my god!" and my husband goes, "What? WHAT?" and I just tell him to look. He tells me later he expected to see an overflowing toilet. The funny thing is that last night when we chose to leave the door open, my husband said, "A seagull will probably fly in," and I said, "Yeah, right. There's seagulls all the way out here. Sure."
As we discussed what to do, the poor scared bird went into the closet way into the back between my backpack and the shelf cabinet, so I got a towel, herded it out a bit, and then wrapped the towel around his (or her) body and took him out onto the balcony and closed the door. But then it seemed to be desperately trying to get back in...running along the glass door and sort of gently pecking at the glass. We were watching this wondering what was going on, when it slipped under the balcony divider to our neighbor's balcony and hasn't been seen again. I wondered if I should have given it some fresh water. It was a matter of maybe 1 minute between the time we put the bird outside and it disappearing, so we didn't have time to make a scientific decision.
It wasn't a white seagull. It was a brown pattern with a long pointy beak with black spots on it, and pink webbed feet. Duck-sized. I'm worried for it now.