Cape Town -Mystery surrounds the disappearance of a cruise ship dancer from South Africa, who is believed to have fallen overboard off the coast of Instanbul, Turkey, a month ago.
Linda Heydenrych of Centurion was a professional dancer employed by the Costa Favolosa cruise ship. Costa is part of the Carnival family of cruise lines.
Online news site, examiner.com, reports that the cruise ship skipped the final port after Heydenrych was lost at sea on August 31.
A Turkish port authority search team spent about six hours searching for Heydenrych before the ship changed course to return to Venice.
The site reported that crew on the ship were tight-lipped about the incident.
Heydenrych was also part of local dance company Afro-Arimba. The company declined to comment.
International Relations spokesman Clayson Monyela said on Wednesday the department was still verifying facts around the incident.
A passenger named Dragan, who was on the cruise at the time of Heydenrych’s disappearance, wrote on the cruiselawnews blog on September 3: “Friday morning we realised that the ship was slowly going in circles for eight hours, and were later given information by the captain that one crew member fell from the ship. It happened around 3am…The previous night there was a fiesta on the ship, and there was some strong wind on deck.”
A friend of Heydenrych wrote on his blog www. AlexCirstea: “I lost some friends during the years, but I was never as shocked as I am now, hearing about Heydenrych’s disappearance. I knew her for only one month, but we spoke often, enough to decide that she was one of the nicest souls that I’ve met onboard. I always told her that her smile could conquer anything.”
Cape Argus
The Guardian 