Some might call this a sign of the apocalypse…or maybe just a sign of the times in which we live.
The Carnival Triumph has an engine-room fire and loses power. The ship lists in open water and five long days later is towed to Alabama. Within days of going ashore, 
one of the 3,470 passengers turns her daily journal into a self-published book and e-book about "what really happened."
The book — it's on on amazon.com in both formats for $5.10 and $2.99, respectively — is in position to become the story. One person who read it called the book "a testament in part to the power and comfort of faith." Author Christina Peadon, on her first-ever cruise, becomes the latest candidate for a person in search of her 15 minutes of fame. Or she becomes a righteous person who, in the face of the criticism on TV and in newspapers for many days, just wants to set the record straight.
Her story is regarded as a defense of Carnival and the Triumph's crew, and "just one passenger's view" of the alleged "cruise from hell." The only thing that happened faster than the publishing of her book, which takes about two hours to read, was the filing of lawsuits by passengers who believed the incident warranted more than the offered compensation.
So a quickie book that wasn't even on Mrs. Peadon's mind when she and her husband and their three kids boarded the Triumph could wind up being evidence on what happened on a cruise ship days after embarkation.
Who would have believed a story like this?
Caribbean Princess
7 nights
March 30, 2013
Fort Lauderdale (return): Princess Cays, Curacao, Aruba
Inside: $533
Cost per day: $76
www.princesscruises.com