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While a cruise vacation is painted in canvases of beautiful ships, smiling crew, exotic ports and nature's purest places, there is a lot that goes unspoken about. Or, well concealed with clever marketing, contracts prohibiting crew from sharing their knowledge and most of all, unique laws due to who governs these floating cities. A company registered in one country, while a ship is flagged in another, and may also have a recruitment agency in another, is better known of flags of convenience. With these complicated practices, the cruise and other marine vessels are able to avoid labor laws. This also enables a complex system of which governing body or country has authority when a ship reaches 13 miles away from where it is docked. While the local authorities have jurisdiction if a crime or violation takes place in port or within the13 miles, as soon as the ship reaches that impactful distance, the country that the ship is registered to has jurisdiction. You can be an American that reached 15 miles from shore and then you were attacked, but if the ship is flagged in the Bahamas, they have oversight. Now, Captains can also make decisions to turn back or have local authorities in the next port start investigating but here is where things get really interesting. The FBI gets involved in major crimes for US citizens and usually reach out to local authorities to help start and preserve the crime scenes. Deaths only have to be reported to the country that the ship is registered in and recorded in the ships log if they are deemed unsuspicious. And, somehow the top reasons for deaths onboard are elderly natural causes, heart attacks and suicide. Given the demographics of cruisers, especially on some itineraries, this isn't unfathomable. But guess who makes the call as to whether a death is suspicious of foul play? The ship's Captain and security team. With all due respect to these hard working and highly trained people, one is an expert in marine navigation and the others main duties are confiscating liquor. A whistleblower in security recently admitted to being faced to falsify numbers during COVID. It is incredibly hard to believe that with the number of deaths on cruise ships, these numbers are being reported accurately. And to leave you with one last thought, suicide can be very difficult to determine without thorough investigation. If a cabin mate can roofie their roommate to rape them, and I am sorry to end this with that tragic but common fact, it isn't too hard to hang them from the sheets and call it suicide. Why are we not making a bigger deal out of suicide regardless? This section of the site is going to rock your pretty painting a bit, but just know that we are not here to tear down an industry that is indestructible anyway. However, it is time that all aspects of the business are discussed because there can be legislative changes for the safety of passengers and crew.