I don’t swim. This is a fairly crucial element of my backstory, something that defines me even if I don’t want it to and have begged people to stop asking me about it. Water and I simply have nothing in common. I’m a 41-year-old writer, and water is, well … wet. My son swims like a fish, and as soon as I dunk my head under the surface, I start wondering what it would be like to suffocate, how soon I can come back up, and what I’m even doing down there in the first place. As bad as a pool is, the ocean is even worse. It’s not just water. It’s water with living creatures in it. What’s down there? I don’t care to find out. Things are bad enough up here.

My general lack of interest in swimming, perhaps better described as a horrible fear, is one of the reasons I’ve never been on a cruise. God forbid I have to escape because of some kind of Steven Seagal/Under Siege situation. I’d jump on the edge of the boat, desperately attempt to doggy-paddle and end up at the bottom of the Mariana trench.

But the danger isn’t just outside the cruise ships. It’s also inside. The world is currently transfixed by the fate of the people aboard the MV Hondius, a cruise ship that became the center of an outbreak of the hantavirus, a virus I only knew about from a mention in the X-Files movie in 1998. Clearly, I’m........

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