Dougherty, a passenger aboard a cruise ship that was rocked by monster waves earlier this week during a return trip from Antarctica, said the experience was "terrifying," according to the Philadelphia Daily News.
Check out some footage of the incident:
The Greek-owned Clelia II got caught in a vicious storm Tuesday in the Drake Passage between Cape Horn and Antarctica; the vessel made it back to its home port of Ushuaia, Argentina, on Thursday.
Here's more from the Daily News:
(Interesting side note: For many years, Dougherty wrote a popular column for the Daily News.)"I thought this was it," [Dougherty] said. "I never came so close to cashing it in."
When a huge wave hit, it smashed a railing into the pilot house, knocking out all communication, including radar, he said.
[Dougherty] said he began imagining that if the ship went down, "they'd never find the bodies. You couldn't even think about putting out lifeboats in that sea."
He said the ship was "violently shaking and twisting," with winds reaching 100 mph and waves 30 to 40 feet high.
This certainly isn't the first time a cruise ship has been at the center of drama on the high seas. Just last month, a cruise ship had to be towed back to the Southern California coast after it lost power because of an engine room fire, among other cruise ship nightmares.
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