A Crystal Cruises-owned vessel made an unscheduled diversion to Bimini Island in the Bahamas, stranding passengers and crew alike. The change in destination came after a Florida District Court provided a signed warrant in response to a lawsuit against the company.

By diverting the Crystal Symphony to the Bahamas, Crystal Cruises is trying to avoid the proverbial repo man. While U.S. Marshals won't dramatically make the vessel disappear overnight like a repossessed car, the District Court's warrant does mean that Federal law enforcement would have likely impounded the ship as soon as it docked. This is information that passengers and some crew members, such as entertainers, would learn only after docking in Bimini.

Some passengers and crew managed to take a ferry ride through choppy seas to Florida, while others were reported to have been taken to Bahamian airports by Crystal Cruises.

Crystal Cruises currently finds itself in some fairly hot water, facing a multi-faceted debacle that began to unfold early into the new year. Like other cruise operators, Crystal's parent company, Genting Hong Kong (GTHKF  ), was struck hard by the pandemic. However, Genting found itself unable to recover from declining sales and mounting debt and entered into liquidation as creditors began to circle.

One such creditor is Peninsula Petroleum Far East, a fuel vendor that provided diesel to Crystal's fleet. Peninsula filed suit against Crystal Cruises to collect its outstanding fuel tab, totaling over $4 million. Peninsula's case was strong enough for the U.S. District Court to sign an arrest warrant.

"The U.S. marshal will be there with the arrest warrant if the ship shows up in Miami," Attorney J. Stephen Simms, who is currently representing Peninsula, told Bloomberg. "My good money is that it's not landing in Miami, from what we've been told. Our client is determined to recover."

Cruise operators and shareholders face an increasingly challenging landscape ahead, especially as creditors see an increasingly bleak future for the industry. With infections aboard ships prompting U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warnings and creditors becoming increasingly tired of keeping cruise operators afloat, the recovery long-sought by cruise operators appears pretty far off.