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Canadian woman missing from cruise ship near Florida, media reports say

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. - Investigators say a Canadian woman has gone missing from a cruise ship somewhere between Grand Bahama and the Florida coast.

The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for the 47-year-old woman in an area spanning nearly 1,500 kilometres.

An FBI spokesman says there is no additional information about her disappearance.

The woman’s boyfriend told authorities he last saw her early Wednesday when he left her at a ship gift shop. The ship was returning from Freeport, Bahamas, to the Port of Palm Beach.

The man said he left the gift shop for the casino and then returned to their cabin. He alerted the ship’s crew when he awoke and realized she had not returned.

Celebration Cruise Line spokesman Glenn Ryerson says the ship, the Bahamas Celebration, resumed its cruise schedule and returned to sea Wednesday evening.

The ship can carry as many as 2,000 passengers.

"We've given [investigators] our complete track from when we left Grand Bahama last night, every position that we took during the evening," Celebration Cruise Line president Charles Kinnear told a news conference.

"We're still hoping for the best — that somehow she snuck off the vessel or she is still hiding somewhere."

The Coast Guard and Customs officials believe the woman was on the ship when it left the Bahamas at around 8 p.m. Tuesday night because every passenger must swipe a card to get on or off the ship.

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