Thursday's drama concerning the cruise ship Norwegian Crown has caused a great deal of embarrassment to Bermuda around the world.

In these days of instant communication, it is impossible to keep something like a cruise ship running aground quiet, even if anyone wanted to.

As it is, news of the grounding was on the Internet within hours of it happening, and it continues to make waves today.

Bermuda has always had reason to be proud of the service it provides through its pilots, tugboats, tenders and so forth, and there is no dispute that the Island must have a Marine and Ports service that is reliable and trained.

For that reason, Thursday's grounding is embarrassing. Worse, it raises the spectre that ship operators will think twice before sending ships — cruise or otherwise — to the Island.

It is essential that a thorough and unbiased investigation is conducted that determines where the fault — if any exists — lies, and if fault is found, that disciplinary action is taken along with all the steps necessary to ensure that it never occurs again.

In the meantime, one would hope that some kind of gesture is made to the passengers of the Norwegian Crown to make amends for the inconvenience caused to them — even if it turns out that the grounding was unavoidable.