At the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic, with human beings dying by the thousands daily,
the gut-wrenching news of the desperate plight of half-a-million seafarers went online.
The people on whom the world depended to keep human beings alive: the doctors, nurses, assistants and ancillary staff in hospitals and other care facilities were then being publicly lauded as heroes. Not included in the emotional outpourings of deserved gratitude were the daring men and women seafarers on ships of all types traversing Earth’s great oceans. Their profession: tending life-saving cargoes of food, fuel, medicinal supplies and medical equipment then criss-crossing the world, from supplier to consumer.
The omission of seafarers from public accolade was not reflective of any widescale indifference or disregard for this category of essential workers. Perhaps it was because these essential workers as a group were not as visible as others with whom the average person encounters on occasion, if not frequently. But, for whatever reason, the work and importance of seafarers to the survival of mankind are factors rarely considered let alone appreciated.
To paraphrase a participant in a recent webinar, the only thing a ship can do without people is rust. Filter that comment to lay bare the reality that food, medicines and life-sustaining products are shipped to you in the custody of educated, trained, skilled people who must leave their families for long stretches of time to go to work. Theirs is the task of securing and protecting cargoes of various types and priorities, necessities or luxuries; stable or volatile, taking it safely to distant shores across Earth’s treacherous oceans. And in the pleasure and recreational sector, they provide guidance, stewardship, high-end entertainment and above-average dining for the millions of fun-seeking passengers who embark cruise ships every year.
As the spread of COVID-19 brought global tourism to an abrupt halt, cruise ships were refused berthing by port states all over the world. Governments issued “no- sail” orders to home-port lines. Ship’s crew, like cruise passengers, were refused disembarkation because of local lock-down regulations. No country wanted to risk importing what was already being touted as the most contagious virus mankind had ever confronted. And in the initial weeks of being identified and named by the World Health Organization, COVID-19 was already intercontinental. More than half a million of the world’s estimated 1.2 million seafarers doing service on about 55,000 ships were hit by the rapidly emerging crew change crisis. Crew could not travel to take up crewing assignments in distant ports. And those who had completed contracts could not get home from the last port on their tour of duty.
Of the more than 500,000 seafarers caught out in this pandemic, about half their number were actually at sea, unable to disembark as port states moved quickly to protect their citizens from the coronavirus. Such was the case across the entire Caribbean.
In Jamaica
On April 2, 2020 a group of 45 Jamaican seafarers thought they had reached home just in time to avoid what was already a rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic. Their ship, mv Marella Discovery2, arrived in Kingston, reportedly refuelled and waited for docking clearance at Port Royal. Response from government authorities, still then in the throes of sorting out hurriedly determined logistics and procedures for its sweeping travel restrictions imposed only a week earlier, did not get to the ship’s Captain in time. The ship sat at anchor in Kingston until the following day when the captain finally decided to set sail for Europe via Santo Domingo.
Entry was denied in Portugal, but the Marella Discovery2 was allowed to dock in the UK. Its Jamaican seafarers were flown home by their government a few weeks after their initial arrival in Port Royal, exhausted, but far luckier than other seafarers around the world.
Perhaps more joyous to get home were the 1,044 Jamaican seafarers who arrived at the Falmouth cruise port in relative comfort on May 19 aboard Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas.
It suddenly became very emotional at the Falmouth cruise port when seafarers, having been granted landing privileges and now alongside awaiting disembarkation, sang the Jamaican anthem lustily and with emotion from shore side balconies on all decks. They were home, at last.
About 300 other seafarers aboard who were not Jamaicans were not allowed to disembark.
By the third week in June, more than 1,950 Jamaican cruise ship seafarers were back home under a controlled re-entry programme, which included COVID-19 testing on arrival. About 45 of them tested positive for COVID-19. By then, 10 Jamaican seafarers aboard the MSC Seaview anchored off the coast of Brasil, like seafarers trapped on ships all over the world, sent a desperate appeal to their government. They needed urgent assistance to get home to their families. They had just witnessed their Cuban colleagues repatriated through Europe to Cuba, just 90 miles away from Jamaica. Feeling increasingly deserted, they communicated their distress, fear and anxieties to the Jamaican authorities, then dealing with repatriating frantic Jamaican citizens, including university students in several countries that were already reporting high rates of infection. Brasil was at the time reporting 1.5 million cases of COVID-19. The only country in the world then reporting more cases was the USA with 2.7 million confirmed infections.
MSC declared its concerns and disclosed its action to look after the health, safety and well-being of all crew while exploring avenues to get them home from Brasil. Among other things, it said it had assigned each crew member private quarters and upgraded the menus. But, despite these basic humanitarian acts by the line, the 650-member crew found life on board highly restricted and extremely difficult.
The SWNS media group (UK) reported the harrowing experiences of seafarers aboard the MSC Seaview. Some of those experiences were captured in various statements, paraphrased as follows:
• We don’t know what is going on.
• Some lucky crew members got a cabin with a small balcony and porthole. Other crew members were in staff accommodation with no windows, no natural light and no fresh air.
• We don’t have fresh food, just what is in storage.
• Dirty dishes piled high outside cabin doors, as the crew are not allowed to leave their rooms.
• There is no common area for crew to relax in; … essentially in solitary confinement.
• Anxieties onboard exacerbated by the fact that all MSC staff have had their contracts frozen, meaning they are no longer getting paid.
• Very difficult to be far away from family. …hard to be alone.
Meanwhile, fears about disruptions in global supply chains grew exponentially. Stories of rapid spread of the virus across continents and frightening increases in human fatalities dominated news media everywhere.