As the CoViD pandemic shuts down the world, thousands of cruise ship crew members out of jobs try to make their way home. A mammoth logistics operation.
Let's recapitulate the story of how everything started and where we left in my last post 90 Days at Sea | Stranded Crew:
March 7 - Boarded Brilliance OTS for my newest assignment.
March 13 - Caribbean Cruises are halted for 30 days. (Asia is already in lockdown)
March 14 - Last day on land for the Brilliance OTS Crew.
March 16 - Last day with passengers aboard Brilliance OTS. Crew gets "guest experience".
March 25 - Suspension of cruises extended 30 days further, contracts terminated.
Those that decide to remain and wish to resume their contracts when operations restart have to sign a document to refuse the company from repatriating us for the time being. They agree to provide us with food and accommodation. Crew members that attempted to board flights that got canceled are not allowed back on board from the airport, they are quarantined in hotels. They will remain there for as long as 30 days waiting to get back home.
March 30 - All crew is to be isolated individually in passenger cabins. Some crew members manage to get back home, more get stuck in hotels.
April 9 - No Sail Order extended to 100 Days. All non-essential crew to be repatriated.
April 14
| Days at Sea: 30 | Days Isolated: 15 | We are allowed out of the rooms.
Mood: 😷
Lacking CoViD-19 tests onboard we can never be sure whether anyone is infected onboard. After the standard isolation of 15 days we are finally allowed out the rooms, the use of masks and social distancing are mandatory. Enforced by the security team. We are handed one mask per person and they won't be replaced for next week or so. We sense many double standards when it comes to measures, if we are at risk then we need to be provided more masks, if we can use these after their effective period of use then we don't need them at all... We get schedules for two daily temperature checks, eating at the buffet, where food gets served to us. Along with schedules for finally changing our linens and washing some clothes since the laundry is off limits. The gym is closed and we are not allowed to jog on the running track. Can't go into somebody else's cabin either. But at least the bar remains open and we can hang out at night, but that's just about it. Luckily with a small crew it's easy to maintain social distance.
At this point, I personally planned to stay onboard as long as I needed waiting for operations to resume. After all I had originally signed to be onboard for the rest of the year so I could wait it out. But now that the ban is extended, they deny this possibility and make it clear that nobody is to be re-hired without going back home first. But the offer to remain on board for safety is still on the table. A system is established: Three groups to identify the status of crew, Group 1: Essential ship-manning crew to remain onboard running the ship and/or taking care of those doing so (doctors, cooks, cleaners).
Group 2: Those awaiting repatriation.
Group 3: Those who purposefully decided to stay on board for safety.
For those that didn't sign the document denying repatriation (now Group 2) a daily compensation is approved, for having to remain against their will, of up to $400 per month.
I am now considered as part of Group 3 since I had stated my wish to remain. Now the big question rises should I stay or should I go? -I wish at that time I had the mood to be singing to The Clash hit song... But no, many difficult days followed, watching others being stranded in hotels, alone. Seeing my countrymen and women having packed their bags at least 4 times only for their flights to be canceled, our embassy stating Royal Caribbean had not even contacted them to arrange putting us on repatriation charters. That didn't seem like a safe bet and ships are my favorite place to be so at first that was the best plan, to remain. Even knowing my local airport would be closed at least until September for commercial flights, and that others where higher priority than us for the chartered repatriation flights, staying onboard with my friends didn't seem too bad. That's until my paradigm changed...
From my last blog:
The C.D.C. rules: no crew members are to stay in hotels in the U.S. awaiting for flights and all are banned from boarding american local flights, companies must provide them with private chartered flights. so not only you can't send somebody ashore without -somehow, being assured the flight will happen, in addition, picture this, there are tenths of ships off the shores of Florida alone, and on the other side of the U.S. even more. On each ship, tenths, if not hundreds, of workers from each nationality. Who could be capable of putting all these people on a plane together if they can't take a local flight to meet up at one airport, nor spend the night at a hotel since not all ships can dock on the same day and disembark crew in time for a flight. Since it goes without saying no-one could afford to charter a flight for the few countrymen on each ship and they need to be together to make it worth chartering a flight by having the most amount of passengers.-
The solution: find other countries to charter flights from. Or set sail.
The 100.000 seamen and women are divided in two groups: Those to be repatriated by ship (yes even from the Caribbean towards Europe) and those to be consolidated for chartered flights in countries willing to open their port to us. For the crew in Asia this meant: Those who would sail to Manila (Philippines), India, etc. And those who would be taken to Southampton, UK to board flights to the rest of Europe and the American continent. For those in the U.S. the Barbados government offers to open up their airport for the crew stranded in the Caribbean, but again, no crew is to remain on land, just debark and straight to the airport on a private bus, to take a private flight.
Royal Caribbean starts organizing flights from Barbados joint with each embassy. But, all the nationals from each country should be put together on one ship to be able to debark be processed at the same time.
How do you even do that? We are talking floating hotels with thousands of people onboard each! Remember, we can't set foot on land, not even to walk on a pier from ship to ship, assuming they could dock at the same time. And we're talking crew from one country could be scattered along dozens of ships.
The one place that we can -sort of, control? The Coco Cay pier, Royal Caribbean's newest private island in the Bahamas. Avoiding contact with the island resident staff, except those awaiting repatriation who are evacuated.
And so for the next month thousands of crew members will be transferred either on the Coco Cay pier, having a parade of ships docking one after the other, or via tender boat, basically a sturdier lifeboat that we have to lower, board through a hatch on the side of the ship -with all our luggage! And in some cases, two ships might be so different in their build and type of lifeboats that a direct transfer is impossible, instead a tender would take it's passengers to another ship, docked at the pier, through which they would cross all the way out on land to board the final ship they need to be in.
Are you dizzy already? That's not even it...
Amidst all the transfers the situation of every country was changing rapidly overnight. Not only destination countries but overlays could ruin whole travel plans. Plus arrangements between the company and the governments, that's how some co-workers got transferred to a ship with an initial plan of sailing all the way to Europe only to be told -Nope! Actually, pack your bags again, you are getting transferred once more and now taking a flight from Barbados. Plus this way friends, and even couples are being separated. Might sound like a minor thing but away from home, our co-workers become family and our emotional support, we were constantly hanging tight to each other along this mess and now we would be separated by nationality, many couples being from different corners of the world and sometimes not seeing each other for long periods of time or even never again. Difficult situations as-is, now made even worse by a constant feeling of fear and uncertainty.
I want to take a moment to highlight the true impact of all this, was on the lives and mental health of the crew members who suddenly lost all income security and, still months after face fears of being unemployed for over a year. Having to deal with this situation while stranded at sea being hit left right and center with confusing news and unexpected plan changes.
During this weeks we lost over 10 fellow seamen and women, some by unconfirmed reasons but most to suicide, coming up to 3 persons passing away withing 2 days adding up to 4 in just one week of May. Not even counting the untimely passing of all those taken by the virus.
Some Argentinians agree to transfer to Rhapsody Of The Seas, a ship bound for Barbados, I decide to stay where I'm comfortable and well taken care of by my well-established friend's circle. But the decision was soon taken away from me.
May 17
| Days at Sea: 60+ | I am forced to transfer to an overcrowded ship. Mood: ☹️
All crew from South America will conglomerate onboard the Liberty OTS headed for Barbados, measurably larger than Brilliance or Rhapsody, the later now bound to sail through Central America repatriating by sea. The Argentinians originally transferred there are also victims of the constant changes of plans... they will as well be (re-)relocated to Liberty. Those on Group 3, choosing to remain onboard, will be placed on a "hotel ship" to specially accommodate them, we still don't know which one but I am forced to transfer ships along with my nationals, in hopes, clearly, that I would finally agree to go back home, this way Brilliance OTS would be left only with minimum manning personnel onboard. After all, those who decided to go, ended up in the same place as the ones who decided to stay. This is also the first time I actually think about an actual risk of getting the disease, since we are now going to be mixed with other people and some from ships that had cases previously, and remember we don't have tests on the fleet.
Shore side offices sanction: the re-hiring process will be based upon: longest on-land, first to be called back. So those who choose to remain will be the last to get a new contract. I have now an even harder decision between facing some catastrophic repatriation attempt, but making myself ready to be called back sooner, and staying onboard, now on an unknown ship in uncertain conditions.
Over 1000 are transferred along the Coco Cay pier from more than one ship, into Liberty OTS, it takes half a day and many volunteers to aid the Liberty crew to finally compute all the new passengers. We are the last ones to transfer, we have a 4 hour wait ahead of us. The ship is massively crowded. We have to go through 40 minute queues in order to get food (plus being rushed to eat fast an give our seat) and another 40 minutes for our temperature check daily. This time I don't even get a window in my new room, some are given small crew cabins. Enforcing social distance becomes a challenge. There's barely any place to spend our time, since half of the ship is taped off the outer decks and main promenade are crawling with restless people. Mask wearing and social distance are enforced tightly, some can't withstand the situation anymore and break out small 'parties', soon speakers are banned and alcohol sales go from 'No hard liquor' to even no beer on the nights prior to flights after one group of crew members create disorderly conduct and apparently drunkenness while boarding. The bar being open might sound as a privilege but consider satellite Wi-Fi was barely working and we don't usually carry any form of entertainment with us onboard. It was the only thing for us to enjoy, plus the company can get some bucks out of otherwise useless stock they have onboard.
Many things were different on Liberty, clearly things on each ship had been structured on different ways depending on the management, here other positions were still working, ones that had long been let go on Brilliance. The H.R. team had no record or knowledge of the paper we had signed on Brilliance so they didn't really know who was awaiting repatriation and who was to be transferred to the "hotel ship" for those on Group 3. Eventually those on Group 3 start getting the same daily compensation of a maximum of $400 per month, according to the days spent at sea. For myself, with the combined weight of the "longest on land, first to be called back" measure and the overall situation onboard, at this point, I'm not willing to risk being stuck on a ship, being honestly miserable, for the rest of the year, there is still no certainty regarding the fate of Group 3. After hearing the Argentinian embassy is planning charter flights with Royal Caribbean from Barbados I decide to sign myself onto Group 2 and await repatriation.
By the end of May an estimate date for Argentinians to go back home comes to light. It will be pushed back twice but eventually we are called to several meetings to provide detailed information for the embassy to put together repatriation lists for us since the country is otherwise closed. A flight is finally booked for the last days of May but canceled a couple of days prior due to lack of space in quarantine hotels in Buenos Aires.
June 3
| Days at Sea: 80+ | Argentina's charter repatriation flight takes off. Mood: 😐
And I'm on it. Another bittersweet day, my gut is still filled with doubt. Have I taken the right decision? Will plans change again and those who stayed offered a position before me? I honestly do not want to go back home, not because I don't want to be there but because this finally means the end of hope for 2020 to be normal again. My heart was ready to be at sea for the rest of the year, but I have to take a tough rational decision and let go, being ready to be called back to action will eventually be more fruitful than staying just for the sake of being able to watch the sea and mingle with new people during the world quarantine. I always have time for that while earning my wages, and as addictive as it is, it takes a toll, in the last two years I've spend barely over a month at home, now it's time to make up for lost time ashore.
It's compulsory for us to clean and disinfect our cabins (some have gone through this process only to get their flights canceled and having to remain and repeat), we fill up form after form, requirements and details are lost in translation between the embassy and the H.R. team, luckily everything goes well and we will be exempt from the 14 day hotel quarantine arriving to Buenos Aires, those who live on other provinces will have to wait for buses bound to their cities once they arrive at the airport.
We are given some food and put on chartered buses (no social distance, because apparently at one moment we are in danger and in the next we ain't...), the Barbados airport is the size of a bus terminal in other countries, we are almost the only ones there. We check in normally, two small planes with 200+ Argentinians each. Chartered flights with no food served onboard. We take off on the first flight afternoon, with a scheduled fuel stop in Manaos, Brazil after midnight. Only to find out that the second flight was still grounded due to technical difficulties (they will not arrive in Argentina until the next day). A bullet dodged for myself, but the guy sitting behind me has his brother on the other flight and now hast to delay the private transportation he had hired back at home. We land on Buenos Aires on June 4th at 2a.m., it s a bittersweet view, the night city lights. I'm happy everything went smoothly after all the horror stories my friends went through, but after all, I'm not even supposed to be here. Nobody wants to hear another year 2020 ruined story but I will say mine: I was bound for a season on the Baltic Sea through Scandinavia and Northern Europe, where my mother was taking the cruise I booked for her 60th birthday, I was going to Canada for the first time in my life. All that is now gone.
All in all I felt absolutely well taken care of at all times. The actual risk of the infection never fully worried me, it didn't even cross my mind until we started mixing with other crew. I just wished news hadn't been thrown around constantly and sometimes with so little support. I have to accept the instability of this kind of work being contract based provides no long term security. But overall I always knew I had a network of support available for me, and although the possibility of staying is an amazing offer by the company, I believe I chose the right path by coming back home to work on my personal projects and making myself ready to go back ASAP.
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