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  2020-05-05

  Professional Seafarers are Covid Essential Workers

  My covid-19 story started at the end of January, 2020. I was working as a Marine Operations Manager for Holland America Group, which is comprised of four cruise companies: Holland America Line, Seabourn, Princess Cruises, and P&O Australia. As covid-19 spread across Asia in January, we stood up our Emergency Response Center, which involved taking 12-hour shifts to support the ms Westerdam, which had been denied docking in multiple ports in Asia as a result of the covid outbreak on the Diamond Princess. Though there were no covid cases onboard the ms Westerdam, she was denied docking in Japan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Vietnam, Guam, Philippines, and Taiwan. Our job was to ensure that our full complement of guest and crew had enough fuel and provisions, with toilet paper being of critical importance (seriously!), to make it until we could find a port that would allow the ship to dock. Eventually, the Cambodian government allowed the ship to dock in Sihanoukville to disembark guests, which became a political photo op of good will for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen who attended the ship himself when it docked. But this story was just the beginning of the nightmare for cruise companies, and other maritime organizations. After working to disembark guests, the next hurdle was to repatriate crew, which was next to impossible with the extreme disruption to global travel, some crew members had spent months longer on the ships than anyone could have ever envisioned. Using our ships like ferries, we made plans to transport crew to their homes, but to compound the problem, local governments like South Africa and Mauritius were unwilling to accept their own nationals back when the ships arrived, which meant they had to keep sailing and further plans had to be made to get the crew home. What you see in the object attached is the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and that of its member companies making a humanitarian appeal in their interactions with local port authorities who were blocking their own citizens from returning home during this crisis. We were working long days, 7 days a week to get our colleagues home - but there is only so much you can do when local authorities will not cooperate. The object speaks to a desperate time in the maritime industry during the covid-19 pandemic. (Arizona State University, HST 580)
• March 25, 2020

  COVID Share Your Story #RITtigers #4, Mechanical Engineer Major's Point of view

  Due to COVID-19 it has been a crazy few weeks. I was in Florida on the women's crew training trip. When we first got the news the year would not be continuing as planned. At first I was heart broken I had made some of the most amazing friends and the thought of being away from them for longer than just the summer was heart breaking. I was scared that we would loose contact. However the exact opposite has happened, we now video chat on the weekly and call each other we need help or just a pick me up. Al though it is not the same as eating dinner every night together or spending each weekend hanging out we have still found ways to connect. If I could give a message to myself at the start of this semester, what would I say? I would tell myself to pack lighter. I didn't use a lot of stuff I packed and it was a pain when trying to move back home.