Cruise ship workers eager to touch home soil

SOME 49 Trinidadian seafarers aboard the Disney Fantasy are anxiously awaiting their arrival on local soil on Monday.

The ship which was on Trinidad soil on Friday had to leave for a scheduled drop off of St Lucia nationals.

“Can’t wait to breathe in Trinidad air and touch Trinidadian soil,” one member of the crew told the Newsday via What’sApp.

Six nationals, five from the music band Xcite who were on the Caribbean Princess, were the first to arrive home on Saturday evening hours after government granted exemptions to repatriate all cruise ship crews. They are undergoing the mandatory 14-day quarantine at the Debe South Campus of the University of the West Indies. Band leader Sterling Howell who is also housed there declared, “There is no place like home.”

Casino manager Quasi Mc Lean one of 17 Trinidadians on board the Norwegian Oceania Mariner said he was happy for Howell, whom he knows and the others who are homeward bound.

He said even before government decided to temporarily open the borders, which were closed since March 22, negotiations had been taking place with a Trinidadian attorney to get them home.

“Before this exemption was announced, we would have made individual exemption request through our attorney. On Friday our attorney would have updated the request.

“We are hoping they (the government) coordinate with the company to get us home.” Mc Lean, of South Oropouche, said there is a fixed schedule which has a date for arrival in Trinidad on June 13.

“However, even though they are working on a schedule, they said it is subject to change.”

Mc Lean said their ship left Miami on Friday bound for Belize.

“We are glad for this opportunity to come home because the mental state of some people are beginning to deteriorate.

“On Friday we had the sixth suspected suicide, this time on Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady. That vessel sailed into the port (Miami) on Friday to let off the body.

Reports in the international press indicate that the Filipino crew member’s body was found in his cabin and suspicion is rife that he may have internationally ended his life.

“People don’t really understand the magnitude of this isolation. Cruise ships are not built to have people for months on end. We capitalise on port days when we can go out and stretch our legs, be in touch with other human beings, living life like others, being able to shop, eat.”

He said for the past 75 days they have been locked in their cabins and confined to the ship.

“When your wages are cut on top of that, then you get a really bad twist. We are cruise ship workers, we work for an employer. They hold our passports so we are really wholly and solely dependant on them for reparation efforts and we feel powerless at times in this situation.”