Due to the coronavirus, hundreds of travelers are stranded at sea without water, food, or fuel
As the BBC notes, often people embark on this long journey already exhausted from days of sailing, without adequate supplies of water, food, and fuel.
“We had to take the risk and go”
“The storm caught us at two in the morning. Five-meter waves, pitch darkness, we had damage, the boat was heeling! We barely held out for a day, and with hope we arrived at the nearest port – but there was no one there,” said skipper Alexey Zhurikov. Under his command, the sailing yacht “Slight” set out to sea in mid-March on a route from Turkey to Greece to Croatia. A simple training passage turned into a real ordeal and adventure for the crew, which continues to this day.
Thirty-year-old Alexey is an experienced skipper; he has been sailing since he was 15. As a student, he even represented the Belarusian national team in yacht racing. Besides him, the crew included four people from Russia and one from Kazakhstan. For them, this was their first serious open-sea passage – that is, far from the coastline.
“When we left the port in Turkey, the press was already talking about the coronavirus. But there were no difficulties at sea. The day before, I had calmly sailed with another crew from Croatia to Turkey. So nothing foreshadowed the extreme situation we ended up in,” Alexey explains.
On the second day of the voyage, the yacht entered Greek territorial waters, and almost immediately after that, Athens announced the closure of international traffic – including by sea.
“I realized that the next step could be the closure of domestic navigation. That means no port would accept us. The only way out was to get to our home port as quickly as possible. For our yacht, that’s Croatia. A storm front was approaching, but we had to take the risk and go. Otherwise, we would have been left in a completely uncertain situation,” the skipper says.
The storm did hit the yacht. The crew battled the bad weather in the open sea for more than a day. But the yacht sustained several damages, so Alexey decided to put into the nearest port.
“We arrive at the marina, and it’s empty! No one there. Local fishermen saved us. They told us where we could get water and electricity to at least replenish supplies and catch our breath. Then we found a small shop and bought everything we could – to last us the next few days. No one knew where the next marina that could take us would be.”
On March 21, Greece banned domestic navigation, meaning yachts were no longer allowed into ports. The crew of the yacht “Slight” had to sail to Croatia without repairing the damage. Before the final leg of the journey, Alexey had to request emergency assistance from a Greek port – the yacht’s supplies of water, food, and fuel had run out.
“Fortunately, the authorities met us halfway. They didn’t let us go ashore, but they gave us diesel and food. Now, looking back, you think – it’s cool, such a powerful experience. But at the moment, of course, it was scary. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend anyone go to sea in such a storm and under such conditions,” the skipper says.
When the yacht arrived in Croatia, it turned out that none of the crew members could fly home. There were no flights to Russia or Kazakhstan. The entire crew has been living on the yacht in the port for over a month. They are supported by the charter company that owns the vessel.
Hundreds of people around the world have found themselves in a similar situation. According to the international Ocean Cruising Club, in the coming weeks, about 500 boats and yachts will be making or are already making dangerous and previously unplanned crossings of the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean to get home or find shelter.
“People on the islands are panicking”
Captains of yachts sailing along the coasts of India and Sri Lanka report that when they try to approach the docks, they are stopped by coast guard boats and forced back out to sea.
Crews of vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden to the Horn of Africa complain that essential goods are sold to them at exorbitant prices.
The strictest restrictions due to the epidemic have been imposed by island states. Often, such places have problems with hospital equipment and the level of doctor training.
“It’s understandable that people on small islands are panicking and doing everything to protect themselves,” explains Daria Blackwell, vice president of the Ocean Cruising Club and a yachtswoman. “Many don’t understand that yachtsmen make multi-day crossings at sea or ocean, often spending 10-14 days in isolation from the world. And after two weeks of such quarantine, many are denied entry to the marina, citing the danger of coronavirus spread. But these people have essentially just returned from self-isolation.”
As a result, many crews set off again for 14 days without rest, without fixing breakdowns, and without the ability to stock up on fuel and water. In these difficult conditions, yachtsmen try to help each other. Judging by messages in the Ocean Cruising Club group, dozens of boats have requested assistance crossing the Atlantic Ocean on their way to Europe, and more than 80 crews have come to their aid. Moreover, many yachtsmen are by no means wealthy, Blackwell notes. Many of them live permanently on their boats and are not prepared to make multi-day crossings in the open ocean without the help of experienced skippers.
One-armed skipper
Harry Crothers is one such yachtsman. He is currently anchored off the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean Sea. But in a couple of weeks, the hurricane season begins here, meaning Harry needs to leave.
Due to the epidemic, he will have to cover almost 6,000 km alone to reach his native Ireland. An additional complication is that several years ago, Harry was in a car accident and lost an arm. He has not been able to find an experienced traveling companion – many skippers are also stuck in ports without the ability to move anywhere.
Now the main thing for Harry, according to him, is not to catch coronavirus at the last moment before going to sea. “If it turns out in the middle of the ocean that I’m sick, that will be a problem. I’m already old, and my health is not ideal. The virus could be the last straw for a one-armed bandit like me,” Harry jokes on his Instagram.
The threat of infection in port is real. In early April, yachtsman Robert Lazer died from coronavirus after becoming infected on the same island where Harry is now. After Lazer’s death, his family collected $30,000 in donations and gave them to the hospital that tried to save the yachtsman’s life.
The crews of several boats promised to help Harry with crossing certain sections of the Atlantic Ocean. But he will have to cover most of the journey himself.
Harry jokes that he can’t wait to have to quarantine in Ireland after 30 days at sea.