It’s a bizarre Cast Away.
© APU GOMES
A man wearing a face mask as a preventative measure against the spread of the COVID-19 Coronavirus is looking at Cruise Ships detained at the port due to a no-sail order in Long Beach, California on April 11, 2020. (Photo of Apu GOMES / AFP) (Photo of APU GOMES / AFP via Getty Images)
At least 12,000 crew members are still stranded on cruise ships in U.S. waters due to the coronavirus pandemic, USA Today reported.
More than 40,000 people were stranded worldwide in June as countries and cruise companies were caught between repatriation procedures, pandemic management and the maintenance of the giant boats.
Thousands of workers are sitting in the middle, forced to live on cruise ships with months to do nothing after they have to go home, according to USA Today.
“The more time passes and the more (stressful) it becomes,” Akash Dookhun, a Mauritian Celebrity Cruises worker, told USA Today. “We don’t really do much.”
Those 12,000 people are scattered across 57 ships “moored, anchored or en route near a U.S. port,” the Coast Guard told USA Today. The military branch estimated that 209 Americans were on board.
Dookhun and his colleagues are being paid, though less than normal, USA Today reported. Not all workers are so happy. Crew members with the Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line have filed a lawsuit because they were stranded at sea without pay.
“It’s shocking that a company thought this was acceptable,” Michael Winkleman, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit, told USA Today. “I think similar problems are happening across the industry, with crew members now sitting on the ships for almost five months.”
Gallery: Several sailors injured in fire on USS Bonhomme Richard at Naval Base San Diego (USA TODAY)
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