Captain of one of the world’s finest cruise ships reveals what life is like in lockdown
The captain of one the world’s finest passenger sail ships has spoken of how she is waiting for the day she can unfurl its sails once more as the crew sits out the pandemic shutdown in the Canary Islands.
Kathryn Whittaker had been at the helm of the elegant Sea Cloud II in the Caribbean when the Covid-19 crisis brought an abrupt halt to the global cruise industry in March.
Her crew disembarked a group of passengers from the UK before taking a 3,000-mile journey to Las Palmas, where the £31 million, three-masted vessel has remained berthed ever since.
While the skipper is longing for the ‘magic’ of the open seas, she is ensuring the handsome yacht – which made the Atlantic crossing alongside sister vessel Sea Cloud in April – remains in fine working order.
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‘We are all longing for the day when can unfurl the sails again,’ she told Metro.co.uk.
‘We normally have plenty of passengers and It’s just incredibly quiet onboard and so unusual to walk around and not see or talk to anybody for a few hours at a time.
‘It looks like there’s a second wave coming so it’s difficult to look ahead and say what the situation will be in March or April.
‘We’re just keeping our fingers crossed for the day when we’ll be able to set sail again. The best thing will be welcoming the passengers back onboard our luxurious, five-star ship and getting the sails going.
‘They have been furled up for way too long and we need to let them out and get this girl back out at sea. Everyone loves our days at sea under sail, it’s a magical time, to be able to do that will be the best.’
Earlier this month, Metro.co.uk told how crews on passenger vessels off the south coast of England face Christmas at sea as the industry, which is worth £10 billion in the UK alone, remains in hiatus due to the global impact of Covid-19.
The ‘ghost ships’ would usually be ferrying passengers across the world during the key festive season but are currently being maintained by skeleton crews making sure they are kept in working order and remain safely at anchor.
The Canadian sea-master, 52, is among a close-knit group of 12 crew members who are ‘like a little family’, spending meal times together, using the onboard gyms and carrying out upgrades and keeping the elegant vessel seaworthy.
Powered by two engines and 23 sails, the Rolls-Royce of tall ships is sailed by hand and has a lido deck and bar, 98-seat restaurant, boutique, library, sauna, swim platform to jump into the water and hospital.
Despite having the run of the facilities, the crews are looking to the day when they will feel the ocean breeze once more as they see out the lockdown at Santa Catalina pier in Las Palmas, where the vessels will remain until at least March 2021.
Kathryn said: ‘I’ve always enjoyed taking on new activities and while it’s a disappointment not to be sailing we are getting to see a different side of the ship and are doing some projects that really need to get done.
‘We hope that it doesn’t last much longer but we are just taking advantage of the time while we don’t have any passengers. Of course everyone misses travelling around the world, the experience of sailing and those nights when you get the breeze and put the sails up, that’s why we’re here.’
Winter for Sea Cloud II would normally take in the Caribbean, South America, the Panama Canal through to the Pacific before heading to Europe and the Mediterranean in April. From there, the ship usually heads north east to the UK and the Baltics before returning south.
However, as the cruise industry ground to a halt in March, Sea Cloud II dropped its UK passengers, who had virtually finished their tour, at port in St Kitts, in time for their flights home from Antigua.
The ship then waited at St Kitts to assess the unfolding situation before sailing to St Martin and meeting up with Sea Cloud, which had been in Barbados, before making the 15-day, cross-Atlantic trip.
‘It’s incredibly quiet, there’s normally a hundred and fifty people including passengers and crew onboard,’ Kathryn said.
‘We are keeping our regular safety and security systems in place, doing our weekly and monthly routines and starting the equipment up.
‘We are also taking our time to overhaul everything and getting everything ready to go again. There’s a little bit of maintenance we can do which we wouldn’t be able to do with passengers onboard.’
Down-time usually consists of reading, shopping, watching movies, going for walks, cycling, scootering and trips across the gang-plank to see the Sea Cloud’s crew, though health and safety restrictions mean groups cannot go ashore at the same time.
‘We have all known each other for an incredibly long time and we are like a little family,’ Kathryn said.
‘We also have Sea Cloud next door which is like going to your sister’s house. It’s quite a cool image to have the two of us here side by side.
‘We’ll be here at Christmas, which is a big deal because everyone will be away from their families. We’ve already started to plan Christmas dinner a little bit. I’ve already celebrated Canadian thanksgiving in October, we had a turkey onboard and invited the crew from Sea Cloud over.
‘So we have little celebrations to make sure everyone enjoys their time here.’
Having the run of the four decks might seem like many people’s idea of heaven, but Kathryn’s heart remains at sea after a 25-year career, during which time she has become Canada’s first female cruise ship captain.
Sea Cloud Cruises, the operator, has a range of standards showing its commitment to health and safety, and is taking part in an industry-wide route map to ensure a safe, gradual return to the seas.
The Cruise Lines International Association and its partners have developed a ‘Covid-19 Framework’ detailing enhanced precautions.
In a further move, the associations’ members worldwide agreed to test all passengers and crews on ships with a capacity of 250 or more, with a negative result required for embarkation.
The launch of Sea Cloud Spirit, which is under construction, will make it a hat-trick of tall ships in the spring.
Until then, Kathryn and her team will be counting down the days until the ocean is theirs again.
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