14 Days on a CARGO SHIP During the Pandemic

20:20 has been a crazy ride it's been a roller crystal for here and it hasn't even ended yet oh my god we're only halfway through it so it's probably safe to say that it changed all of our lives to some degree it definitely turned my entire world upside down at the beginning of the year I was working on filming a Travel Show for TV that's now postponed until further notice all of my trips all of the travel that I had planned for the year has been canceled at the beginning of March I found myself on the island of Socotra in Yemen and I stayed on that island for the next 80 days 80 days that means that I got to spend pretty much the entire log down in socotra and you know what I'm so lucky and so blessed to have been there on that incredible island surrounded by really beautiful kind and generous people I'm so so privileged so privileged but I knew that that situation wouldn't last forever I knew that at some point I had to leave the island the situation the political situation on the island was slowly deteriorating while we were there and in fact three weeks after we left which is kind of now this is what happened and there was one more problem the windy season the monsoon season also known as Karif locally was upon us so Karif starts at the beginning of June and it lasts until October and the winds are so so strong that they basically cut off the island from the rest of the world for about four months and I knew that if I stayed on the island I ran the risk of being stuck there until autumn my friends and I spent about a month trying to find a way off the island since the beginning of May sea there was no coronavirus on the island and as far as I know there still isn't but the island was definitely keen to protect itself and its people from the virus so there are very limited travel options available no planes were allowed to land in Socotra and the only ships and boats that were kind of available we're either going to mainland Yemen where the coronavirus situation was becoming worse and worse or Oman which was completely closed to visitors because of the travel restrictions as a result of the pandemic so we didn't really know what we could do to even leave and for a month we struggled and slowly fell into a state of well on some days indifference on some days despair and on other days kind of hope everything will work out and then after several weeks a breakthrough we were granted permission to take a cargo ship to Abu Dhabi the United Arab Emirates and this is the story of that journey how do you feel about leaving well I'm very hyper because I don't record because there's a yes yeah I'm very hard to go and very high but the story cycle is not very exciting how are you if you think about leaving I feel good look so excited a cycling around as we check the weather forecast yeah it was true all weather forecasts predicted that a massive cyclone coming all the way from India would hit right about the time we were two days into the journey I just hoped that we wouldn't end up like this guy finally it was time to board the ship that's the luggage whose the bags loaded in the ankle lifted that was it Haiti on the island and tonight I'm on a cargo ship because I'm finally headed home and bring back saving from cipro tried in the Mia in the United Arab Emirates on a cargo ship [Music] [Applause] [Music] the next morning I woke up really missing the island but I also walk up in the middle of the ocean which made me realize that this would be a pretty long journey our ship was taking us from socotra and the Gulf of Aden near to Somalia up north along the coast of Oman around the corner into the Gulf right through the Strait of Hormuz very close to Iran then down into the Persian Gulf well the Arab Gulf according to Arab people then down south to the UAE and the port of Abu Dhabi the whole journey two-and-a-half thousand kilometers on a ship similar to this one but smaller and slower our average speed around 8 knots or 15 kilometers an hour well at least we were in this guy crossing the Arabian Sea on a tiny wooden boat called the Sun book [Music] for me time began to slow down I spent the afternoon sitting on the open deck watching to see watching the water change shape and color the cyclone was nowhere to be seen [Music] vote [Music] these waves look like third but it wasn't always the smoothest of rides [Music] luckily despite rough weather at first we never did run into the cyclone from what the captain of our ship told me this is the nature of life at sea sometimes unpredictable for now let's go inside let me show you where we lived welcome to the cabin there's a couple of really important instructions here on the back of the cabin door very handy what to do in case of a general alarm a fire alarm Man Overboard abandon ship man overboard is probably the one that interests me the most in case there is a man overboard it's three long blasts three long blasts there is a desk there is a shelf there is a wardrobe there is a seat there is a chair and there is the bathroom each bed comes its own set of patrons as well just in case you need to unwind relax and get some meat a very important piece of onboard equipment in fact one that you should acquaint yourself with intimately is the lifejacket here we have two this is one of them it's a huge and bulky affair probably too tight from my head but this save your life all right let's go if you're a passenger on a cargo ship there isn't that much to do so I spend most of my time reading one of the best things about having 24 hour a day electricity again is the laundry I haven't done proper laundry in three months you in case you're wondering the food was great three meals a day prepared by the ship's cook you've got to fill the hours somehow right this is what we came up with and this was our life for a while every day pretty much the same [Music] and the cognition that has been on for the last seven days is about to arrive in Abu Dhabi in about one hour we've traveled about 2,000 kilometers service that if you're using a slow that in the next leg of my journey back to Europe I will travel a distance much bigger than that about five or six hours you don't often get to fence an entirely completed from the internet the outside well then sometimes honestly so three months on I was finally back in a place with Fuji where I could order a takeaway meal through an app and not have to worry about electricity running out I started waking up to new views no more mountains no more Beach no more open sea just the ground spectacle of modern times but even though we had dogs at Abu Dhabi port we weren't allowed to leave the ship not yet remember Cove in nineteen yea they 12 may 12 on the cargo ship and stay five inside the port of Abu Dhabi you can see the city behind me it's so close it's almost within arm's reach in fact the other day someone instagram sent me a picture a video of our boat from one of those buildings with that close but we're not leaving the boat we're still here honestly I think this is a portent II kind of keen to just get back home you know asked by the local law we had a coronavirus test it came back negative and then my god actually happening apparently the immigration officials at the jetty right now which means that we're gonna go and see if you can get the stamp to leave the ship and enter you know in two weeks [Music] do you think we're gonna get out for you inshallah we waited a couple of days and then I've got the visa I've got the visa to enter the UAE after exactly 14 days after a corona test that turned out negative were able to go into Abu Dhabi as an evacuation measure and from here I'll be flying back home I was so so ready to leave but I actually knew that that wasn't the end of the Jane not quite yet there was one more really important step that I waited me and that was the airplane journey back to Europe and that is the whole story in itself that's a whole flock that's coming up next week thank you so much for following along on my socotra adventures I can't believe that that part that chapter of my life is over for now but life goes on and there's a lot more coming up see you guys next week bye [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Eva zu Beck

Views: 2,691,847

Rating: 4.8695703 out of 5

Keywords: cargo ship, cargo ship passenger, is it possible to travel by cargo ship, container ship, travelling by container ship, arabian sea ship, coronavirus travel, pandemic travel, what's it like to travel by container ship, socotra island

Id: fCaCQC34HjU

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 28 2020