Fishing, said Zachary, k — some places, no mackerel. Nothing like the day a few weeks passed when Riviera left for 24 hours to distill drinking water from the canal’s seawater. He had filled a five-gallon bucket of fish. “Let it go and catch, ” he said, pointing a lot at him. “Right next to this corner. “
“We have complete trash in the freezer at home, ” said Kristen Wallace, Zachary’s mother.
Riviera had arrived six weeks earlier in Miami, where she had been arrested since a federal order not to sail put the cruise industry on pause amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In June, with the arrival of the hurricane season, the ship sailed north into a calmer climate, and docked at Zachary’s favorite fishing spot.
Kristen grew up at the southern end of Eastport, “on the other side of the railroad,” she said, north “more chic” north of the North End. His father worked in the customs workplace and his circle of relatives had an ice station near the East Motel when the city’s sardine canning machines still supported the local economy. These days, the city of 1250 inhabitants publicly handles fishing, some sightseeing and sailing in its port, which has the most herbal inland port in the 48th decrease Kristen now lives in Bangor, two hours inland, but still takes Zachary to Eastport for much of the summer.
“We fish on the beach, we fish, that’s what it’s like to be a kid here,” he says. She had noticed military ships, cargo ships, paper ships and pulp ships coming and going, “but nothing so big, ever. “It’s a whole new kingdom. He’s a monster. “
Kristen’s brother, Jake Mumme, was standing next to his two sons, nodding, “It’s like a floating city,” he says. He showed me an image of Riviera on his phone, taken from Water Street, a surreal juxtaposition of a mass shipment and a small boardwalk. As if to see it for the first time, he reflected on the logo on the stack: a blue circle. crossed through a wavy line. ” What does the Q. Quarantaine represent?” he joked.
His sister corrected it: The Q an O, for Oceania Cruises, a subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line.
“Oh, that’s true, ” said Mumme, I had never looked so closely, admitted, even though it happened daily. He shrugged. ” It’s just a component of life now. “
A day earlier, the City Council had conducted a special Zoom consultation to discuss the possible arrival. For years, Eastport had courted visits to mega cruise shipments, hoping to bring cash to his port and give the local economy a shake of tourism dollars. A couple of captivating shipments put Eastport on their itineraries, and the most important was the personal 644-foot “condo boat” The World, which carries about two hundred passengers. But Riviera is in another league, with a passenger capacity equivalent to the entire eastport population. It’s the kind of shipment I’d avoid in Portland and Bar Harbor, but I’d stop by Eastport for Canadian Maritimes.
If Eastport can make Oceania a forgery by welcoming a shipment with nowhere to pass, and show the industry that its port can handle the logistics of giant shipments, perhaps others will stick once the pandemic is over. Citizens thought. Chris Gardner, executive director of the city’s port authority, told me, “It was our Super Bowl right here. It was our chance to move on to Big Dance. “
But first there was a decision-making procedure that Edward French, editor-in-chief of Quoddy Tides, called “frustrating for everyone involved”: Town Hall meetings, Zoom public hearings, appeal with Norwegian Cruise Line, approvals from Central Maine. for Disease Control, Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard. Not everyone in the city was on board. “The news of the imaginable arrival, French writes in the newspaper,” caused some apprehension among several residents. The fear was twofold: Would the arrival of Riviera endanger the physical condition of residents, after the surrounding Washington County has so far recorded some cases of COVID-19 and 0 deaths? And would Riviera’s long-term presence have an effect on the quality of daily life? ?
Of the 123 cruise ships in US jurisdictional waters, the US has not been able to do so. But it’s not the first time This spring, 99 COVID-19 outbreaks were recorded in the months following the pandemic outbreak. Riviera reported only one case, in one passenger, but while Eastport was debating his arrival, his team had been confined to the ship, without passengers, for more than two months. The flight attendant monitored equipment temperatures and oxygen grades twice a day on the quarantine protocol and did not stumble upon any other case.
“It’s our Super Bowl right here,” Chris Gardner, executive director of the city’s port authority, told me, “it’s our chance to move on to Big Dance. “
The factor of Riviera’s broader effects on city life was addressed less easily. Structurally, the dock, which collapsed in 2014 and was rebuilt in 2017, can seamlessly accommodate a shipment of this size. And operating in “hotel mode”, employing a bachelor The pier, however, used to be used as a public fishing ground and de facto network center during the summer, with families loading portable fridges and fishing rods and spending whole days chatting with friends while fishing mackerel. shipping docked, the maximum of the pier would be banned, and the pandemic had already taken many, from the city’s minor league games to its annual pirate festival. “It’s a matter of morality,” says Bub Andrews, a local plumber from Eastport. “What are the locals going to do?”
“People asked me for answers to those questions,” French told me when I visited him at the small white-gloss construction of Quoddy Tides overlooking the boardwalk. “But I didn’t know more than I wrote. “When Riviera nevertheless arrived in Eastport on June 14, the view from the east-facing windows of the workplace was almost completely overshadowed through the reinforced white hull.
“They’re actually very friendly,” said Kristen Wallace. Riviera arrived with a small team of 131 (with a full complement, i. e. 800), and neither Kristen nor her brother thought they would pose any danger of COVID-19 transmission. The main problem, shared through many Eastport residents, had become an explanation for why team members, many of whom arrived from Southeast Asian countries, Latin America and Europe, had not landed, had been quarantined. “We still think they will,” Kristen said.
Later that afternoon, I met Chris Gardner in the lobby of the Port Authority building. A former police officer, youth sports coach, county commissioner and father of two, Gardner has a stubbornly positive disposition and a penchant for high-ranking speeches. told me that once the pandemic began, “all the other communities in the state of Maine said, “Okay, we have to do with less. “. »
Gardner is guilty of managing Riviera’s presence at the dock, coordinating with an internal transport agency, a customs detachment and stevedores, as well as the Coast Guard. But after a while, Gardner, like others in the city, began to worry about what he called the “humanitarian crisis” of having team members trapped on board. “I assure you that the cleanest position in the state of Maine,” he said, pointing to the window, “is the head of this walkway. “
Oceania may have simply worked with customs and fitness officials to verify and take to the Riviera team home on charter flights (an expensive option for a loss-absorbing cruise line) or advertising flights (although foreign flights were limited, especially to the European Union Gardner feared that, instead, Riviera would eventually sail towards Europe , where it would be less difficult to lower the ship’s equipment, and for the cruise industry to prepare to resume operations. One game, he said, would be expensive for Eastport. The prices of mooring and service generated about $50,000 a month, a “bargain,” Gardner said, at a time when sea transport revenues fell by 40%.
Neither Gardner nor anyone I spoke to in Eastport knew exactly why, in the meantime, the team may simply not disembark. “There are more out-of-state people going through the Kennebunk toll in an hour,” Gardner said. he described the stage with a diversity of pejoratives – “sinner”, “shameful” and more “inhumane”, blaming an ambiguous “they”.
But “they” turned out to be just the cruise line. Keeping team members on board has been a component of the plan to take the shipment to Eastport, according to the Oceania PR team and the Maine CDC. The option for someone to skin and then return the virus to the shipment was not worth the risk, from the company’s point of view. There was no draconian company to blame, just a pandemic.
Across the street from the Eastport Port Authority, Paula Bouchard sat at the window of Rosie’s hot dogs, who has been with her circle of relatives for 48 years. Bouchard, 64, has been running in the post since high school. As a takeaway counter, Rosie is less affected by COVID-19 restrictions than other restaurants in the city, and with so many other people appreciating the boat, the business had gone pretty well.
Bouchard claimed that he had never crossed and did not need to leave, but from his window he had taken an interest in the daily life of the crew. “We see them playing darts. Ping-pong. They exercise. Walking, things like that. I’m sure they use the pool. She had noticed photographs of drones from the upper decks and was impressed. “Imagine if you were told, “Come and see what it looks like!”Customers, Bouchard said, had also fantasized about checking the ship.
While dining a hot dog, an old man observed a tiny figure doing tricks on the upper deck. “Look at him, ” he said. It’s just his head. Jogging. Take the full tour. ” The noise around Riviera’s arrival reminded him of his youth, when he liked to spend dancing in Five and Ten. “There was something going on at the time, ” he recalls. Then his attention turned to the corridor. I bet it’s hot up there. I wonder what kind of tricks he does.
The presence of the shipment did not bother him, he said. ” You can stay there as long as you want. You can fish on the other pier. The other day, the boy filled a five-gallon bucket. Good-sized mackerel. In fact, he’s proud of it.
At the sign, Zachary Wallace passed on his bike, a PVC pipe attached to the seat like a cane. He stopped at the cement barricades at the pier, looked at the boat. The figurine kept running. ” There he goes again,” the old man said. “Round and round. “
Dunbar had attended all zoom meetings, listening to his neighbors express their fears that the team would bring the COVID-19. “I idea, “No!COVID is coming this way, right there!He and his wife, Kathleen, think the team deserves to be hungry for outdoor interactions. With Facebook’s help, they began talking to a woman from Honduras, Tania Pea, who worked in the ship’s homework department.
They sent a picture of hot dogs they were eating, and Pea responded with a glass of ice cream that had for dessert, a delight, he said, that the team only won on Sundays. They started roasting him drinks from his evening cocktails and joking. After realizing that Amazon packages were being delivered to the catwalk, they began to leave gifts: Eastport T-shirts, glasses and postcards, food and alcohol were not allowed. When Pea commented that he hadn’t packed her bags for the cool Nights of Down East, they sent her an Eastport hoodie and she sent them a picture of her with her on the bridge.
“All I could see was the boat, overshadowing the city . . . For God’s sake, I mean, look at this. It’s going to have to be like Noah’s Ark for those people. “
Another store owner, David Oja, and a local tour guide, Tessa Ftorek, established their own communications with the team through social media. The more the Eastporters were given to meet the other people on the boat, the greater their sympathy. he plans a small concert on the pier, but as soon as he discussed the concept on Facebook, at the local gym, involved in a crowd rally, he pleaded with him to cancel it.
The day the boat temporarily left the port to distill drinking water, Don and Kathleen Dunbar greeted the team by waving cuts of giant hand-shaped red plywood, while the team returned the signal to them with their own large cutouts. Pea told them to “stay there” earlier by going out with a banner that said THANK YOU, with a center on the O. It was meant to be used at the harbourside concert that never took place.
At one point, a team member captured and posted a video of a right whale swimming in front of Riviera’s stern. It is estimated that there are still about 400 right whales, the presence of the right whale is significant, with some other creature moving away from home. Every room I met discussed footage, very happy that it was captured through one of the team members.
On July 28, about six weeks after the ship’s arrival, I walked to the end of a small auxiliary jetty, close enough to the stern of Riviera to throw a tennis ball there. Two team members were on the upper deck. Greeted. They responded. One of them picked up a piece of paper that read, “Erick Pineda. “Then he shouted, “Facebook!” I later learned that I was 25 years old and came from Guarita, a remote mountain of the city in the interior of Honduras. “The company, ” he said, “took care of us. Everyone, trusting me, was paid for. He was on his seven-month contract. When I asked him how he was, he responded with a smiley-faced emoticon that had a drop of sweat on his forehead.
Lepin had little contact with the crew. He saw them archery. One night, he saw a virtual Tour of Riviera on his phone. Although he said he was not likely to spend on a cruise, he commented on putting vegetables and the driving cage, as well as paddle tennis. , croquet and paddle courts. What he discovered most impressive was the 1,500-square-foot Vista Suites. “Just one move, ” he said. Bigger than my whole apartment. “
The shipment emitted an austere glow that temporarily enveloped the black water around it. One night, weeks earlier, a guy had driven a skiphe under the bow of the shipment, curious to see the only bright, soft light bulb hanging at the end of a No realized that in the flotation, the keel protruded from the bow. That’s what the Gentile tried to show, and broke his boat when he fell on it. Otherwise, Lepin says, he didn’t see much in action. .
Then two women with who had graduated from Shead High School in Eastport stopped at the barricade. They were heading home from Crab satisfied, a local bar, and one of them checked if any team members were in Tinder. “Perhaps we just throw stones at all the illuminated windows?”She asked.
“Thank you for preventing, ” said Lepin, and the duo gave it right-handed and sinister.
Another car stopped an hour later. This was the sixth or seventh trip Kenny Carr, owner of Carr’s Taxi, to Bangor, had made between Bangor Airport and Eastport Harbour, bringing new team members to Riviera. It’s two hours each back and forth, he makes $225 at a time. Carr said he had difficulty pronouncing most of his passengers’ names and that because of his limited English, he may not talk much to them. “They’ll have to be a little confused,” he said. Your company needs you to come paint on a boat that still doesn’t do anything to sit down. “
He lit a cigarette, looked at the bridges. “It’s not like they were hurt on this ship. ” He took a drag. “But they’ve ended their isolation. You can only surf the Internet for a while before you find something else. To do. “
The first time he arrived in Eastport and saw the boat, it was a shock. “It was strange, ” he said. When I got the sensible thing on this hill, all I could see was the boat, overshadowing the city. You may see it above the buildings. For God’s sake, I mean, look at this. It will have to be like Noah’s Ark for those people. “
“I assure you that the cleanest position in the state of Maine,” Gardner said, pointing to the window, “is at the head of this bridge. “
Carr helped his passenger lift a suitcase above the barricade. Leepin and the guy spoke briefly, following security protocol. I heard the conversation. The guy’s name is Georgiev. I used to work as a plumber. Everything Array asked ” Is there a virus on board?
Several team members then met Georgiev at the end of the bridge and Lepin returned to his cabin. Carr finished his cigarette and returned to Bangor.
The farewell concert took place at dusk on Friday, July 31, the day before departure, in a purple and orange sky. The crowd was small, maybe 30 people, all separated by 6 feet. He serenaded the team with Celtic songs. The melodies were melancholy, bittersweet, well adapted to the occasion.
David Oja cried. ” Every morning, he said, I talk to them. I’m sorry for them. It’s very sad. No matter how much you like being on a boat, there comes a time when you have to go out and touch the Pisoteó the pier to demonstrate. “Besides, ” he added, “seeing that they’re gone, there’s going to be an empty area left in the morning. “
The Argirs finished their set. Several team members shouted, “Eastport, we love you!”They turned on the lanterns on their phones, waved the THANK YOU banner and waved their giant hands. The other people on the pier said, “We love you too!”One of the team members sang and shouted “Take Me Home Country Roads” through John Denver. Someone at the dock picked him up: “Where I belong . . . »
The next morning, Oja, Dunbar, Ftorek and Chamber of Commerce President Kevin Raye crossed the barricade and met Tania Pea at the end of the bridge. Dressed in her family’s uniform, she presented a plaque commemorating Riviera’s first visit to Eastport. It was an emotion to meet you, ” he said through his mask. “Even if we can’t kiss, I hope one day we’ll come back. We’ll invite you on the boat. You give us the impression we’re home.
The Eastporters contingent gave him a gift bag adorned with the Sea Foam Brand Sardines logo, a long-term canning company, and a bundle of varieties from Raye’s Mustard, a company owned by Kevin Raye’s family circle for 120 years. By the time Pea turned to cross the bridge, it had been 10 minutes for the boat.
A crane lifted the bridge and Chris Gardner and several port workers loosened the wires, which retreated into Riviera’s hull. “The lines are leaving!” Ftorek yelled at them, “There’s one!There’s another one!
The team greeted from the decks. From the remote pier, the harbour path and the beach amphitheatre, a few hundred people waved their hands: “Good luck!We love you!”
Three horns later, Riviera slid down the canal. “Let them all come, ” cried Gardner to the crane operator, who began to erect the concrete barricades. For the first time in six weeks, citizens reached the end of the pier. Only they, a car carrying two older men with stone faces advanced. Not looking disappointed by the shipment, they parked and then began placing mackerel insoles on their fishing rods.
As the crowd dispersed, Zachary Wallace sat alone in a stilt, watching the shipment dissolve in the distance. “I’ve never noticed such a big shipment in my life,” he says. “My cousins and I discussed last night how we would like to go there, to the pool, and just swim. His eyes remained fixed in the ocean. ” They’re passing all the way to Italy. It’s just weird,” he said, how weird? I asked him. He shrugged. They just didn’t need to let them through. “