Coronavirus travel restrictions see Australians trapped for months on live export ships

West Australians stranded on live export ships for months at a time are starting to trickle back into WA as agricultural supply chains adapt to a new normal caused by COVID-19. Coronavirus-afflicted passenger and freight ships the Ruby Princess, Al Kuwait and the Vega Dream became the public face of COVID-19’s impact on the Australian maritime industry as it battled to keep essential freight moving to global markets. But behind the headlines revealing coronavirus outbreaks on board and politicians handballing blame are real people, stuck at sea. As the pandemic gripped the world and threw international freight routes into disarray, governments around the world moved to stop maritime crews from disembarking at destination ports for staff changes, or allowing personnel to fly to home. The body representing seafarers, Maritime Industry Australia, believes about 400,000 crew members remain stranded aboard passenger and freight ships worldwide. Exactly how many Australians have been, or remain, caught up is unknown. Repatriation is difficult, with coronavirus case numbers, restrictions and regulations fluid, and flights scarce. Tiffany Davey and Tahlia McSwain lost track of the days as they tried to keep busy and calm while stranded on two different live export ships in foreign waters for nearly six months each, this year. The youngsters from country WA joined the thousands of workers stuck aboard freight ships long after governments, exporters and importers negotiated cargo be offloaded. What was supposed to be an adventure turned into a nightmare for both of them when they arrived at Middle Eastern ports to find they were closed to crew — meaning they could not fly home. Both of their voyages, which set sail in May, coincided with a three-and-a-half-month ban on shipping sheep from Australia to the Middle East that started on June 1. It costs thousands of dollars a day to operate a giant ship, and returning to Australia to drop off the Aussie crew was not a viable option for the firms that ran the operations. Earlier this week, Busselton dairy farmer Ms McSwain arrived back on dry land after 179 days at sea — including 82 days just a stone’s throw from the Port of East London in South Africa. The 25-year-old stockwoman was one of a crew of 60 left in limbo after helping to care for the Australian sheep on board. She recalls the rollercoaster of emotions she experienced on board, spurred on by homesickness mixed with hopelessness. “My heart really longed to go home, but at the same time there was nothing I could do about it,” Ms McSwain said. She originally set sail from Fremantle on the Al Messilah live export ship in April, delivering more than 60,000 head of sheep to the last of a handful of Middle Eastern ports after a 23-day journey. After off-loading the last of the sheep in May, the crew and ship were turned away from their destination port in Qatar because of coronavirus restrictions. Instead, they started steaming back to Perth to collect more animals after coronavirus was detected among crew members aboard another live sheep vessel the Al Kuwait, which was then docked at Fremantle Port. But that all changed once again when the Al Kuwait was finally cleared to set sail from Fremantle in June, leaving the ship Ms McSwain was on diverted to South Africa. After arriving at East London Port in South Africa, the crew and exporter realised it would be more difficult than originally thought to leave the port as they were caught up in a local political fracas. While the crew aboard the Al Messilah waited, the South African sheep were held for months in an Eastern Cape feedlot after the country’s equivalent of the RSPCA, the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, launched a legal bid to permanently ban livestock exports by sea. Eventually, at the end of a long legal battle, an Eastern Cape High Court judge granted an order that the 56,000 sheep could be loaded and Ms McSwain and her shipmates were finally off and sailing. “That diversion and sitting so close to the port was probably what saved me and my mental health, because being so close to land we were able to use data to tap into the internet, and speak to my family,” she said. And it was while parked up off the coast of South Africa that Ms McSwain was able to finish a semester of her nursing degree, nearly distraction-free. “It was actually relatively easy studying on board the ship,” she said. “I think it was almost easier than being on the farm and trying to work. “There wasn’t much else I could actually do.” Now back in WA and finishing her quarantine in Perth at midnight tonight, Ms McSwain said her nearly six months at sea seemed like “a dream that maybe never even happened”. She plans to step out of her home tomorrow morning and wander down to the shed where her father milks 600 cows near Busselton. “Dad and the team on the farm have done such a wonderful job, I almost wonder if they really need me now that I am home,” she joked, her spirits high now she is home. While Ms McSwain longed to get back on dry land sooner, she doesn’t blame the exporter or any tiers of government in Australia for the ordeal. “It proved to be really difficult to get help, and we tried everything,” she said. “It is hard for the Australian Government to influence other countries, and every country has its own set of rules which are always changing as well. “Sitting on that boat, I tried to think ‘what would I do to help someone in my position, if I was sitting in at home’. “I couldn’t think of anything that could be done differently. “At the end of the day, no one is at fault for us getting stuck in the middle of the ocean. It was just bad luck.” Konnongorring farmers’ daughter Tiffany Davey found herself in a very similar predicament, returning home to Perth about four weeks ago after nearly half a year at sea. She never imagined she would spend the best part of 2020 playing cricket and badminton, baking lamingtons, and writing a music album from below and above the deck of a live export ship in the Arabian Sea. But like so many caught up in the COVID-19 pandemic, the 24-year-old from a farm in WA’s Wheatbelt had to find ways to pass the time, while stuck on board the Al Shuwaikh. The qualified stockwoman boarded the ship at Fremantle on March 29, with a flight booked home from Doha to Perth on June 3. It was supposed to be a two-month journey, helping to care for and deliver two loads of nearly 130,000 WA sheep to Middle Eastern ports. But when the world was plunged into the chaos of COVID-19 border shutdowns, those plans went out of the window and she was unable to disembark the ship and board her flight home. Once she overcame the devastating realisation she would not be able to get home, Ms Davey bided her 51/2 months on the boat by watching movies, reading books, baking, walking around the ship and trying to “make the most of it” with her fellow stockwoman — a young Perth woman named Tess. The pair would start their days with a brisk walk around the ship’s empty sheep pens and deck to keep fit. At 179m long with plenty of stairs, striding the length and depth of the Al Shuwaikh made it pretty easy to get a sweat up to help their mental and physical health. The pair’s morning walks, and later, their other antics to try to keep entertained, were found amusing by the rest of the crew, mostly Middle Eastern men who were still busy working — cleaning, maintaining the ship, and cooking. Like Ms McSwain, Ms Davey believes what happened to her was no one’s fault. But Ms Davey said she felt frustrated with the limited number of flights entering WA, which made it “impossible” to get home. “We were hearing news that the WA Premier couldn’t understand why there were still people overseas, and that was really hard to bare,” she said. “We didn’t want to cut corners, we agree with the hard borders and were fully prepared to do our quarantine. “Yet we simply could not get back into the country. It would be good to see more consistency with this and better communication.” Livestock veterinarian Holly Ludeman is also back on home soil after a stint at sea and is counting herself lucky. The Perth-based veterinarian, well known for co-founding The Livestock Collective, was able to fly home last week after completing the first live sheep voyage to leave Perth at the end of the 31/2-month moratorium shipping pause. She put herself forward for the journey onboard the Al Kuwait after feeling racked with guilt about Ms Davey and Ms McSwain’s situations, having persuaded them to take up duties on the ships earlier this year. Ms Ludeman was in regular contact with the duo while they were trapped but she said the situation was improving as ports, exporters and governments involved in agricultural supply chains adapted to a new normal. “It is improving, but there is still luck involved,” she said. “There are still people waiting for flights at different times, and planning flights and visas is challenging. “Overall, I would say it is improving and hopefully we won’t see Australians stuck on ships for five or six months.” Maritime Industry Australia chief executive Teresa believes the mess of the shipping industry worldwide boiled down to border closures compounded by caps on international arrivals. “We would like to see dedicated ‘green lanes’ for maritime workers to come to a hotel for seafarers and be kept separate from the general public,” she said. “Seafarers are essential workers, and there has been an element keep the industry going at all costs ... and then there is almost an element of punishment for doing so. “No one has really put their mind to fixing it. In the meantime, ship owners are incurring a lot of costs and people are really struggling trying to get home.”