Michael Smith - Cabin Fever: The Harrowing Journey of a Cruise Ship at the Dawn of a Pandemic

ANE SMIT

Captain of the Zaandam. A skilled navigator and soothing leader, Captain Smit brings a quarter century of experience on the bridge of cruise ships around the world.

WIWIT WIDARTO

A dedicated worker and manager of the ships laundry who has spent nearly thirty years away from his Indonesian family, laboring in the bowels of cruise ships to send money back home. Wiwit finds strength in his deep Christian faith.

ERIN MONTGOMERY

Sanitation officer aboard the Zaandam, Erin is among the first to identify and track a cluster of strange viral outbreaks aboard the ship.

WILLIAM BURKE

Chief maritime officer for Carnival Corporation, Burke is a thirty-five-year veteran of the U.S. Navy. Now hes in the battle of his career.

LANCE HUTTON

After decades working as an educator in Missouris public schools, Lance is ready for his lifelong dreama visit with his wife to Machu Picchu, the lost Incan city hidden in the Andes.

CARL ZEHNER

A Vietnam vet and longtime white-water rafting adventurer from Nashville, Tennessee, Carl has enjoyed dozens of cruises. But this one is special: Hes here to celebrate his fortieth wedding anniversary with his husband, Leo.

LEO LINDSAY

Working in hospitals for years, Leo, Carls husband, knows all the tricks and tips of a nurse. Hes been on many cruises, but this one is the most special of all, to celebrate four decades with Carl.

DR. CINDY FRIEDMAN

A scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

GEORGE COVRIG

This burly and gregarious Romanian manager of shops aboard the Zaandams sister ship, the Oosterdam, soon volunteers for one of the most challenging jobs of his career.

CLAUDIA OSIANI

A psychologist from Argentina who is determined to celebrate her birthday at sea.

ANNE WEGGEMAN

Stressed to the max on her first cruise job, the young Dutch woman plans to quit once the Zaandam reaches dry land.

AMANDA BOGEN

The ships bubbly twenty-seven-year-old entertainment host in charge of keeping her elderly guests busy with water-aerobics classes and trivia contests.

MARCH 6, 2020

Quinquela Martn Cruise Ship Port,
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Wiwit Widarto walked down the gangway of the MS Zaandam and into the bustle of Buenos Aires, another twelve hours in the cruise ships sweltering laundry behind him. Hed worked relentlessly, enduring all day on his feet in the bowels of the ship. In one marathon shift, Wiwit and his crew had cleaned dirty sheets, towels, and linens from the ships 716 cabins, making way for a new cruise with a slew of fresh passengersmore than twelve hundred in allfrom all over the world.

For a precious few hours, Wiwit was free. He walked along the dock, the 781-foot-long ship towering above, the navy blue hull topped by a glimmering white superstructure. With an oversized funnel and lights along the railings that twinkled against the darkening sky, its elegant silhouette evoked the golden era of transatlantic travel, that of the Titanic. Another couple of decks were set at or just above the waterline; it was in this cramped underbelly, with little natural light, where Wiwit worked, slept, and lived.

Wiwit joined up with six friendsfellow Indonesians and coworkersall eager to explore the citys famous nightlife before embarking the next day on a monthlong voyage around the tip of South America. En route to dinner, their taxi wove around the citys leafy Parisian-inspired boulevards and manicured squares. It was 10:00 p.m., early for porteos. The crowds were starting to parade by the tango bars, white-tablecloth restaurants, and baroque cafs with irresistible pastries displayed in glass cases as if they were jewels. Traffic crawled along streets lined with mansard-roofed neo-Parisian mansions, Art Deco apartment buildings, and quaint Tudor-style homesbuilt a century ago by waves of European immigrants. The city felt far removed from the ominous warnings about a deadly virus that had spread out of China, to Italy, then Spain and the rest of Europe, and now the United States. Argentina had registered perhaps a dozen cases and one death, hardly a blip on most peoples radar.

Wiwit and his fellow coworkers settled in for dinner and chitchat. Life on the Zaandam was tribal. There were dozens of nationalities aboard, and they gathered to speak in their native tongues, prepare their traditional foods, and share communal prayers. Hundreds of citizens from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand worked aboard the Zaandam, many employed in housekeeping and hotel services. They rarely had a free day on land. They were responsible for making the beds, cleaning the toilets, washing the linens, and responding to the summonses and whims of the passengers aboard the Zaandam. Throughout the day, the housekeeping staff checked each room, tidying up messes, folding towels into animal figures, all the time speaking English with the guests. But now, they could briefly forget about those duties. It was time for a burger at a bar in Palermo, one of the more elegant of four dozen neighborhoods in the sprawling city of fifteen million. This was their last weekend on land before more seven-day workweeks and the twelve- and often fourteen-hour shifts they were used to.