Tag Archives: Captain Josu Bilbao

Stranded at Sea in The Time of Coronavirus

Spanish fisherman Josu Bilbao boarded a Qatar Airways flight headed for the Seychelles in January, just as he had done for the past 15 years. Ahead of him, four uninterrupted months of hauling tuna out of the glistening Indian Ocean. As it turned out, catching the fish was the least of the problems for the 56-year-old captain of Albatun Tres, one of the world’s largest tuna fishing boats. The coronavirus then swept the world, countries shut borders, planes stopped flying and Spain became one of the countries worst hit by the virus. Bilbao and his crew were stuck. As the Indian Ocean fleet shift was extended ship owners tried to figure out a way to get workers home. Aboard the ship avoiding infection became the priority. >click to read< 09:43