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Stranded crew in good spirits
By JANEL STEPHENS and TAMARA LUSH TAMPA -- The 21 men aboard the disabled Neptunia Mediterraneo have endured intense heat. They've bathed in saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico. They even suffered through Hurricane Isidore. In three weeks aboard the Brazilian freighter, anchored 16 miles from Tampa Bay, they have been visited by the U.S. Coast Guard, examined by doctors and comforted by a chaplain.
A local chaplain who visited the crew Wednesday night said the men are in good spirits. "They were not in any immediate danger," said Raymond Briggs, chaplain with the Anchor House Seamen Center in Port Manatee. "Their expectation and my expectation is that the boat will be repaired shortly." The 465-foot ship was originally headed from Panama to Houston to pick up empty, giant refrigerated containers, said the ship's owner, Adriano Frioli of Sao Paulo, Brazil. On the way, Hurricane Isidore buffetted the ship and rattled its crew. "The crew was very stressed after the hurricane," Frioli said. On Sept. 25, while in the Gulf of Mexico, the ship's captain radioed the U.S. Coast Guard, saying there was an engine problem. The Coast Guard sent a boat to help, and the crew of the Neptunia decided to head to the nearest safe port, Tampa. But the ship never made it. Instead, it anchored 16 miles from Tampa Bay, in international waters. That was Sept. 29. The crew has been on board ever since. The owner has sent three tugboats filled with food and water; the third arrived Thursday, said Coast Guard officials. The Coast Guard has visited several times, even bringing doctors to evaluate the men's health. On Wednesday, a group of Christian missionaries and boaters visited the ship and attempted to bring supplies to the crew. But choppy water prevented them from handing over most of the food. To the average landlubber, it is baffling that the Brazilian crew can't just take a dinghy to dry land. But because the men don't have passports or visas to enter the United States, they can't come ashore without facing detention and deportation. The Coast Guard says they can't legally take the men off the boat unless they are "in distress" -- starving, drowning or severely hurt. "We're definitely helping out as much as we can," said Coast Guard Petty Officer Paul Rhynard. Bob Jarvis, a professor of admiralty law at Nova Southeastern University in Miami, said ship's crews usually sign contracts saying they will stay with their ship no matter what. Jarvis said that mechanical breakdowns during a voyage aren't uncommon. Usually, repairs are done on the ship and the crew is under way within a day or so. When major repairs are needed, Jarvis said, ship owners usually have the ship towed into port. But some owners may want to save port charges and towing fees, and if the weather isn't poor, anchoring outside of U.S. waters -- where the boat isn't subject to Customs regulations -- isn't a bad alternative. "This is unusual but not unprecedented," he said. The men would face a similar dilemma if they were docked at a U.S. port. In fact, a Panamanian cargo freighter was towed into the port of Tampa in 1998 after being damaged by a hurricane. The Coast Guard ordered that ship detained until structural repairs were made, but without the proper visas, the five Russian and Lithuanian seamen were confined to the cockroach-infested ship for more than a year. The Immigration and Naturalization Service ultimately stepped in and ordered some of the crew sent home and others transferred to another ship. Nobody believes that the Neptunia Mediterraneo will be stranded for that long. "We are putting pressure on the owners," said Francisco Fontenelle, the Brazilian deputy consul general in Miami. Frioli, the ship's owner, said Thursday that a key mechanical part is being fixed in Miami. But for now, the 21 Brazilian mariners are in limbo. "I'm sure they want to get in," said Rhynard. "It's no fun being stuck on that boat." -- Times photographer Mike Pease and Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.
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