When COVID-19 restrictions were mandated across the Port of New York and New Jersey in 2020, ISC chaplains masked up and limited their ship visits to terminals within Ports Newark and Elizabeth. Now that pandemic limitations have been lifted, SCI Chaplains at the International Seafarers’ Center have resumed visiting seafarers at terminals across the entire port system.

Throughout the year, Chaplain Allport has been visiting seafarers docked at Brooklyn and Staten Island terminals, while Chaplain James Kollin visits those in Yonkers. Both chaplains regularly visit tanker ships and terminals along the Arthur Kill and Bayonne. “These terminals handle smaller ships and are also tucked away in areas without easy transport or accessible needs for seafarers,” says SCI Chaplain Bill Allport. “As a result, unloading is usually quicker, and seafarers spend less time in port, leading to shorter shore leave. And when shore leave is possible, very few options are available.”

“Many people don’t realize just how vast the Port of New York & New Jersey is,” said SCI President and Executive Director, the Rev’d Mark Nestlehutt. “The port is both geographically expansive and densely developed. While we will continue to visit seafarers whose ships dock near our International Seafarers’ Center in Port Newark, our aim is to extend our ship-visiting efforts throughout the region to pre-pandemic levels. Additionally, we remain committed to expanding our crisis support to international seafarers and domestic mariners wherever and whenever needed, as we did recently with the container ship Dali and its allision with the Key Bridge in Baltimore.”

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For more photos from Chaplain Allport’s visit to the container ship Seaboard Pride, click here.

Pictured above: Chaplain Bill Allport visits with seafarers on the container ship Seaboard Pride, docked at the Redhook Terminal in Brooklyn. Pictured below: Chaplain James Kollin photographed seafarers from cargo ship Balsa 87 delivering sugar to the Domino Sugar Plant along the Hudson River in Yonkers, New York.