A cruise ship captain has shared the emotional moment it sailed away from Glasgow after spending 13 months docked in the city during the covid crisis.
The Azamara Quest was one of the three sister ships tied up in the city as the cruise industry and the world came to a halt when coronavirus struck in 2020.
The Quest found home at King George V Dock in Shieldhall in June 2020 before eventually departing the city the following summer.
In the time the three ships were berthed, Glaswegians struck up quite an affinity with the trio, with thousands lining the banks of the Clyde to welcome them in and out of the city.
The Azamara Quest can hold up to 700 passengers at capacity and around 390 staff, many of who were onboard the ship in Glasgow during lockdown. Although they could stretch their legs on the dock, for the majority of the time they were unable to travel into the city itself.
Describing what the experience was like, Captain Johannes Tysse, who has had a career at sea since 1983, said having a good team helped everyone pull through.
He told Glasgow Live: "When you work at sea, you’re used to being on the ship and sometimes for weeks and maybe a month or more without even getting off the ship.
"Of course we were able to get down on the dock and walk about, but we weren’t allowed to go into the city.
"But we had a good team on board, we had gatherings and enjoyed our time. Every Sunday we had a BBQ up on the pool deck with ribs, hot dogs and hamburgers, so that was one of the highlights of the week."
Captain Johannes was speaking as the Quest returned to Scotland's west coast - this time with over 600 passengers on board - as part of a cruise that had departed Amsterdam for Dublin, with stops in Leith, Invergordon and Ullapool before docking up in Greenock last week.
He said it was good to be back in Scotland, a place where he and his staff had been made so welcome by locals on their last visit.
He added: "As you know, during Covid, all of our three ships sat in Glasgow for about 13 months.
"At the start, the crew were allowed to go ashore for a month and then they were only allowed to stay onboard.
"I arrived in Glasgow at the end of November 2020, so unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to go out and see Glasgow and get the feel of the city.
"But still we felt very welcome and the crew got given gifts by locals at Christmas and so on. We got give some typical Scottish food like haggis and Irn-Bru! We got loads of that! I tried some of it … it was different!"
Thanks to the hospitality of Glaswegians, when the Quest left the city to go back out to sea, Captain Johannes said it left him with a bittersweet feeling. Although he was pleased the moment marked a step closer to normality, he admitted the sail away from the city the Azamara Quest had called 'home' for such a long time left him and others feeling emotional.
He commented: "Sailing away from Glasgow is something I’ll never forget. You felt like it was pulling on your heart strings.
"As we backed out of the basin and sailed out of the Clyde, the river was lined with a few thousand locals on each side and I described it as an ‘electric atmosphere'.
"Leaving Glasgow meant we were a day closer to getting back into operation and having the ships come to life again with a fully staffed crew and having passengers come on.
"We got so many messages from people in Glasgow saying it would be a sad day when the ships are going to leave us.
"It was emotional with all the people lining the banks of the river and clapping, some kids yelling ‘honk the horn, honk the horn’. It was fun and emotional at the same time."
However, Johannes is hopeful the the Azmara Quest will make a return to Glasgow in the future.
He said: " We’d love to be back, but we’d have to make it an overnight and two-day stay as it’s quite a bit of distance to go all the way up to Glasgow and so on.
"We’ll see! We’ll maybe be back - hopefully under different circumstances."
To see our chat with the captain in full you can play back our Facebook Live video here.
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