Each day, thousands of international seafarers, and their vessels, arrive to and depart from Port of Rotterdam, the biggest and busiest port in Europe, amongst of which hundreds are sailing on Danish Flagged vessels. With Denmark holding the 5th position in the global merchant fleet, it is obvious that each day at least several Danish flagged vessels are in port. All seafarers onboard the container vessels, tankers, ferries, supply vessels and general cargo vessels, are entitled to receive assistance, service and support from SEA HEALTH & WELFARE. Duringrecent years, Belinda Hoff, the welfare consultant has visited seafarers onboard and arranged transport to their Seafarers’ Club in the picturesque town of Brielle and the city centre of Rotterdam.
Brielle is a lovely, historical city, centrally located about 20 minutes’ drive from most terminals and offers a ‘Home away from Home’ for seafarers when shore leave is allowed. The cosy Seafarers’ Club is located in the city centre, in a cobbled street with the fresh bakery right next door, a woollen knitwear store, a flower and plant shop, a chocolate shop, a shoemaker, a consumer electronics store, a gsm shop and several fashion stores. All interesting places to see just like the local windmill or the historical museum and of course the St. Catherine’s Cathedral in the centre of the city are within easy walking distance. And if you brave the great heights, you can take a tour to the top of the cathedral to witness a beautiful panoramic view (and during clear skies, you might even spot your vessel in the port as the view reaches at least 45 km distance!).
“It had been over five months since I stepped on something that wasn’t metal. The trip around Brielle with Belinda was great. She showed me all the historical places in the village. We went around farms and even stopped to look at horses and dogs and sheep. I didn’t realize I missed seeing all this, until the moment I did. I had forgotten what it felt like. That’s the beauty and necessity of shore leaves for seafarers. Ms Belinda Hoff from SEA HEALTH AND WELFARE is a lifeline between ship and land.”
- Amrit Raj, 4th engineer on Murcia Maersk
During the pandemic, all the following services and facilities are possible:
SEA HEALTH & WELFARE has 24/7 access to the terminals located along the 42 km long Port of Rotterdam. This enables our welfare consultant to continue with delivering and exchanging our Danish, English and Polish books to the seafarers so that they can fill up the shelves oftheir library onboard. We deliver DVD’s, newspapers, magazines, information leaflets, and welfare goodies to the seafarers onboard Danish-flagged vessels.
All our supermarkets are open as well as bakeries, chemists, petrol stations, post offices and hospitals. In Brielle, there are 4 supermarkets, which provide a variety of non-food products like shampoos, vitamins, t-shirts, underwear, socks, and the all-important SIM-cards.
The local restaurants, cafés, pizzerias, and McDonald’s are open for pickup/take away orders and deliveries.
Online shopping is open 24/7 and seafarers who are purchasing online, may use our address as the delivery address.
In case orders are made, please inform our welfare consultant to arrange the final delivery at the terminal.
Besides the deliveries, Belinda gladly assists in searching for information on the internet, as onboard the internet in case the internet connection on board is poor or restricted. She also communicates between different contacts involved, establishing a connection, or translating Dutch information into English/Danish/German.
Since crew changes are still heavily affected by the various worldwide restrictions, we gladly offer our assistance whenever possible to help solve any challenging situations.
