Hold Fast! 3. The world as you know it no longer exists

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the middle of the Atlantic, the crew of the Avontuur receive a satellite email with news from land that throws everything they’d been counting on to the winds. Their mission and schedule are in disarray, but turning back isn’t an option. So ship’s cook Giulia and the rest of the crew find ways to cope with the uncertainty.

15 people, 188 days at sea, one extraordinary ship: how the Avontuur was locked down at sea during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Narrated by Siobhán McSweeney Produced by Christina Hardinge Sound and music by Noémie Ducimetière Artwork by Joe Magee Narration written by Laura Thomas For Lives Less Ordinary, the series producer is Laura Thomas and the editor, Munazza Khan.

Lives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience. Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected.

Got a story to tell? Send an email to [email protected] or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784 You can read our privacy notice here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice

Transcript

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0:00.0	Coming up on lives less ordinary, hold fast continues.
0:05.3	We are looking at each other a bit astonished, a bit confused.
0:11.3	Can I actually get off the ship at some point?
0:16.0	How am I supposed to go back home?
0:19.5	How am I supposed to reach the people that I love?
0:24.8	This is the extraordinary story of sailing cargo ship, the Avantour, and its crew of 15,
0:31.4	on a wind-powered mission to transport olive oil, cacao, coffee and rum between Europe and Central America.
0:39.7	But before they even make it halfway, everything they're counting on is thrown to the winds.
0:47.5	I'm Chauvin McSweeney and you're listening to Lives Less Ordinary Presents.
0:54.1	Hold Fast
0:54.8	from the BBC World Service
0:57.7	Episode
1:00.7	The World As You Know It No longer exists
1:04.7	The World As You Know It No longer exists. It's the 18th of March 2020.
1:13.6	It's the 18th of March 2020.
1:31.1	Two weeks have passed since the Aventure left the Canary Islands
1:34.9	and now they're in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,
1:38.0	heading west, carried by the trade winds towards the Caribbean
1:41.2	for their next porticole of the small island of Guadalupe.
1:45.7	Like any community, ocean-going ships crews have their own shared language and traditions.
1:51.6	Seafarers sometimes wish each other a journey in fair winds and following seas.
1:57.4	It means good luck, a kind of sailor's blessing.
	...

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