It’s been seven months since Florence Napoli took the cruise in Miami, but it was a few weeks ago that he started hearing the word coronavirus in the news. “I listened to them in the background in the dining room but the truth that didn’t matter too much, here we were in a bubble, you live far away from the outside,” he recalls. She was her best friend, born in Italy, who began to tell her that the disease was gaining strength in her country. “Just there I realized what was going on,” he continues. With coVID-19 declared a pandemic, on March 13 Donald Trump issued an order to halt the course of the ships for at least a month, though it later spread.” The next day they lowered all the passengers, and those of us who worked in entertainment told us they were going to look for us 10 days later. We put together inventories, close scenarios and prepare bags; that morning almost everyone left but I didn’t, they didn’t get a ticket for me,” he says. Today she cannot make land except to replenish food and fuel every ten days, so she is stranded on the cruise between Cuba and the United States. Singing on a Cruise: A Dream That Came True
Photo: Instagram @florencianapoli
His grandparents, parents and brothers are musicians, so the musical spark soon burst into his own. From a very young girl, she remembered, danced and sang while her mom played guitar, doing shows with imaginary audiences and exploring the instruments she had at home. “When I thought I decided to play for what I’ve always loved,” she says. He was part of Axel’s “Your Eyes My Eyes” tour, although one of his biggest dreams was always to sing on a cruise: “I wanted it for a long time but personal circumstances didn’t happen, there was always that curiosity to know that you could feel traveling, singing, meeting people from all over the world,” he says. Thus he decided to cheer himself up and sign a contract in September last year to participate in the Carnival Sensation cruise, which has a capacity for three thousand people and an intinerary from Miami to Mexico, the Bahamas, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. A month later he started with the shows and his life completely changed: “I came into contact with the public, I learned to bring them closer, to make them particpes, it was a test, something that I had to overcome,” he says.
Day-to-day at sea
The singer recalls her beginnings, in dialogue with this medium, while she is locked in a booth; that’s their new routine, which it shares with the officers, cleaning staff, kitchen, maintenance staff and other artists who were stranded in the same situation.” They’re changing the rules and rules a lot inside the ship. As we are being restricted I will adapt and create new routines; for example we are now at level 3, which means confined in our cabins… we can’t go out unless they announce it for the speakers to go to eat or break and when we have to go back,” he says. Every time in the open air, he takes the opportunity to hang out with his teammates: “Until yesterday we could play table football, now they won’t let us play anymore. But we still got together and had a drink together,” he says. To date, no positive cases of coronavirus have been reported on the ship, as it says that they take all precautions and that all that goes up is the food, which also goes into quarantine. When he can, he tries to make some video calls with his family, friends and friends: “It helps me to be closer and feel so isolated in the middle of the sea,” she reveals. Meanwhile, music becomes the escape route of reality and a way of connecting with the world, and reflects it through their social networks: “What I do most in my cabin is to take advantage to do an online class on music, study, write, record, explore how to record new things. That saves me because I dedicate many hours to him and my day is too fast. Sometimes I get to dance, or I do gymnastics, and I’m writing some kind of autobiography,” he confesses. His first single was “Alas”, which today tells him to regain meaning and reflect his desire to go out, to fly, to be able to transcend the reality he goes through. However, despite his quarantine on the ship, he confesses that the health crisis extends to the entire music industry. “I think all musicians are affected by what’s going on at different sizes and levels. We live mostly on shows, whether on boats or on land, especially independent musicians. And today I believe that, at least for a while, the possibility of coming together in one place is not and will not be possible. That of course greatly affects the music industry, as musicians and as viewers,” he says.
The future and the hope of coming home
In three days her situation will change again: she will be transferred by a lifeboat – as she cannot set foot on the ground – to another ship. However, this process of change is not easy for her: “The people I clung to are not going to be, it’s pretty hard. When we were locked in the booths I was distressed and I felt more locked up, and now this situation seems better to me than what’s to come,” she says. However, he does not lose hope: “The truth is that I still feel positive. Singing on the boat was an experience that made me grow a lot, I feel stronger, safer, trained. I had to deal with a lot of new situations and I think I grew up, I think I’m taking that treasure.” Even if it is stranded in the middle of the sea, her music echoes and reflects the reality of hundreds of Argentines who have only one goal in this pandemic: to return home. In this note:
