After weeks of voyaging on the high seas as high-level negotiations dragged on between the Government of Jamaica and their employers, the more than 1,000 Jamaican cruise ship workers who sailed into the Falmouth Pier on Tuesday will finally set foot on local soil today.

Superintendent Kirk Ricketts, commanding officer for the Trelawny police, said that the lawmen were tasked to keep the pier sterile and to provide escort service at the direction of the Office of the Prime Minister.

After giving the green light to Jamaican workers on the cruise ship Adventure of the Seas to come ashore, Prime Minister Andrew Holness made it clear that before being reunited with their families, they would have to undergo health surveillance and COVID-19 tests to determine their health status.

Lorene Whinstanley, public health manager at the Falmouth Hospital, said that samples would be taken from each passenger and sent to Kingston for assessment.

The ship is expected to spend more than a week docked in Falmouth as the passengers will not be released at once, but in batches of approximately 200 crew members every 48 or 72 hours.