ONBOARD QUANTUM OF THE SEAS - The 3am phone call is rarely good news. On a cruise to nowhere, it heralds the worst possible scenario - a suspected Covid-19 case on board Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas, who will later test positive.

We are turning the ship around, says Captain Sindre Borsheim in a 2.45am announcement that I sleep through. Instead, I am jolted awake by a phone call from my colleague, photographer Gin Tay. You're kidding, I say. But it is not the hour for jokes, and when I step out onto the balcony, the ship is already chugging home, the bannister wet with sea spray.