Cruising In the Time Of Covid
Where are you headed?
Whenever we meet another cruising boat we ask each other the same questions: Where are you headed? Where’d you come from? What’s next?
We’re blue-water cruisers. It’s given that we’re on our way to somewhere else. We define ourselves by our plans: well-thought itineraries, contingency plans, hurricane season strategies.
Anticipating disaster, we re-pack life rafts, freeze meals ahead, and stuff our lockers with spare parts.
Our plans are a talisman against SOMETHING BAD that could happen out there.
News flash. SOMETHING BAD came anyway.
As circumstances change, they require re-evaluation; yet not having a plan might feel like giving up.
We’re not going to take it lying down, are we?
Where? When?
Cruisers ask not if we’ll travel again, we ask how soon? What’s open? What’s safe? What shall we do?
Borders open and close again faster than Old West saloon doors. According to Noonsite, most of Latin America and the Pacific is currently closed, though a couple of loopholes were brought to our attention. Check SV Totem’s post, South Pacific Cruising in 2021. (Thanks, Behan!) A dozen or so countries in the Caribbean are open by appointment, requiring advance permission, quarantine, and Covid tests.
We’re accustomed to waiting–for spare parts, crew changes, weather windows. But wondering whether rules will change mid-ocean? That’s new.
Our friends on SV Ocelot have cruised for half their lives. From lockdown in the Philippines, Sue says, “We are used to changing plans based on things we can't control (usually the weather) which has sort of prepared us, but there is lots of human error in this pandemic that makes it harder to ‘accept the things we can't change’."
“How can we plan in this pandemic? How can we not plan?”
It Happens
One year ago today, Google and Facebook both remind me, we flew to Peru. Here’s our plan and how our circumstances changed.
Our plan:
· Leave SV Hanalei at anchor in Ecuador
· Tour Peru for two weeks by land
· Set sail for Chile, spend a few seasons, then round Cape Horn
What Changed?
· Peru, Ecuador and Chile sealed their borders
· We were locked down in Peru for ten weeks, then evacuated to the US
· Boat, at anchor for eight months, ran afoul of Ecuadorean Customs
What’s Next?
Now that SV Hanalei’s out of Ecuador, we’re planless in Panama. It’s time to re-evaluate, but rules keep changing.
This perfect storm of uncertainty calls for heavy-weather plans. I see three broad strategies for cruisers: shorten sail and change course; heave to; or abandon ship.
Waiting, waiting.
Checking and re-checking information.
Shorten Sail, Change Course
The first tactic is akin to a storm trysail. It minimizes damage and lets you make some headway through the worst of the storm. You accept constraints and keep cruising, just not where you thought you’d be.
That’s the decision Bob and Sarah made on SV Rhapsody.
Their plan:
· Acquire a long-term visa for French Polynesia (FP)
· Galapagos, then eighteen months in FP
What Changed?
· The French embassy stopped issuing long-term visas
· SV Rhapsody was hit by lightning
· Galapagos has opened, closed, reopened; FP is now closed again.
What’s Next?
SV Rhapsody is on her way back to the Caribbean, where they’ll focus on diving in a few open countries. That way, if the rules change suddenly and strand them, they won’t have to sail for weeks to a safe haven. They haven’t given up on the Pacific. They’ll try again next year.
It’s viable for people who are flexible and patient and have time. A US boat in New Zealand drew up a contingency plan to the Marshall Islands, or even on to Hawaii, if they couldn’t go elsewhere. Quite a few US-flagged boats now plan to sail to Hawaii. After quarantine, they can sail to Alaska. They’ll be in a good position to head for the Marquesas once FP opens again.
International Heave-To
Yes, a few vessels in the Galapagos still plan to go to French Polynesia, with or without permission. Most FP-bound boats have postponed their passages. They’re hove to, hunkered in Pacific marinas from Panama to Mexico. The tactic slows the boat and keeps it out of danger while you take a break. It means moving slowly on a tangent to your course; making progress while making the best of it.
In Panama, the owners of boats left at anchor when the borders closed are trickling back to grapple with the same issues. The crew of SV Grateful is happy to be reunited with the boat after nine months.
There’s still no international travel or tourism in any of SE Asia, which means the best cruising grounds are tourist-free for now. SV Ocelet says, “There is some movement from one province to another, and there will be more as the restrictions for ‘domestic travel’ are lifted. They’re looking forward to more exploration of the Philippines.
Sue’s advice? “Cruise if you can. Live in the moment, with other pleasures meanwhile.”
New Zealand has extended the visas and temporary imports of boats and crews already in country. Robyn on SV Mintaka says life there has been pretty normal. “In addition to the usual off-season activities of refits and land travel, people are doing more local cruising, and going further afield than most do during ordinary years. Quite a few sailed down to the South Island, some as far as Fiordland and Stewart Island… Some cruisers are really settling into routines of living in Whangarei; taking classes, volunteering with local organizations, joining the film society, etc.”
Quarantine can be tough on social life.
There has to be more to cruising than boatschooling.
Abandon Ship
Abandoning ship is not so much a deploy-the-life-raft situation as a cruising hiatus. For those who are scuttling cruising altogether, Covid may have simply moved up a short timetable. Two boats in Panama with teens aboard will swallow the anchor in a few months; two others have already headed home.
Robyn reports some attrition from New Zealand, “One family decided to store the boat and go back to the States until they could go cruising again. A young Norwegian couple went back home as well, planning to come back some day. Some German friends are shipping their boat to the US east coast and plan to sail back to Germany, then eventually sail back to the Pacific some day.”
Australian boats in the South Pacific have opted to go home for the time being.
From SV Ocelot, Jon’s advice to cruisers is, “Get vaccinated if you can. I see this as the only way to get back to anything approaching ‘cruising as before’.”
We agree. It will make our options much clearer.
The runaway generator is fixed. We’re leaving today for Las Perlas for a few weeks, to talk things over while we wait for our vaccine appointments.
Next week, I‘ll talk about our plans.
Even Dave-the-girl-dog is fed up.
Fair winds,
Christine
Do Tell!
How much risk is too much in pursuit of your dream?
