Boaters in the balance: paradise between storm season and a deadly virus

 It’s the aftermath. All is calm. The skies are dull and muted and the trees sway with a soft lilting that betray nothing of their hectic weekend. The cicadas are back and screaming as they do.

Post Isaias in the Berry Islands is very uneventful. It’s Emancipation Day under lockdown.

Today, though there are no parties or flags flying around the little town, there is much to celebrate. We are all free from the ‘could have beens’ and ‘would have seens’ of Isaias.

For us, this marks our first hurricane experienced and survived. There was all the hype and the preparations and the waiting game we played; the two days where everything was put away, secured, our lines were tied and we were as-ready-as-we-could-be and we had literally nothing to do but watch that huge red spinning blob heading toward us, courtesy of the weather media. Friends far and wide sent messages of hope and prayers and worry and concern.

Meanwhile we took advantage of the trappings of the marina life. Long showers. Laundry. Then the tropical storm had strengthened and had been upgraded to a hurricane. We added more lines. The boats started to look like a spaghetti junction.

The next morning Isaias had strengthened further and was expected to make landfall as a Category 2 hurricane in the Berry islands. Our eyes widened. We received text messages that warned we better find shelter onshore. 

 

Since we are hurricane virgins and were a bit slow, we learned that everyone else had anticipated this and all the local accommodation was booked. And so, we resigned ourselves to face this on our boats.

The marina staff came by and said we could expect the surge to come up 8 feet from low tide and cover the jetties. Our eyes widened some more.

But the night came and went with some gusty winds and a lot of rain. We spent the night with our eyes closed. Phew. That was definitely a hurricane-lite!

 

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We have survived hurricane Isaias here in the protected marina and now it’s time to venture out. We are a couple of the only private sail boats left in the Bahamas, as hurricane season is now in full swing. Others have headed up the US coast or way down the Caribbean island chain to Grenada.

Here, the sea is dotted with huge floating hunks of metal. Ships. Cruise ships. They are empty but for a skeleton crew who lurk somewhere deep inside. The colourful slides and pools on deck are silent. Dead.

We are anchored off Great Harbour Cay in the Bahamas. The government has allowed these monstrosities to anchor here and wait. Wait for Corona virus to end? For the tourism industry to resume? Each day it’s looking less likely. A massive industry, one that employs thousands of Bahamians and feeds thousands of families here, is in big trouble. It is everything the Coronavirus loves. Lots of people in close proximity. And so it’s all on hold.

Bahamas has set a new total lockdown. We need to get away. Back to our reality during the earlier lockdowns where we frolicked in the remote Ragged Islands.

We spend the first night in a surreal spot. We drop anchor between two islands. We soon find out we are not allowed ashore anywhere here, not even in the water off the beaches. Because these are not normal beaches. These have been dredged and carried and placed in exactly these spots by the Norwegian Cruise Line Company who bought and renamed the islands years ago. There are winding slides and rides and a 40 ft high balloon with the company logo – all the garish colours and plastic eyesores of Disney are here, surrounded by hundreds of miles of ocean and a few modest islands of Bahamians. It’s a tad revolting. It’s creepy. It’s definitely surreal.

 

And now, since there are no tourists to lay out on the sun loungers or sip the rum punches through colourful straws, the place lies dormant. A random digger moves about, a security vehicle patrols – for what?! Against what? We find out we are on the list of threats. Venture out in the dinghy to cool off and we are literally chased away by a security guard. “You are too close! This is a private island!” “Can we just swim here, near the beach?” “NO! You are too close!”. We get it. Time to move on.

And so we have found another little piece of unspoiled paradise to explore and play in. We stocked up as best we could from the mailboat back at the edge of the little town of Bullocks Harbour and now we can survive quite well for weeks out here. Providing all the storms flying off the coast of Africa swing away!

 

So day to day, we read of the world’s atrocities, the covid numbers climbing everywhere, especially the Bahamas, and when we just can’t face any more of the bad news we unplug and set out in the dinghies. Blue holes to swim in, turtle ponds to marvel at, rocky hikes and beaches to explore. While the weather holds, we are holding on to paradise.

 

 

 

Egg-sactly WhatsApp? Pondering the pitfalls of remote shopping in paradise

The problem with ordering groceries over WhatsApp from a remote island is that you can’t walk through the aisles and be tempted by things you don’t need.

The problem is that you have to order a week in advance, as you need to allow time for the order to be processed and the remote shopper to do her thing, then you have to be available on your phone on some random time and day in between the order and the delivery, to approve the check out and see the printed out bill on your phone screen.

The problem is that you have to wait for an undetermined number of days for the delivery boat to make his way back down to your remote island, weather and his mood and boat repairs all notwithstanding.

The problem is that you have to up anchor and move your floating home to another island to go and retrieve your goods. And when you see the mailboat is docked in the harbour you make the silly mistake of thinking he might be ready to offload all the boxes within an hour or two or three…

The trouble is that the whole process takes up about two or three days of your life.

Or so I thought.

The real trouble is this:

Lost in translation. As I had each order cycle before, I ordered 12 regular eggs (for baking etc.) and 12 organic eggs (for frying etc. as JW has an allergy to the regular ones).

When JW returned with our goodies from the dock there seemed to be too many boxes. And then he broke one open and there were the eggs. Endless eggs. 24 dozen eggs. An entire 3 foot by 3 foot box full of fragile yolky cargo.

“Nooooooooooo! Oh my God. What the hell?!?!” I shouted and squealed as he passed me each box, and all the other boats wondered what on earth had been delivered to Shiloh. 

The problem with ordering groceries over WhatsApp from a remote island is that by the time you receive the items, they are a week old and to return something would add another week or so before it made it’s way back to the store.

But the real trouble is that English is a tricky language. 12 means a dozen when it comes to eggs, surely? Apparently in the Bahamas, over WhatsApp texting, to our designated shopper, not.

After much ado about the language and the misunderstanding and my absolute horror at discovering we had unwittingly purchased USD$100 of eggs that we would never be able to eat, a solution was found.

The store agreed to take back what we didn’t want, couldn’t use, as long as they arrived back in ‘a good condition’. Our credit card would be refunded at that point.

So off the boxes went, in the dinghy, back to the mailboat, repacked and left in the hands of the crew. Please make sure these find their way back to Nassau, safely, unbroken, fresh, safe.

It’s been nearly a week. I have no idea the fate of the many dozens.

We are about to leave the last of the Internet signal from Duncan Town as we make our way through the Ragged and Jumentos Islands. It might be weeks before we find out how they fared.

Hurricane season began a few days ago and there has been a mass exodus of boats.

We had a couple sentimental ‘last sundowners, last supper’ at the Hog Cay yacht club as the last stragglers leave. 

 

Some put their sails up and head off to the west, days of passage ahead. We’ve moved to a new anchorage eight miles north. The next one will be three more miles. And then maybe a 10 mile journey to the next. We will continue to explore the beaches, finding shells and sea glass, we will swim in the blue waters by day, and sip sundowners in the evenings. 

It’s going to take us a while. And if the weather cooperates, that’s exactly how we like it.

There will be no more mailboat orders from Duncan Town this year. The next time we buy eggs there will be no room for colossal misinterpretation. We will be entering a real physical store, with masks and social distancing and all the trappings of the Covid-19 reality of 2020. 

I’m a bit nervous about that.  We are months behind the rest of the world in coming to terms with the crazy new reality. I think I might prefer 288 eggs delivered in error and omelettes forever.

Mailboats, masks, beaches and bonfires: Ragged Isolation

We are becoming professionals at this. Masked, dinghy bound, box toting professionals.

 It all begins with grocery wish-list emails to a supermarket in far off Nassau. Maybe they’ll have avocados?! Cherry tomatoes? We dare to dream… WhatsApp photo messages of food items follow with accompanying text “Is this what you want?” and “We only have this brand” etc…  Days later, our relative peace is interrupted. There is a palpable frenzy amongst the small tribe of boaters in the anchorages… the mailboat is on his way!

Then the chain of events unfolds in starts and spurts. Rumours, actual second hand info on VHF radio, WhatsApp messages with a few local ‘contacts’, sometimes I get a voice message from the Captain himself! Then I’m really at the epicenter of life here!

And then, either on the expected day, or perhaps a day before or two days or a week later, someone spots the huge blue metal ship that makes it’s way down to this remote island chain from Nassau weekly, or nearly weekly, or whenever he’s not encumbered by storms or faulty engine parts.

When he does arrive, the boats lift anchor, leaving our favourite beach front spots and make their way around to Gun Point, the one port in the Ragged Islands, on the only inhabited island, where the 30 or so fishermen who live here eagerly await their provisions, fuel, alcohol, propane and other goodies along with us boaters.

This is our 10^th week in the Ragged Islands and about the 6^th week living under Bahamas Emergency orders. Some boaters in the world found themselves adrift when Covid-19 spread and countries began closing borders. Some were asked to leave their host countries. We have been so lucky.

The Bahamas has literally shut down and their number one industry, tourism has understandably come to a grinding halt. The annual cruiser population, those of us that have not fled to America, make up the small remaining foreign population. We have been told that we must adhere strictly to the lockdown and that there will be no medical services for foreigners ashore, under any circumstances. This was a tough one for many. Those of us who stayed are taking that risk. 

The pay off for us, down in the most remote part of this island chain, is a day to day life literally unencumbered by Coronavirus. The beaches here line many uninhabited islands. There are rough trails cut through and across many of them. The reefs are still teeming with coral and pretty fish, the blue blue water is still warm and inviting. There are shells and sea glass to hunt and collect, and fish to catch for supper! Each night brings a breathtaking sunset...

The tribe has organised parties here for birthdays and anniversaries and is now even looking to ‘secure’ some of the local wild roaming goats for a beach curry day.

We all have desalinating water makers, we hand wash clothes (and towels and sheets! Ugggh), and gather power from the sun via solar panels and small portable generators.

It’s quite easy to ‘shelter in place’ now that we have developed from nothing, a system that meets all our daily needs. The only exposure we have beyond the finite group of us boaters is the weekly mailboat encounter. Hence the masks and box washing…

We have been given visa extensions online. There is no need to leave our paradise.

Except for the elephant in the distance.

Hurricane season is now imminent. The calm, sunny, peaceful weather days are now spotted with rain and crazy wind systems and the inevitable thunder and lightning storms. They foreshadow how vulnerable we really are out here, hiding behind islands that are so small you need to zoom in on a map or chart.

In the big scheme of things, we could be in trouble. We will need to leave soon, to start heading north or south. We had hoped to make it down to Grenada this year. It sits just below the hurricane belt and it’s a great place to stay onboard for the year.

But getting there involves a lot of stops down the Leeward and Windward islands. The joy is in the journey! We wouldn’t want to sail past the British Virgin Islands without stopping for a few weeks to see Dev, our son, the capable Moorings captain. We wouldn’t want to sail past Guadeloupe with it’s fresh baguettes and chocolate crossaints and wine and cheese! I mean really?!

But the virus has forced most of these countries to close their borders. And if and when they open, it will most likely be too late to head that direction with the prevailing trade winds kicking up…

So as we sit under the thatch roof of the Hog Cay Yacht Club, cold beer in hand, sand between the toes, we contemplate our insecure future. 

As a full time live-aboard sailor, life is by nature unplanned and insecure. And weather has always been our master. It has ruled our movements every season. This year however, with Coronavirus in the mix, we are up against something new. We don’t like our freedoms curtailed. But when there are no flights, countries are closed, the virus is spreading hard and fast in the states, we are left with a very small set of options.

But for now, for today, the mailboat has arrived. Fridge is full. Beer is cold. Beach is calling…