A “Shit Show” is a most expressive American term we have
learned from many of our charter guests, over the last two months we have learned first hand what that expression means.
There we were, back in Antigua once more. We arrived in
Falmouth harbour just as Antigua was gearing up for a month of racing sailing.
April heralds 2 of the most prestigious annual events on the world’s sailing
calendar – the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta which takes place in the first
week of April and Antigua Sailing week which takes place in the last week of
April. Well over 100 yachts of all different sizes and from all over the world
participate and Falmouth was buzzing with yachts and their well oiled,
professional teams (on our way in we dodged some who were out practicing), super
and mega yachts tied to marina’s providing homes for team owners and celebrity
spectators.
English harbour, right next door and where we had to once
more complete an electronic form on a computer, no health checks here either,
was seething with tourists as the cruise ships were still disgorging their inquisitive
passengers, together with the added attraction of competitors, supporters and
sponsors of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, a rowing event of more than
3000 miles starting in San Sebastian, Canary Islands and finishing at Nelsons
Dockyard in English Harbour.
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| This is the little row boat, unbelievable, what determination |
The 4800km race begins in early December and
around 30 entrants of teams consisting individuals up to 4 members, row across
the Atlantic, in a 7m long x 2m wide boat with only a little cabin for
protection. The winners for 2020 being a British 4 man team who completed the
journey in 32 days and on March 7th, the same day we arrived, the
last boat - #14, Making Memories with its 2 woman team, arrived after 86 days
at sea.  |
| Most of the gang back together |
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| The Yacht Club |
We caught up once more with regulars to Antigua, Ken and
Susan on Whiskeyjack (our honorary South African, Canadian buddies), having
just sailed over from St Kitts. They introduced us to happy two hours at the
yacht club and the “Tot Club” which meets at 6pm each evening in Falmouth.
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| Pouring the "Tot" a very serious duty |
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| This Tot Club has quite a following |
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| This super yacht called Addiction and its tender called Little Addiction.. |
The
Tot Club took over from the “Royal Naval Tot Club” which was formed in 1990 to
uphold the tradition of a daily tot of rum at the end of the working day to
toast the Queen. One may only join the Tot Club in Antigua and you must be
invited to join by an existing member (enter Ken and Susan). Guests are
introduced, announcements, points of interest and a toast made, ending with
….and the Queen, God Bless Her. There are many benefits associated with this
prestigious club, they get involved in many Island projects, welcome fellow
yachtsmen, entertain members of HRH warships and even hosted HRH Prince William
at a lunch once, meeting like minded people and most important, drinking rum.
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| Not a goat!! |
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| Ang showing the way down |
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| Racing yachts out practicing, seen from the fort at the end of the Trail |
Kevin, Angela and I partook in a bit of walking while here,
there are a number of lovely hiking trails and it was good to stretch our legs
for a change. The Middle Ground Trail which gave us a wonderful view over
English Harbour proved to require the skills of a mountain goat in places, but
we did it.
We also managed to have dinner at Flatties and drinks at a bar
called Skullduggery before heading round to Jolly Harbour where the large
“Epicurean store” is, we planned to spend some time here before doing a circuit
of Antigua, via Barbuda, returning in time to fetch Rod, Kim and Claudia from
the airport.
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| The view of English Harbour from the top of the trail |
By this time the words “Covid 19” were being thrown around
without much enthusiasm and there were debates on how serious and what measures
should be taken, even talk of total lockdowns or quarantines of countries –
surely never going to happen.
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| Jolly Harbour |
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| Jolly Harbour anchorage |
The Jolly Harbour anchorage is fairly shallow and thus
pretty murky as the sand swirls a lot, add to this a problem with the local
sewage works and the huge splashes and eerily glowing yellow eyes of very large
fish swimming around our sugar scoops at night and there was no swimming going
to happen here.
There is a beautiful long beach full of shells that we took
full advantage of walking.
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| It was solo sailor and buddy Tom's birthday so we made him a cake |
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| St John's |
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| Lots of fresh produce sold on the side of the road |
Gary, Ang, Kevin and I caught a bus into St John’s, the main town, for an exploratory trip, we asked at one of the shops about a good lunch venue and were personally guided through a short maze of streets and buildings to a sparse bar and takeaway with plastic chairs and tables,
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| Good lunch @ a good price |
the
queue of local patrons indicated the food must be good and it was good value,
huge portions and cold beers all at a very good price, in the words of our
buddy JK – always go one road back and eat where the locals do.
Each Island in the Caribbean has its own facebook cruisers page where, generally, helpful, humorous, happy content can be found, items to sell, buy or swap, technical help or advice and crew needed or in need, the perfect reference for cruisers. All of a sudden there began a frenzy on these pages, the unthinkable had happened – the “Shit Show” had begun. A virus that began in China had in fact now become a worldwide epidemic, European countries as a result were scrambling to isolate themselves and this obviously had an effect on their associated Caribbean Islands. The French overseas Territory islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin (French side) and the Dutch Islands of Sint Maarten (Dutch side), and Eustatius, all of whom have free travel back and forth, were suddenly imposing the same travel restrictions and bans as their mainland counterparts. Cruise ships were being turned away from the islands one after the next and so were flights and Charter companies ceased all business for the next 6 – 8 weeks and for Antigua the crunch came when all racing sailing for April was cancelled, the logistics required to get all those yachts and crew home made heads spin.
We would be ok still, right? We are after all on yachts and
can’t be much of a threat. Well not exactly, things pretty much proceeded on a
downward spiral from here. The halting of tourism heralded the halting of the
majority of income for most of the Caribbean Islands and lack of income creates
panic, in varying forms. Also the extremely limited medical resources, on most
Islands even the total lack of such, presented a scary picture throughout. The
self governed Islands held out as long as possible but eventually had to conform
and for cruisers, all of a sudden everything changed.
Those same facebook pages were now filled with doom and
gloom, information on which Islands, one after the next, were closed to yachts
as now cruisers and yachts were seen to be the pariah’s, to represent the
enemy. Cruisers turned on cruisers, the majority of these being people
permanently living on yachts off islands with vested business interests on the
islands, afraid that they would be grouped in the same unwelcome category as
the rest of us and possibly forced to leave, so their voices could be heard
crying louder and bolder for the heads of cruisers who were seen to be
disobeying the rules.
There was no time to move, as the Islands closed their
borders, you stayed where you were. With no open harbours to go into, if you
left your current anchorage you could end up floating around the Caribbean Sea,
with nowhere to anchor and no access to food and water. As these Islands
created and wrote their Government ordinance’s, which change each time they are
published, Maritime Laws and rights of safe passage became questionable and it
came to pass that common sense really is not all that common. A few yachts were
refused anchorage and some told to leave Islands and return to their home port
– way easier said than done. The simple act of moving from one anchorage to
another on the Island that you were legally allowed to be became problematic as
you could guarantee that you would be reported to the authorities/Coast Guard
by one of your fellow cruisers, as soon as you dropped anchor, no courteous
greeting and friendly query as to whether you were a new arrival, guilty until
proven innocent.
In our situation Antigua, an Independent Island, was
following a fairly responsible approach, calling for social distancing and discretionary
use of face masks and hand sanitizer and closure of non essential businesses. I
had a bank card delivered to St John, via DHL, truly amazing that, despite all
the various lock down procedures adopted by different countries, this little
envelope was able to leave South Africa, travel 5 days through many countries
and arrive safely in St John, Antigua for collection. Angela, Kevin and I once
more bussed into town to go fetch it, a very different town as most shops and
restaurants were closed and there were way less people milling around.  |
| The queue all the way down the road |
On
arrival back at Jolly Harbour 2 hours later there was suddenly a queue outside
the Epicurean grocery store, whilst we were out a state of lockdown had been
declared. Suddenly a curfew was in effect, essential shops and services would
only be open from 7am to 12 noon and everyone was confined to their homes or in
our case, yachts, no swimming, walking on beaches, getting off boats during
curfew hours in general (unless for essential reasons) and definitely no moving
from one bay to another without prior consent of the Coast Guard.
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| This little ticket was worth its weight in gold |
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| No going ashore without masks so I quickly made us two, gloves were optional |
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| The security guards could have done with some lessons in crowd control |
We remained upbeat, self-isolating for the two weeks leading
up to the state of lockdown being announced and spending 2 weeks aboard during
lockdown where we only went ashore twice for provisions. The first time we arrived
outside the Epicurean store at 08:15 and were #182, they were only allowing 10
people at a time in this huge store, (knowing security or staff members was
seen to be grounds for entry at any time however) I only managed to scrape into
the store at 11:20 just before they stopped shoppers at 11:40 and I had 15 mins
to shop with the security guard hurrying me along.
This simply caused high
tensions and tempers and at one store riots. In the days that followed people
were arriving to queue before 07:00 and were being chased away by the police as
curfew was from 07:00.
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| This enterprising young guy was selling live lobsters to the people in the queue's we just weren't sure where to put it while in the store? |
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| Got better acquainted with hammock and books |
Thankfully by the next time I had to shop they were
allowing more than 10 people at a time, although at 07:10 I received ticket
#68……
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| We played many games of Mexican Train dominoes |
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| Exercising important |
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| Dusted off the drone |
Whilst the entire world was in a state of uncertainty and time
periods of 2, 3, 4 months of quarantine/lock down/curfew were being discussed,
looming in the Caribbean was the very real added threat of hurricane season
which officially begins in July and insurance companies were not willing to
make concessions for yachts not able to get to their specified limitations that
they cover for named storms between July and November, not to mention the
concerns of those without insurance. In our situation we had to make some
serious decisions, firstly, Rod, Kim and Claudia would no longer be able to
join us, then the charter industry has come to a grinding halt and with no
definite resumption date, our main source of additional income has dried up.
This means that we will need to take whatever opportunities present themselves in
the near future for earning income and being in Antigua is not ideal as our
yacht would not be insured for named storms if we had to leave it there to
travel for work opportunities. Compounding this is the issue of a visa, on
entering Antigua we were given a 3 month visa stamp in our passports and a 1
month cruising permit for our boat. Renewal of the cruising permit can be done
monthly or outstanding amounts caught up on clearing out. Visa renewal however
was like applying for permanent residence. Forms and photos, medical report,
proof of income and/or sustainability, interviews with Immigration, a lengthy,
3 day exercise and a cost of around R5500.00 each, with no guarantee of the
length of extension granted.
We spent many hours agonising over what to do next the only
Islands open to sailing yachts were the US Virgin Islands (USVI’s) and St
Vincent Grenadines (SVG). Sailing to North Carolina, the northern limits of our
insurance requirements, could be done via the USVI, only I have a visa issue, the
electronically issued visa cannot be used for entry into US territories via
private vessel, has to be a commercial carrier, the appropriate visa could only
be obtained in Barbados or Trinidad and neither were open for yachts nor were
there flights out of Antigua. This left SVG, whose Prime Minister had taken a
more relaxed approach to this Covid 19 virus. He had closed all entry to
Islands under the SVG umbrella, restricting access to St Vincent where there
was medical facilities and staff able to deal with any infections. It was
rumoured there was a required 14 day quarantine period if you were from a
French, Dutch, British or American country and such quarantine was to be done
ashore at your own expense.
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| Farewell Antigua, we're SVG bound |
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| Mystic Blue overtakes us early on |
We contacted the SVG authorities by phone and confirmed that
they were accepting yachts and that quarantine would be decided on a case by
case basis, depending on the outcome of an interview with a nurse on arrival.
We, together with Ang and Gary, decided to take the chance, we needed to get
south and the threat that SVG might also close their borders to yachts was ever
present and would leave us totally snookered.
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| In the absence of Easter eggs I made cinabons |
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| Easter breakfast as we were departing Antigua |
So at sunrise on Easter Sunday we
departed St Johns and, giving a wide berth to all Islands along the way, two
days later dropped anchor in Wallilabou bay in St Vincent.
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| Sunsets on passage always stunning |
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| Disney left all construction behind and its now a tourist attraction/ museum |
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| Maxscene at anchor in Wallilabou |
We hauled anchor and sped the next 8 miles to
Bequia, it felt like coming home.We had a number of friends anchored in the bay, ironically
enough we dropped anchor behind a Maxim 38 Catamaran called Kiraku, a boat I
had intimate knowledge of as Graeme and Michelle had at a stage considered
purchasing her. She is now owned by a lovely family from Simonstown who just
managed to make it to Bequia as everything shut down around them. Frustratingly
our arrival caught the interest of some of the previously mentioned cruisers,
who, instead of contacting any of us directly to check whether we had come in legally, took it upon themselves to report our mistakenly assumed illegal arrival
and lack of quarantine to the authorities. At the same time, during our journey
down the Prime Minister of SVG got into a spat with the Prime Minister of
Grenada and was accused of too much leniency on his borders.
Suddenly Gary and Ang were getting daily visits from the
Port Authority and eventually a week after our arrival, despite assurances of
no wrong doing and apologies all round from the officials, the decision was
made by the powers that be that they should do 14 days quarantine, thankfully
on their boat and not ashore. We had been keeping a very low profile, blending
in and so far fallen through the gaps but the same cruiser saw us ashore on the
Sunday and suddenly we were in the same boat, so to speak, not allowed to leave
our boat for any reason for the next 14 days – we’re running low on provisions,
too bad!!!
Fortunately fellow cruisers rallied and have done shopping
and rubbish removal trips for us, checking in and keeping our morale’s up.
Barry the Port Authority is quite an amiable chap who I think was put in a
crappy position by the annoying actions of a cruiser and the saving face of
Government officials – our quarantines were not at all virus related – we had
been in lockdown in Antigua for 2 weeks prior to our arrival, 2 days at sea
without stops to get here and 7 days here before being confined to our yachts.
Well, we couldn’t be in a more beautiful place, the people are all friendly,
Romeo (yes his real name) comes round every morning selling freshly baked
pastries from the Plantation Hotel and we were allowed to swim/snorkel in our
second week of quarantine. Did we take it personally – hard not to, but time
heals and the wheel turns….
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| Fixed table mounts |
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| Cover for the generator |
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| Replaced traveller car |
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| Reseated hatch & replaced bolts, no more sore heads while helming |
So as I write this, we are completing the last 2 days of
confinement, our boat jobs list is down to a couple of lines, we’ve had fun
with cooking and baking, music trivia played via whatsapp and generated by our
buddy Les who is on anchor in Martinique, and books and games have filled in
time. We will shortly be able to go shop for ourselves, its amazing how
important that becomes and next week we, together with 4 other boats, will sail
to Tobago Cays for a couple of days of fun in the sun with turtles.
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| Installed lights in storage cupboards |
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| Installed lights in passage cubbies |
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| So many octapus' on this reef |
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| Found & fixed leak |
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| Found some lobsters missed by local fishermen while snorkelling |
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| Kevin's becoming quite the chef |
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| Kevin's forte - pancakes |
Fittingly, our first day out of quarantine and we have the honour of watching a huge turtle as she covered her eggs that she had laid on the beach, before heading back into the water – here’s a couple of shots :
