Quarantine for nomads of the sea

14-04-2020 A short update on how we cope with the Corona virus epidemic. Well, it's weird, a bit difficult and definitely not the same travelling experience as before ...

Choices make your luck I guess. We were lucky to have chosen to visit New Zealand and Tasmania while Sydney was burning. But this means we'll never get to sail under the Sydney Harbour Bridge as now the State borders are closed... 

My philosophy is to see bad news as an opportunity so ... at least my bucket list will have open boxes to tick and therefore new dreams to make come true 😌

Another lucky fact is that Queensland is a large State and it has The Great Barrier Reef in it!

So what do we do while in self-isolation? 

1. We try and find islands where you can swim so we can imagine to still be on a real holiday 😎

It's not so easy as there have been a few more shark attacks than usual in the Capricorn islands. Reports say it's lemon sharks attacking for no reason. For no reason doesn't exist in my opinion and we quickly found out why these sharks are aggressive. As we wanted to enter the Fitzroy Reef, we noticed two large fishing boats in there. They must be cleaning they're boats and therefor feeding the sharks... So it's a no go for us and neither is the Northwest island as a Ranger was bitten to death 5 days ago and sailors mention fishing vessel often emptying their boats there ... 

Besides sharks we have to take into account that sea-crocodiles are all over the place North of the Whitsundays. So we'll be totally confined to the limits of our vessel then...

2. While floating a bit decisive-less towards the North, I get to finish some long overdue projects. Dresses form daddies shirts. The girls are already to tall for the original design, so I have to improvise. While having my sewing machine out, I thought it was best to prepare for worst...

 3. Prepare for worst might be necessary in Australia as we're not sure they have the best approach when we read the news about how other countries try to cope with the epidemic... We just cross our fingers as we suspect it might still be the beginning. It's the end of the summer, people live outside, are still full of vitamins, ... While bays are quite full, we all nicely keep our distance, which means we're a bit lonely 😓

 4. It's also a time to catch up on schoolwork as visits are not allowed anymore. All national parks and marine parks are closed and you cannot go on land.

5. But again we're lucky, compared to many other sailing regions, as we are still "allowed" to sail around, since it's our only vehicle; sailing is a physical exercise and we fish for food. Border control checked up on us, twice already. They wished us good visits of the islands 😎 We do hope it will stay like that as we must be the safest people around (well I mean virus-wise 😏 ).

 6. Staying healthy is a challenge though as we can only shop for very limited time. You're allowed to take two tins, two packs of pasta or rice and thus you're obliged to go shopping more often and expose yourself to the virus... Not sure about this approach. And without a car it means buses, taxi's, ... We thought about going all four, because then Geoffrey and I can both go in the shop to take cans, pasta and rice each (and even go for a second time), but that means exposing the four of us, so ... my dear husband sacrificed himself to make it a two day mission on his own 😍

7.  The hardest part remains The Plan. While we are usually very well prepared and on the same page, we have absolutely no idea what to do next... I should say, what we are allowed to do next. So in anticipation we have worked out a few scenarios. Some of them we are eager to do, but others ... euh a bit less!

So now we're writing mails to Border Forces, brokers, searching the news, gambling what the future will bring ... Ah and yes, the budget plays a role, sure, but again we're "lucky" that visiting is not allowed anymore 😏

But again, who are we to complain, right?

I've been "keeping" plenty of posts for a "rainy" day (even Christmas still has to come), so that will be my main job for now. I hope you' ll enjoy them.

Stay safe, stay @ home, hope to see you soon!