7 April Sheltering in place

While we have may have clearance to go ashore for provisioning and we exercise our option to shelter in place on board. We plan to limit ourselves to one visit to the supermarket each week to avoid contact with person or persons who may have COVID-19. We neither want to catch the virus or to be responsible for spreading it. So how are we spending our time?

Self isolation is something cruisers do whether there is a pandemic or not. We are used to staying on  board,just the two of us, when we undertake a long passage, or when we are at anchor and there are periods of bad weather. Yachts are perfect life support units – we have a watermaker that produces 60 litres of RO water an hour, a big freezer and a good fridge, big cupboards filled with tinned and dry provisions. The last time I bought toilet rolls was 5 months ago and I calculate we still have at least one more months' supply remaining. We have internet through a local SIM card and the ability to top up online. Having the internet is essential to down load the many ebooks we're reading through our British and US library cards.

In the morning I dedicate myself to boat jobs such as cleaning or sewing. So far we've repaired broken stitching on the head sail on a windless day (better to drop that big bugger on the deck in light breezes than fight it in 15 knots). I've repaired stitching on both the forward and aft sunshades -as the season advances into summer we're going to need these. I also have a project to replace all the hatch sunshades with new and improved designs.

The afternoon is reserved for listening to the daily government press conference, reading, writing and swimming. I love swimming and here the water is clear, warm and traffic free. Once upon a time before lock down when there were four cruise ships a day with tenders, dive boats and fishing boats ploughing along every hour of the day it was dangerous to swim from the boat for fear of being struck by one. Now I swim for thirty minutes knowing I'll hear if the pilot harbour or police boats are in the vicinity.