To be continued

We’ve made the painful decision to return to Canada.

Since before Easter, the Bahamas has been enforcing  lockdowns every weekend from Friday night  9 o’clock to Monday morning  5 o’clock . They’ve extended this protocol until the end of May. They’ve also added that boaters are no longer allowed to cruise from island to island.

Depending on which island you’re in, some will not allow you off the boat at all. If you need groceries, you have to order it online at a minimum of 150.00$ US plus 15.00$ delivery charge.
You don’t get to squeeze your own tomatoes or oranges. The horror!! Someone else picks it for you. That’s okay in northern countries but not south where fresh produce are on borrowed time.

We could live with the food distribution, but staying on our boat day after day for possibly months to come is not very appealing especially since we see the local people allowed to walk around and go to about their regular agenda but us boaters are confined to our vessel.

We understand the social distancing and are more than willing to adhere but why can’t we go for a walk? Laundry? Take out? Locals can but we can’t. We’ve been in this country for almost 3 months. We did not bring in the virus. We’ve been confined for several weeks......

So we returned to Port Lucaya to get fuel before crossing to the USA. Incidentally we were able to get a ride from the marina to provision in town.... Also at the marina you can use the pool, do laundry, use the public showers... so much for social distancing!!!!

On May 3rd at 4 am we left the West End, in Grand Bahamas to start our trek across the Gulf Stream. It was so much better than the crossing to the Bahamas in February. It took us 42 hours from our staging point to Jacksonville Florida.

Totally fried on our arrival but feeling great. Big accomplishment and first overnight crossing and first time anchoring in the dark.

When we checked in with Immigration on CBP online we were at first denied entry..... oh boy you should have seen our faces😱 totally fried after being on the road for almost 48 hrs and can’t deal with this.... tried again ....it happened that we haven’t filled out the paperwork correctly the first time. Now we are legal in the USA 😃

Here we are once again at Sketchy Marina in northern Florida. We prepared  the boat  to be hauled out while on a mooring ball.
The day before going in the straps, we needed to move the boat to the dock. What could go wrong with this simple move? Well the transmission decided not to work. We could go backwards but not forward. Luckily we were able to back the boat into  open water before drifting into  a commercial dock. Of course it was a very windy day to make it worse.  We finally got the forward gear to work  but  stuck in this position coming into the marina was a challenge and fortunately we had help to tie up. What a day!!!!!

The boat is now out of the water until next November after the hurricane season has gone through and we’ll come back to continue our journey down south as originally planned.

We’ll be spending the next months in NB and hopefully can toodle around on the motorbike if things open up.

TO BE CONTINUED!!!!!











Comments

  1. You sure have had an adventure so far, look forward to seeing you seeing you in Canada soon.

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  2. Man, what a rough go for your first foray into tropical boater life and retirement! Just crap timing.... We have been wondering what was going on. Travel home safe dear friends. We will call you when you are settled. Huge hugs.

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