COVID and Wonderstruck

The whole world seems to be going crazy, with updated news stories changing daily. We first heard of COVID while staying in Guatemala. It was something to keep an eye out for as in the future it might be headed our way. (at least that was what we were being told in the medical community, the US News is a different story).

I love following these sort of things. I am fascinated with “This Podcast Will Kill You” which covers a different infectious disease weekly. Every winter I bookmark the CDC weekly influenza map so I can get regular updates. I devour books like The Great Influenza: the Story of the Greatest Pandemic in History and Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail. I love the perspective of Guns, Germs and Steel and its explanations of the ways that infectious diseases have altered the course of history. So of course I was reading reports when it first emerged in China. Was this going to be like SARS or MERS? Would this continue to spread worldwide becoming another pandemic?

Then we entered Belize, and COVID was indeed spreading. Guatemala had a case and immediately responded by closing its borders. We were starting to have cases back home in the States, although there were mixed messages as to the severity and prediction of spread. Debi and Roxanne came to visit us, and in the week they visited the US went from no travel restrictions to “This is your one chance to fly back home”. Belize was restricting flights from Asia and Europe but allowing people to fly to and from the US. Last week, while everyone was practicing social distancing, we went to Lighthouse Reef. What an ideal place for social distancing! We were the only ones around for miles and it was a welcome reprieve from the constant barrage of news.

We returned from Lighthouse Reef to discover that Belize had several cases and so they closed their borders to everyone as well as all their marinas. We contacted Cucumber Beach Marina, where we had stayed before. Since we had been there before and had spent the entire time since then alone at Lighthouse Reef they agreed to allow us to return. Not knowing how long it will be until we will be able to go to a store again, we provisioned with groceries and topped off our diesel and gas. They arranged for the Belize Department of Health, Customs, and Immigration to come to our boat for us to check out of the country.

The issues is what to do next. The safest place for just about anyone to be during a pandemic is on a boat. And if we knew it would only last a month or two we would probably just got to Lighthouse reef and live there. We have solar panels to charge our batteries, can make water using reverse osmosis. We carry 180 gallons of diesel and enough food for a month at a time. We are used to baking bread, making tortillas by hand, and bucket washing our clothes. But I don’t see this going away in a month or two. We also know that by summer we need to be back in the US, our boat safely tucked away for hurricane season. We don’t know what will happen in the next few months but we do know that life goes on; that at some point I will need to return to work to have an income again and the kids enroll in school next year.

So we plan to go north, hopefully to Mexico. We keep getting conflicting messages about Mexico. They closed their borders. They are allowing boats to pass through just not stop in any marinas. Marinas are closed. No, wait, some marinas are allowing noncommercial vessels. That in Isla Mujeres the harbormaster went to anchored boats and told them to leave in 24 hours or go to jail. That in Isla Mujeres they are allowing boats in but not issuing paperwork to allow people to leave. So really we don’t know what to expect, if we will be able to legally check in or if we just anchor and fly a yellow Q flag and hope for the best. But we do know that it is the direction we need to go to head home.

After that we don’t know. So far Customs and Border Patrolling is allowing US flagged boats to return to the US. We should be able to check in using their app. We don’t know where we will be able to anchor and stay as we make our way to Brunswick, Georgia where we have a reservation for hurricane season. Most marinas are closed in Florida and Georgia but we should be able to find anchorages as we make our way north. Kim commented that we are going from the frying pan to the fire, but actually right now we aren’t in a frying pan. We are going from the safety of paradise into the fire. But we go because we believe that life will go on; that things might get worse before it gets better, but it will get better at some point. We go with care, knowing we will be practicing social isolation in solidarity with our countrymen and loved ones.