June 8, 2020
Three full months… that’s the time we have been here. And fortunately, our balance of this three months with all that is happening in the world is very positive.
We arrived in Roseau to an anchorage not that pretty and a city that didn’t look very welcoming. On the first night, after we did the clearance and we came by night, it didn’t even look safe. However, after three months here things look very different as we discovered so much of the nature of the island and it is very impressive. We did not visit the 365 rivers Dominica claims but we did quite a few. We were safe, healthy, we always had food and water available, we meet some great people, we discovered and enjoy lots of the beauty Dominica has to offer. Yes, we missed seeing some family, all our friends and family coming to visit had to cancelled, we miss going to Dominican Republic, St Martin, St Kits and Nevis, Puerto Rico but we are great, Happy Days is fine and we will now continue our trip.
Sadly, because of the COVID-19 pandemic we did not have many opportunities to get closer to the locals. When all the restrictions came into place at the end of March things were looking really bad. Dominica is not a developed country with endless resources and I thought as a lot of people did, that the COVID-19 will arrive and would spread in the island so quickly that it was not going to be able to be control in time. However, we found out later that Dominica has a good relationship with China and the Chinese supported and advice the healthcare system. Also, they have the support from a team of Cuban doctors and that help to control the spread of the sickness quite quickly. Only 16 people got sick and recovered. This is one of the few places in the world that COVID has not claimed lives.
We yatchties were looked upon as “dangerous”. Of course, the news all over the island when the COVID arrived said that it was brought by two people that had visited the UK. We were looked as threat, also at the same time world news would say that boats were full of people infected with the virus, so it is not surprise people classified us as the boats bringing the disease.
It played in our favour, that as time passed no one in the Yatchties got sick. And that was also broadcasted in the news. At that time things starting being more relax. At the beginning watching the news was getting me so worry and depress I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. What if they are sick? what if we are sick and we give it to someone else? And all sorts of questions that crossed your mind.
Most of the people in the anchorage respected all the restrictions, at some point I was very worried as some people started breaking the rules. My main concern was we could all be punished by those behaviours like it happened in St Vincent. We heard that over there, they had pretty relaxed confinement and quarantine rules but then they found some boats from the US on land when they should have been on board in quarantine. Therefore, the government put extra restrictions in place for all yatchties and all new arrivals are now expected to do quarantine at a specific hotel in town at its own cost.
When the borders were closed in Dominica we were around 40 boats to ‘ride the waves of the pandemic’. We became a closed community and when the restrictions started lifting we had more and more opportunities to do things together. Go for hikes, visit each other’s boats, go diving, fishing. The conversations will always go around what is your plan, what was your plan, where would you go next, when? As we all know Dominica is not a place to stay for the hurricane season. It was really nice to get to know some people closer and I’m sure we will probably cross paths with some of them in the future. This is somehow different, as in normal conditions, everyone would have stay probably shorter time in Dominica and we would have crossed briefly and had less opportunity to share with this community.
One thing I love about sailing is to crossed paths with people sailing as us. And to share experiences, advice, tips, anecdotes. Each boat is completely different there is always a pretty interesting story about how they started the trip and if they been sailing a while there will be plenty more interesting stories. I’m always very curious about the name of the boat, to know where it comes from and if there is a reason to it.
Names like Jet Lag– a pilot who thanks to his jet-lag all his time flying he is now happily retired on his boat with his partner who is an amazing cook and never gets sea sick.
Nudi– couple of passionate divers that loved Nudibranchs specially the Blue dragon and decided to go sailing around the world and prepared the trip in one year.
I could continue on an on. Our boat is “Happy Days” and as we got it second had it came with the name, I couldn’t find where the name came from. I can just assume that it is from a British TV series called ‘Happy Days’ as the previous owner was from the UK but We will never know. However, for us, is more like the “Happy Days” you make when living aboard, so we decided to keep the name. We added to Happy days by naming the rest of its family as Happy Nights (The dinghy) and Happy Fit (the standup paddle).
Anyway, it is now time to leave Dominica, we are going to Antigua as it seems we will be exempted from the 14 days quarantine because we have been in Dominica for so long and there are no cases in the island. Our friends from Saline left last week and although it took them 4 days to get their clearance, probably because they were the first and rules are still not very clear. They have not been very lucky when Cedric went up their mast for a routine check of the rigging he found a broken inner shroud. Quickly their rigger in the Netherlands sent them the spare part and everything looked like they were going to receive it in Dominica. But days when by and it was taking longer than expected so they decided to go to Antigua, as the transport company ensured them the part was there and they will keep it there. It looked pretty straight forward just to sail to Antigua, get the part installed and keep going to Azores. However, the transport company still send the part to Dominica when they were already in arriving into Antigua. The good thing is we keep in touched and when they found out the part was in Dominica were doing a tour with a little bus and funny enough were close by to the airport where the part had arrived. It took us a bit of time and talking but we have the part with us. So, we have one more reason to go to Antigua, we need to deliver the part! So Saline can continue sailing back to their home.
It feels a bit nostalgic to leave this place as the situation has been so extremely unusual. The last couple of weeks boats have left the anchorage, almost every day and sometimes more than one in a day.
Feelings are mixed, grateful for our time in Dominica, excited to be able to sail again and continue exploring and discovering new places, unsettled as we are leaving a COVID-19 free country and who knows what could happen out there, hopeful that the world will continue recovering from this pandemic.
Watch the video “good bye Dominica”, some people came out to see us living and even dolphins came to swim on our side in the departure!!!
Thank you Dominica!!
Happy Days 