okay… well… I was all set to travel back to WildChild when I got this email last night….
open it up and behold… its Covid’s fault…. obviously not theirs… its not like they would cop to cancelling the flights because they didn’t sell enough seats… or they were waiting until the last minute to tell me because they were secretly hoping to sell more tickets…. nope… clearly its all Covid’s fault. Yep got it.
You could not imagine how terribly stressful it is trying to travel someplace now-a-days during Covid stupidity. Honestly the frustration brings me to tears regularly.
I WILL GET BACK TO MY YACHT EVEN IF IT KILLS ME…!
Okay Captains are a tough breed… we are conquerors by nature. There must optimistically be a solution somewhere in the universe and I am gonna find it.
My friend Ryan is a computer wizard… he sees me in tears reading this nasty email cancellation and he jumps into action scouring the world for a way to get me back to Antigua…. like a miracle he finds me an American Airline series of connecting flights to get me to Antigua Nov 2nd. I mean I cannot say that I prefer to take 24 hours to make this trip… its not preferable to take 3 different flights… sleep in the Philadelphia airport Sunday night… then short transfer again in Miami Monday morning… but it seems possible. So lets do it…. flights book… here is to hoping they will not lose my luggage huh.
So now I can keep my $120 bus ride to the Toronto airport Saturday morning. Keep my hotel arrangements in Toronto (which I made bc my Air Canada flight was at 6am Sunday). WildChild just wait for me baby… mommy is coming to rescue you…
Then of course there is the aggressive emails coming out of Jolly harbor marina itself denying sailors access to their boats in the boat yard. Changing the rules last minute. I mean when I made the decision to put WildChild up there I was very specific and clear with them…
Captain Lexi: May I sleep on board my vessel in the boatyard when I return while I do my boat work and get her ready to launch…?
Jolly Harbour: YES no problem we allow up to two weeks living on board in the yard prior to launch…
now… Jolly Harbor marina suddenly came out with…
as you will not be permitted to live aboard, in the boatyard…
We will not be relocating your vessel until we have heard back from you on this matter….
We are not permitting persons to live aboard their vessel in the boatyard at this point in time.
Unless we can launch the vessel prior to your arrival you will need to find accommodation until such time it can be launched.
Based on the number of local cases in Antigua right now we have made a firm decision in this regard and will not flex on it at all….
okay great… good for you…. fuckin completely horrible for me. You have changed our agreement without asking me and you have really hurt me… but I am sure it is for a good reason. Now I can understand the Covid hysteria taking over the world has not skipped over the lovely island nation of Antigua… but it seems aggressive that Jolly harbor is making up their own rules. I found out from another sailor who was in English harbor to the south he was allowed to stay on his boat in the yard while he prepped for launch… so this is just a Jolly harbor thing.
Okay… fine… how may I submit to you and your rules… what do you want of me…
What’s that… follow the governments rules… sure no problem… lets go look them up…
“May establish“… may is a nice word…. ok… did you….? if yes.. where are they…? What are they…? how do I find out about them…? how do I book into them…? how do I contact them to make arrangements for myself…?
Tell me about this well guarded national secret…
so I go check in with the government official website…
…. “be prepared to follow the quarantine/monitoring directions of health officials” upon arrival when they screen you…
ok… I’m prepared… but what does that mean…?
YES… great yes… I can go to Antigua… its open… great… okay.. this sounds good… I want to do this thing… I have booked a new last minute flight… i’m a comin baby…
okay… so they are hungry for tourist dollars… but I am not exactly a tourist… can you be flexible for sailors… ? this seems unclear… lets check their official government tourism page… maybe that will help explain things…
okay… got it… need a PCR Covid test with a negative result within 7 days prior to arrival … in fact need it before they will even let you board your plane…
okay… need to go get a Covid test… check… I just went yesterday morning to get my test done at one of Canadas newest Covid testing facilities setup here in Chatham. Nice job Canada… it was very well organized… very well run… very clear and concise… and although a Covid test is rather uncomfortable… I got it done… I should have my results by tomorrow (Thursday Oct 29 2020)
I should note here… Canada has been very calm about Covid… very organized… and very reasonable. I am living in a city with very few Covid cases. I have not been around or even heard of anyone with Covid around here. Also I basically live in Ryan’s basement in perpetual quarantine anyway. I have zero symptoms and nobody around me has even had a sniffle. So I am very sure I do not have the flu… but soon I will have an official government paper to prove it…
So far I am following all the steps…
Okay… so I have my new flight booked… I submit to Jolly harbor marina not wanting to let me into my boat… I am “prepared” to submit to the directions of the health officials upon my arrival… I also found another online form you have to fill out before you go to tell them where you are coming from and where you are going…
but where will I go when I get there…? when I land I currently have no place to go.
I don’t understand what they expect of me… I would love to book myself a place to stay… but I cannot… because I don’t know if they will force me into quarantine or not. I tried to find a reasonably priced air BnB in St. Johns ($65usd per night)… but before I pay them in advance for my stay how can I know if I will be forced into quarantine instead? So I cannot make any arrangements for myself IF they do not choose to force me into quarantine…
okay this guy says you have to take an “approved place” by the government… great… so it seems the government did make quarantine facilities… where are they?
So what if they are going to make me quarantine what am I expected to do about this?
if they are going to quarantine me… where is that…? how much does that cost…? am I supposed to pre arrange this? Do they pay for / provide this?
do they want to tell me where that is? Nope.. it’s a secret. Can I know where these quarantine facilities are and how much they will cost…? nope… big secret too… so it does seem the government did make quarantine facilities but they do not want to tell you about them.
So what was all that jazz earlier about open for tourists…? What tourist would pay in advance and book a room in a resort if they cannot even know if they will be forced into a two week quarantine first..? Like hey want a lovely weeks vacation in lovely Antigua… well first sit in isolation for two weeks then you can go to your resort…? Sounds crazy….
After a lot of digging I did find a new list of approved resorts… okay… that’s something.. not sure what but something… the exciting news is… is that the cheapest places I could find (still not sure if they are approved or not)… $99usd to $220usd …. this is per night…!
Yes… the cheapest place you can stay to sit alone in your room under quarantine for $100-$200 per night.. so for 14 nights… that will cost you between $1400usd to $2000usd. This is the cheapest options but of course very few of the cheap options are on the governments approved list.
okay so I looked around closer Jolly Harbor and found two approved places to stay. So with their big IF looming over my head… IF they force me into quarantine I found two “approved” resorts.
Look closely at the picture… that is $666usd and $613usd per night..! so to sit alone in my room and be quarantined for 14 days that will only cost me
$8,582usd…!
$8,582usd…!
$8,582usd…!
okay… let that sink in… would you spend that much money for the privilege of being isolated in quarantine for 14 days to prove that even with your good valid current Covid negative test you still do not have Covid….?
No… of course not… because this is ridiculous…!
so okay… all I have to do… to be allowed to have my boat back… is submit… suffer… and pay.
yeah… sounds fair and reasonable…
I have heard it said that hell is the impossibility of reason…
So if the government forces me into quarantine there is zero information available about what that means. I can choose to pay for own quarantine in very expensive places… but there is no way for me to know in advance if this will be forced upon me…. Maybe if the universe chooses to take pity on me and the health officials are completely reasonable with me and say… relax.. all good… we are happy with the Covid test you provided plus our health screening we have decided to have mercy and not quarantine you… as you are very low risk…. then the Jolly harbor marina says too bad… we, the marina, will force you to pay for one of these expensive places everyday it takes you to prep your boat for launch… and make it as hard as possible to access your boat…
very not nice stuff…
And of course just to top it off… the marina refuses to even move my boat out of the long term storage area for my arrival despite me giving them their pre-requisite two weeks notice of my return as agreed upon…. I keep living up to my end of the deal… they keep not living up to their end.
***********************
soo… Saturday (Oct 31st 2020) morning I take an expensive bus to the Toronto Airport…
Saturday night I check into my Toronto hotel room to wait…
Sunday afternoon I board the first of 3 flights for my 24 hour trip to get to Antigua
Monday Afternoon I arrive in Antigua with no plans… no idea where I will sleep that night… and I submit myself to the authority of the health officials to find out IF they are going to force me into quarantine or not. Then from there I will be forced into finding out what I am expected to do next. Maybe when I am there in person they will reveal to me what their secret government quarantine solution/facility is.
I have already spent more than three months of 2020 in Covid Quarantines… what’s another two weeks…? its not wasting the time that bothers me… it is that this time they need to rob me while doing it.
Okay… fine… how may I submit to you and your rules… what do you want of me…
okay… now I understand… you want my money… and as much of it as you can get out of me…. you want to hold my boat for ransom forcing me to have to pay all this extra stuff. You want me to bleed out money I do not even have to help fix your economy. You want me to not be able to make plans for myself which will force me to show up without accommodation to be flexible to submit to your decisions… then of course I am sure you will yell at me for not having a place to go, stupid girl.
I WILL GET BACK TO MY YACHT EVEN IF IT KILLS ME…! ummm… it does feel like they are trying to bleed me to death…
yeah… I have sailed in horrifying ocean conditions that were less stressful than dealing with all this.
This makes me cry a lot. A lot of stress and fear. It is very scary to be forced to go someplace facing so many unknown variables. Honestly… I do not want to suffer thru any of this… but they are holding my boat for ransom… if I wait until Covid is “over” and things get back to normal the marina will take me for their $1000cdn a month storage fees (not flexible either)… another year there and I will owe them $12000cdn… all because they do not seem to want me to be able to come get my boat on time and as planned and on schedule. Did I mention I have not worked in two years… I have no job and no income…?
I am not a baby boomer… I do not have this kind of money… there is no pension money here… I barely have enough money to feed myself for the next year trying to sail home to Canada…
and I thought the pirates were on the water…
stay tuned… I will update you with on the ground information as soon as I can… hopefully by Tuesday I can find internet access to tell you………. I will get you the facts
cheers sailors…
pray for me
Captain Lexi
……………………..the very nervous and very scared