Bahamas, baby!

Despite the craziness of the COVID-19 pandemic, we did make it to the Bahamas early Monday morning. Phew!

We left Fort Lauderdale Sunday night around 6:00pm and crossed to West End on Grand Bahama Island arriving around 8:30am Monday morning. The ride across the Gulf Stream was a bit bumpy due to the short period between the 2-3 foot seas (with an occasional 4′), but we expected that. Made it a bit noisy (waves hitting bridge deck) and difficult to sleep, but otherwise fine. The skies were clear and it was a beautiful starry night. We were never really alone either; there always appeared to be a cargo ship or cruise ship in sight, often two or more. We have certainly had worse trips, even if you exclude the November fiasco 😉.

We had no trouble checking in at customs & immigration on Monday. Since then the Bahamas has tightened up its borders a bit, closing them to people from places like Iran, Italy, Shengen countries, UK, Ireland- same places many other countries have closed their borders to already. Today Bahamas declared a state of emergency that gives them a variety of powers they can employ as needed; they’re not going all psycho (at least not yet). They could impose curfews, ban gatherings of certain sizes, etc. They are already making the same social isolation suggetions most countries are making. The state of emergency does not appear to impact foreign nationals already in the country. We do not know how it will affect things like reprovisioning and getting diesel when needed, but he have sufficient provisions on board for about 4-5 weeks (and we can fish), we make our own water, it’s quite sunny for shorter island hops, and for the 1-2 longer passages we want to make between island groups our diesel tank is 3/4 full. 

We are self-quarantining until a week from this coming Friday because we have no idea if we were exposed to COVID while in Florida and our last possible exposure would have been this past Friday. We were ashore frequently the past two weeks provisioning, and later learned of confirmed cases in the areas we had been, but not wide spread. You never know, though, and we don’t want to be responsible for spreading the virus if we did bring it with us. No COVID symptoms on board yet, thank goodness!

For the next couple of weeks, it appears that our excursions will be water-based- snorkeling and diving, with walks along sandy beaches and remote island trails where we are unlikely to encounter many other humans, and those we do encounter we can easily remain at least 6 feet away from. It’s a bit of a bummer that we won’t be able to hang out with other cruisers for sundowners, but the cruising community is doing its part to not exacerbate this pandemic and are all practicing social distancing.

I’m extremely thankful that at least here on GBI we have decent cell coverage, so we can keep in touch with the outside world. We’re able to keep up with the COVID situation and keep in touch with family and friends back home. I will update my blog at least weekly so folks know we’re okay. If we are out of cell phone coverage, I will still make a quick post via satellite phone. If you want to check in with us, feel free to comment on the blog and I will check and respond to those as I can, but that does require I be in cell phone coverage area, so please be patient. 

I hope you are all staying healthy and sane in these crazy times! Take care of each other. 🙂

Author: Indigo Lady

I am a retired educator married to a retired chemist/engineer/educator. We will be living aboard our solar electric catamaran for as long as possible. View all posts by Indigo Lady