Well I’m sad to say that the Delta Variant has finally caught up with us here in Grenada. We are now in our fourth “no movement” weekend when it is not permitted to leave your home for any reason except to be vaccinated or tested for Covid. During the week we are allowed to move around for essential purposes but bars, restaurants and non-essential services have all been closed for almost a month. No doubt this all sounds very familiar to you as almost everywhere else on Earth has already been through this, repeatedly.
So we are watching the Covid statistics closely: currently about 32% of the population have been vaccinated at least once and the number of new cases is falling. We keep our fingers crossed that these trends continue. In the meantime we find ways to amuse ourselves on board.
On weekday mornings the beaches are open and we are allowed ashore to exercise. A couple of times a week I go for a run; there are lots of dirt tracks around Hog Island and the Dove Sanctuary and behind the rum distillery so I can run in circles for hours. I had a fall the other day – and no, I hadn’t been for an early visit to the rum distillery! I gouged my knee and scraped my chin but soon healed.
Other mornings I meet a few friends at the beach for noodling: kind of an in water workout using a buoyant float (noodle) for resistance. It’s fun and surprisingly demanding, and we can catch up on the hot island gossip while we’re doing it! Neil had even given it a go a couple of times.
We enjoyed a lovely day sail a couple of weeks ago, just to amuse ourselves and remind ourselves how to do it! It was a glorious day with a 20kt breeze on the port side as we sailed out in to the big blue, it was nice to see the island from a distance for a few hours. After lunch we tacked and had a stiff beat back to the anchorage, we hadn’t factored in the tides which rip around the southern end of the island. We’re getting rusty!
Lockdown onboard provides plenty of time for boat jobs, especially those we’ve been putting off. I have got into a rather belated effort of springcleaning, some of the cupboards on the boat have not been cleared out for . . . ahem . . . a number of years. We’ve managed to lighten the boat by offloading mouldy sea boots, ancient flares, broken fishing nets and numerous more “treasures of the bilge”. Relocating various items also means we are no longer listing slightly to port.
Neil has a new keyboard which he’s absolutely stoked with. It’s a Nord Electro 6D, it’s red with lots of buttons, dials and sliders, and sixty one shiny black and white keys of course. It arrived just as we went into lockdown so he has not really been able to play it with other musicians yet but he is loving making all sorts of new sounds and exploring it’s various new functions.
The weather has been very hot and still – typical for this time of year but with no wind the heat is almost unbearable. Some days are squally with small thunderstorms and the sudden strong winds cause boats to drag anchor around the anchorage. One of the most exciting excursions we have these days is hopping in to the dinghy to help friends haul their boat off the reef.
Well “thank you” if you have made it this far through my tale of the truly uninteresting things we are doing to pass the time in lockdown. You’ve been there, done it and I’m sure have some funny stories to tell. So we’re just letting you know that all is well here in Grenada . . . less than two months until the end of hurricane season . . . maybe we can go somewhere!
All the best
Suzy and Neil