Living in Grenada

Quarantine on Songster at anchor in St Georges Bay went quickly.  As is traditional amongst the boating community, every major anchorage has a VHF radio net in the morning.  These radio nets tend to follow a standard format.  First, the controller asks if there are any medical or safety issues, then a weather report is given followed by new arrivals announcing themselves or those who about to depart saying goodbye.  Then there are various announcements of events, services and get-togethers followed by ‘treasures of the bilge’ where sailors buy, sell or swap spare equipment or parts.  These radio nets are the life blood of sailors and a great way to stay informed, get advice and make friends.

But in addition the morning radio net, the cruising community in Grenada was quick to organise lots of virtual entertainment over the VHF radio for all the quarantine fleet.  Several evenings a week at sundowner time were trivia quizzes.  Between sips of Caribbean rum fun questions were answered.  Everyone was on an honour system to tally up their points to win virtual prises.  There was a weekly bingo night which raised money for the local community.  There was a ladies lunch where the women sailors chatted.  Nimrod’s Rum Shop, a popular hangout for musicians moved their Thursday night jam sessions online and musicians posted videos of their latest offerings for the punters. https://www.facebook.com/nimrodsrumshop/  In addition, there were various Facebook pages for Grenada cruisers, Whatsapp groups and other social media networks.  We really did not feel isolated, despite being on a boat and not in physical closeness to anyone. 

Coast Guard patrolling the guarantine anchorage

Finally we got the email from MAYAG that we could come ashore on our dinghy to be tested for Covid-19 and if negative we could then check into the country.  Once again the Grenada public health system was wonderfully efficient and professional.  A testing station was set up at the quarantine dock.  We had a finger prick Covid-19 antibody blood test.  We received the result within 15 minutes while we waited in the shade of a lush tropical tree.  As expected, we had a negative result so we were cleared to proceed to customs and immigration.  There was a bit of a wait at customs but everyone was friendly and the clearances went smoothly.  Hurrah!  We were out of quarantine.

Our Health Clearance

We returned to Songster and with a bit of a private ceremony and little dance on the deck, took down our yellow Q flag.  The next morning we weighed anchor and set out for the short passage to Woburn Bay on the south of the island where we had booked a mooring ball at Whisper Cove Marina.  If all went to plan for selling Songster (almost impossible to predict in these days of pandemic) this would be our last passage on Songster.  What a passage!  We certainly ended our sailing with a bang.

When we left the quarantine anchorage about 9:30 in the morning there were some ominous clouds forming but we assumed these would bring the usual brief passing showers that we have tended to experience almost every day here.  We had a lovely downwind sail going along the western (leeward) coast of the island.  We remarked how lovely it was and wouldn't it have been nice if the sail across the Atlantic was like that.  Then we rounded the south western point of the island and the wind was on the nose, which was okay as we had expected this.  But with the change in direction also came the most horrendous squall.  We had 30+ knots of wind on the nose, bashing into waves and torrential rain with a visibility of only about 100 metres.  It was the worse squall we have experienced.  Fortunately it lasted only about 20 minutes. 

The rain stopped and the winds eased slightly but we were still bashing through the waves with the engine flat out and only able to do about 3 knots.  We had about 20 minutes of these slightly easier conditions when another squall hit.  The rain wasn't quite so heavy so we could see a bit better but it was still awful.   Then our engine started losing power.  Thirty knot winds on the nose, rain, heavy seas crashing onto the deck, rocky shoals a mile to our port and we are losing our engine.  We only had about 2 more miles to go to reach Whisper Cove but knew the engine would not last.  We turned around and made for Prickly Bay just a short way behind us.  Now with the wind to our back we could put out a bit of foresail and limp into the anchorage.  We dropped the hook and hoped that it would hold as we had only one chance at this.  Normally we would use the engine to pull back to make sure the anchor was well dug in.  But with no engine, there would be no pulling back and no going forward to re-anchor.  Fortunately the anchor did set after an initial drag of about 20 metres.

We spent a rocky rolly night in Prickly Bay and thanked our lucky stars that we and Songster were still in one piece.  Bob was able to fix the engine with a relatively straight forward fix – change the fuel filter and clean out the loose debris that got stirred up in the heavy seas.

A Squall at Whisper Cove - not as bad as the one we experienced getting here

After the storm

The next morning we made our way to Whisper Cove Marina and John from the marina came out to tie us up to a mooring ball near the marina pontoons.  After getting settled we lowered the dinghy and went ashore to check out the facilities.  Whisper Cove has proved to be a wonderful oasis for the sailors here in Woburn Bay.  As we have all been cleared of virus and the facilities are all open to the fresh air, we can socialize relatively normally.  Their restaurant was still only partially opened but offered a small menu of delicious meals.  In our first week on the mooring we ate there almost every day.  It was such a treat to not have to cook after nearly 90 days of lockdown and quarantine.

View from the bar at Whisper Cove

Songster on her buoy in Whisper Cove

View out to sea

Beautiful Flamboyant tree

After two weeks on a mooring with poor Songster yet again getting a bottom covered in growth, it was time to haul out Songster and put her on the hard at Clarkes Court boat yard, just a few hundred meters across the bay from Whisper Cove. 

Songster coming out of the water

Getting a good clean

We had contacted Rosie, our broker, and all systems were go for Songster to be put on the market.  https://www.yachtworld.co.uk/boats/1979/oyster-39-3689278/  After being listed for only 12 days, Songster has a prospective buyer that seems to have fallen in love with her as much as we have.  (She is that kind of boat!)  Rosie had arranged a video tour and question time via SKYPE, an offer was made and a purchase agreement signed.  Now with the airports beginning to open up, hopefully J & C, the prospective buyers will be able to fly in to Grenada, see Songster in the flesh (or GRP), get a surveyor to assess her and take her for a sea trial. 

Songster for sale

If all goes to plan, Songster will have new owners by the end of August.  I must admit that I have mixed emotions about this.  But with the traumas of Australian bushfires near Bellingen, a pandemic stranding us in the Caribbean and increasingly creaky joints, it is time for us to take on a slightly less adventurous land-based life.  But we will miss this.

Grenada or Bust!

We had arrived in Marigot Bay, St Martin on the 13^th of March, planning to stay a few days.  Our itinerary was to continue northwest through the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Bahamas and then on to Florida to see family and make our way up the Intracoastal Waterway to Deltaville, Virginia where we would put Songster on the hard and on the market and return to Australia at the end of the northern summer.  Then the Covid Pandemic hit and the world shut down.  There was no place we could sail to.  The islands had closed their borders.  The US was not issuing visas.  We could not go forwards or backwards.  We were in Lockdown like the rest of the world.

Marigot looks lively at night but there are no people during the curfew, only the lights.

Approaching St Martin from the south

If one must be in lockdown, certainly St Martin in the Caribbean is not a bad place to wait out a pandemic, provided one does not catch the virus, of course.  We spent 78 days at anchor in St Martin but sadly saw very little of the island.  St Martin/St Maarten is a tiny island of less than 80,000 residents split between two countries, France and the Netherlands.  It speaks three languages (French, English and Dutch) and uses three different currencies (Euro, US dollar and Netherlands Antilles Guilder).  This would have been quite fun in normal times (a mini-Europe in the Caribbean) but in the time of a pandemic, where each territory has different regulations, border closures and curfews, then the appeal turns into frustration and confusion. 

Marigot Bay anchorage

On the 17^th of March, France closed its borders.  People were confined to their homes/boats except to get food and medicine.  There was some confusion as to whether people could get exercise and if so, what kinds of exercise were allowed and where one was allowed go to get that exercise.

Many products and services on the island are offered by only the French or Dutch sides of the island.  This is no problem when borders are fluid.  Many people live in one side of the island and work in the other.  The authorities did try to accommodate this by allowing those providing essential services special permits to cross the borders.  But there was quite a bit of uncertainty.  Each morning on the VHF cruisers radio net there was much debate about what was and was not allowed.  Over the 2½ months of lockdown, a new normal was established. 

A special form had to be filled out for each foray ashore.  Ship’s papers and passports had to be carried with you.  Chandlers were open in the morning.  Masks had to be worn and customers stood at the door of the shops to request what they wanted and staff would bring it to them.  Grocery stores were open from 8 am to 6 pm.  Masks had to be worn and only a limited number of people were allowed in the store at one time. Hand sanitizer was at every doorway.  Gradually people were allowed to exercise on the beach and swim around their boats but one could not lie around and sun bake on the beach – go there, keep a social distance, exercise (walk or swim) and then leave.

The dinghy dock

Sometimes we were greeted by the local wildlife.

We got into a routine of going ashore every 4 - 6 days, mainly for bread and ice.  We usually went to the small mini-mart inside the lagoon where there was a dinghy dock just a few steps from the front door of the shop.  About every 10 days we would go to the SuperU, a large supermarket about a 15 minute walk through deserted streets and past closed shops.  Although officially we could have gone ashore for one hour per day for essential shopping or exercise, it was usually too depressing to see everything closed up and we preferred to stay on the boat.  We read, listened to music, swam, did some small boat chores.  I played the violin, wrote and followed the course of the pandemic. The VHF radio net organised virtual trivia nights, women’s lunches and pub music nights – all enjoyed in isolation on our own boats.  If we wanted some company at sundowner time there was always Pedro the Parrot and Basil the Rat.

Pedro and Basil joining us for sundowners

We had some other animal company on our daily swim around the boat.  A small reef was developing on the hull of our boat and we had acquired a lovely collection of 'pet' fish.  The highlight of my swim around the boat was to watch the fish. The colony started out with about half a dozen Sergeant Majors and Blue and Yellow Tangs about the size of a thumb nail.  Over the weeks I watched them grow to about 10cm long and many other animals move in to join the little ecosystem of Songster – Blennies, Jacks, crabs – while the growth on the hull grew thicker and thicker.

Our 'pet' fish and a very furry propeller

Hydroid – very pretty but pack a nasty sting

Corallimorph perhaps?

However our main occupation was trying to find a way to get out of the hurricane zone before the beginning of June.  Informal WhatsApp and Facebook groups sprang up, sharing information on the latest developments, such as they were.  The Australians had a special Caribbean-wide WhatsApp group, Australian Cruisers in the Caribbean.  Unlike Americans and Europeans who could sail to their home ports if they could get permission, Australians were too far away to sail to their country. 

Bob spent hours every day contacting cruising organisations, such as the Cruising Association in the UK, the Ocean Cruising Club and Caribbean based yachting associations such as MAYAG, Marine and Yachting Association of Grenada.  He also contacted the press and various embassies, consulates and honorary consulates to let them know of the plight of stranded yachties.  We made plans A through D for possible options to get out of the hurricane zone. These destinations ranged from USA, Grenada, Trinidad, Curcacao, and Panama.  Plans were constantly being modified and reprioritized depending on the latest rumour for port openings.  Everywhere on shore where reminders of the threat hurricanes poised to this part of the world.  St Martin was still rebuilding after the last big hurricane in 2017.  As the weeks passed, anxiety levels increased.

We definately do not want to be caught in one of these

Hurricane damage.  The house tilting precariously

A boat found a new home inside someone's home

Many buildings still have no roofs

By mid-May we started seeing some signs for hope.  The Guardian ran an article on stranded cruisers, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/12/long-journey-home-the-stranded-sailboats-in-a-race-to-beat-the-hurricanes?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Email and MAYAG had submitted a detailed proposal to the Grenadian government which was well received.

Finally on the 17^th of May we received confirmation from the hard working MAYAG group that we could arrive in Grenada in the 3-5 June arrival window.  Grenada was offering sanctuary to and receiving over 800 yachts and over 1700 sailors.  The conditions were that when we arrived we would be given a health check and then have to abide by a strict 14 day quarantine on our boat.  There would be no shore leave at all.  At the end of the 14 day quarantine we would get a Covid test and if all clear will be allowed to move to our designated marina/anchorage and to go ashore, abiding by the social distancing and limited opening restrictions for the island.   We spent the next weeks provisioning, getting the hull cleaned, filling the diesel and water tanks and making sure all systems still worked.

A clean hull and the fish were still with us, but a bit hungrier

Finally it was time to leave for our 380nm, three day, three night non-stop passage to Grenada from St Martin.  We buddy sailed with an Australian family on Cirrus (Mum, Dad, Grandma and three children under 6 – Whenever we were down about our situation we thought how much harder it was for this family).  As we were taking the Rhumb Line course, we would be out of VHF and AIS radio range of the islands.  A SSB (short wave) radio net was set up for all those boats travelling to Grenada over the coming weeks to keep track of all the sailors.

Grenada or Bust!

It was a rocky-rolly passage.  We had to beat into the wind  most of the way and the seas were rough.  We were bashing into 3 metre waves for the majority of the time. The waves were crashing over the deck and into the cockpit .  Neither of us got much sleep over the three nights.  At one point Bob was trying to get some sleep in the aft cabin and had opened the hatch for some air.  The rear deck usually does not get any water from the waves.  But a huge rogue wave came right onto the aft deck, pouring gallons of water onto the bed, settee and Bob.  It was quite a rude awakening for Bob and the cabin was soaked. 

For land-lubbers to get an idea of how much we were rolling refer the photo at sea below.  Hold the horizon horizontal and you can see how much we were leaning, rocking and rolling back and forth with each wave.  Now try to imagine using the bathroom or cooking a meal with a boat moving like that. 

Rocky-Rolly

Sunset at sea

We arrived in Grenada on the morning of June 4.  As instructed, we contacted the marina at the main harbour of St George's and then went along side at the quarantine dock.  There was a nice medical technician waiting for us to tick us off the list.  He took our temperature and sorted out a small amount of paperwork.  The main paperwork had already been submitted when we got our ticket to come to Grenada.  Everything was well organised and went smoothly.  We then went out into the quarantine anchorage with all the other boats. So we are now taking it easy, sitting out the quarantine and watching the sky and our bruises change colour.

Thank you MAYAG and Grenada for offering us this safe haven.  We are indebted to your hospitality, generosity and professionalism. We are so looking forward to exploring this beautiful island.

Bob getting a temperature check at the quarantine dock

View from the quarantine anchorage

Our first of many spectacular sunsets in quarantine

Analysis and Musings on the Covid-19 Pandemic

As a retired epidemiologist I have been closely following the Covid-19 Pandemic since mid-February.  I initially read all the WHO Situation Reports then started analysing and compiling the public available data for some of the countries I had a special interest.  I have also been compulsively reading news articles on the pandemic.  

My analysis is rudimentary and limited to a few spreadsheets but it is all helping me understand the Pandemic and satisfying my basic nerdy tendencies.  I suppose this is my way of coping while under lockdown on a small sailboat in Marigot Bay, St Martin in the Caribbean, trying not to worrying about when we can go somewhere out of the hurricane zone all the while looking onshore at the still very visible damage from the last hurricane in 2017.  

What follows are two write ups that I have done in trying to make sense of the world situation.  Initially I was not intending to put these words in a blog but now I will share them for what they are worth.  The first half of the blog was written the end of March when the world had about 750,000 cases and the US reported about 100,000 cases and less than 2000 deaths.  The second half of this entry was written on 1 May when in less than 5 weeks the number of world cases increased to more than 3.3 million and the US has recorded more deaths (>65,000) than it sustained from 10+ years of fighting the Vietnam War.

29 March 2020

For the purposes of the first half of this discussion the following definitions will be used.  Start of the epidemic in a country:  cumulative 100 cases, Epidemic ‘under control’ or incidence curve flattened: consistently less than 200 cases per day.  To date, 29 March 2020, only China and South Korea have managed to get the outbreaks in their countries under control.  It is still early days and there could be another flare up in these countries but hopefully with continued good public health infection control measures the worst is over for these countries.

China has taken about 45 days to get the worst of the epidemic under control.  At that point China had about 80,000 cases and nearly 3000 deaths (about a 4% death rate at this time but data is not complete).  It is now (29 March) day 70 of the epidemic and China’s daily new cases are around 100 and deaths are in single digits. 

Korea, who has achieved the highest per capita testing rate of any country, got the epidemic under control by day 20.  At that point Korea had just under 8000 cases and 66 deaths (less than 1% mortality rate – with caveats as data is not complete).  It is now in day 37 of their epidemic and like China, Korea’s daily new cases are around 100 and daily deaths are in single digits.  The mortality rate is 1.6% as of 29 March.  Since Korea has done such a high rate of testing (ie screened the greatest proportion of the population) this mortality rate may prove to be the most accurate for the true mortality rate for this virus.

Early Timeline

A bit more detail on the timeline of the epidemic in each of these countries.  China first reported cases of a novel pneumonia to the WHO on 31 December 2019.  At this time it had identified just over 30 cases.  In less than 2 weeks China had isolated, identified and sequenced the new coronavirus.  It made the genetic sequence available to other countries so they could start developing diagnostic testing kits.

By mid to late January other countries around the world were reporting cases. Japan and Korea reported their first cases on the 15^th and 20^th January, respectively.  At the time of Korea’s first case China had 278 confirmed cases.  By the end of January there were just under 10,000 confirmed cases worldwide with just over 100 cases in 19 countries outside China. (90% of the world cases were still in China.)

By the 15^th of February, China still had 90% of the world’s cases and reported over 50,000 cases.  In all, cases of the coronavirus were identified in 25 countries: Korea 28 cases, Australia 15 cases and the US 15 cases.  All but 3 and 2 of these cases respectively had a history of travel to China for Australia and the US.  Thus evidence of community transmission was clear by mid February for the US and Australia.  At this point when community transmission is noted, good outbreak control would demand decisive public health measures: test, isolate, trace, and more test, isolate, trace.

By the 1^st of March, 19 of the 58 (33%) countries outside of China who reported coronavirus infection were reporting local transmission of the virus.  On the 11^th of March the WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic.  There were now over 100,000 cases worldwide.  Thirty percent of those cases were now outside China in 113 countries and territories; 63% of these countries were reporting local transmission.  

The data for the US cases is sketchy from the late January to mid-March.  From my reading of the publically available data, the CDC only reported to the WHO 4-5 days per week and the testing kits at this time were faulty.  No centralised reporting or response seemed to be occurring.  Private labs were charging for tests and public labs were given faulty kits.  

By 16 March Johns Hopkins started publishing a dashboard of world cases (https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/publichealth/84698 ) compiling data from multiple sources.  This data is now more consistent and published in real time.  The WHO situation reports continue to publish case numbers and deaths by country.  These numbers are slightly different from the JH dashboard but in the same ballpark.  Generally there seems to be a reporting delay with the WHO data and the data is a day or two behind the JH dashboard reports.

Europe and the USA are now the epicentres of the pandemic.  Italy, Spain, Germany and France are hardest hit in Europe.  Italy and Spain instituted mandatory self-isolation and shut down of all non-essential business on the 11^th and 13^th of March and France enacted restrictions on the 17^th.  The extent of the restrictions in Europe vary and were often incrementally introduced, starting with suggestions of working from home and self-isolating to closing schools and all businesses except groceries, pharmacies and a few others deemed to be essential.  I believe now Italy and Spain are enlisting the military and police to enforce these restrictions and streets are basically empty.

Although the USA restricted travel of foreign nationals from China on 23 January, it did not follow through with further restrictions on travel.  US citizens and permanent residents who had travelled in China were not restricted or monitored.  There also were only token restrictions and follow-up for travellers from Europe.  Nor was there a co-ordinated approach to testing and monitoring until mid-March.  Indeed, from all reports the outbreak control efforts are still fragmentary and vary substantially from state to state.  As of 29 March the USA is in the 26^th day of its outbreak and has over 125,000 cases.  On day 26 of China’s outbreak 64,000 cases were reported, half the number of cases even though China has four times the population of the USA.  In the last week cases of coronavirus infection in the US have increased four-fold, from 33,000 to 130,000.

1 May 2020

How rapidly things have changed!  In the 100 days since China reported about 100 cases, the virus is fully entrenched around the world in the worst pandemic since Spanish Flu in 1918-19.  The world is in lockdown and a long economic recession/depression is upon us.  There are now over 3.3 million confirmed cases and over 230,000 deaths worldwide.  Europe and the US are currently the epicentres of the pandemic.  The US has more than 1.1 million cases and 65,000 deaths while Spain, Italy, UK and France each have around one quarter of a million confirmed cases and more than one tenth of them have died – death rates that are 400-500 per million population.  Germany is fairing much better with a death rate of around 80/million.  Australia and New Zealand have done very well and basically the virus in those countries is under control.  Their infection trajectory curves have flattened.

European countries, the US, New Zealand and Australia are cautiously taking steps to open up and start the economy again.  This of course is quite a reasonable action provided the testing, tracing and health care infrastructure is in place to support any hot spots that may occur.  I am not convinced the infrastructure is adequate for all these places, especially in the US which has had by far, the worst response to the Pandemic within the developed world.  Many of the countries opening up still have several thousand new cases every day and several hundred daily deaths.  Time will tell how well this opening up goes.  

For my own interest, I am monitoring the data as best I can to see if we see a surge in cases.  Obviously the epidemiologists and policy makers around the world are also monitoring the situation using much more sophisticated tools and more complete data than I have at my disposal sitting on a small sailboat in the Caribbean. (I would love to be able to analyse some of this data using SPSS or STATA but those analysis skills and software are long gone for me.)

Learning Lessons

The Guardian published an article on the 10 lessons learned so far from the Pandemic, (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/10-key-lessons-for-future-learned-fighting-covid-19-coronavirus-society) which deserves further consideration.  A big question about this pandemic is why some countries seem to, so far, have come through with relatively few deaths and minimal economic disruption.  What are the factors and behaviours that have contributed to this?  The above article explores these issues. I would like to add some comment to these issues to make sense of it all for myself.  

One of the major, if not the major, factor that seems to affect the impact of the epidemic within a country is the speed in which that country responded to the virus threat.  The tools and knowledge of how to respond to an epidemic threat are well established and readily available and have been for decades, but the political will and ability to take up and act on the knowledge varied greatly.  To my mind, this current world crisis can be seen as the great verdict on the coalescence of science and politics.  

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, written over a month ago, China reported to the WHO on 31 December the occurrence of a novel pneumonia infection in the Wuhan province.  At this time it had identified about 30 cases.  By the mid-January 2020, there were 282 laboratory confirmed cases in the world.  All but four of these cases were in China.  At this time in the epidemic, only laboratory confirmed cases were being counted.  The actual number of cases would have been much higher as accurate and wide spread testing and identification of asymptomatic cases was not yet occurring.  By the third week of January China locked down Wuhan province, a province of more than 11 million people.

Much has been made by Trump and his ilk that China wilfully failed to contain the virus and that the three week delay in locking down Wuhan lead to the Pandemic.  I do not make apologies for China as it certainly made mistakes and this delay has had very dire consequences.  Nevertheless this was a new disease with unknown pathogenesis and infectivity.  It would be a rare country that would recognise the significance and world import of a cluster of new pneumonia cases to the extent that it would think it necessary to quarantine 11 million people within days of recognising cases.  China did lock down in January and now 14 weeks later the virus is contained in that country and there have been only a handful of deaths and cases in the last fortnight.  Sadly 14 weeks ago Pandora’s Box was already well and truly opened.  

However by the third week of January the world was made aware that there was a new infectious disease that should be taken seriously.  Every country that confirmed the arrival of this new disease within their borders and failed to act quickly and decisively contributed to the spread of the Covid-19 virus.  To my mind they are even more ‘guilty’ (if guilt can or even should be ascribed for a pandemic) as they were warned but failed to act.  With the proper actions the virus could have and should have been contained within each country.  South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Iceland, Norway, Greece, New Zealand, and Australia are some of the countries that have so far managed to do this and their infection trajectory has flattened with minimal cases and death.  

As we enter a new phase of the Pandemic in which countries will begin to lift their quarantine, we will see how well science and politics coalesce.  

Marigot Bay, St Martin