31st December

12 00 N
61 46 W

Weather; dull, overcast and wet, wind n/a, waves n/a

2020 - A YEAR IN REVIEW

We have made it to the end of 2020 and have a whole new year to look forward to. I know that it's been an extremely difficult and trying year for so many around the world and hope that the year ahead brings only good things to you all. Our final day of 2020 began as one would expect the final farewell to the year to begin - with stormy clouds and rain - a fitting end to 2020 for sure!
So I'm briefly going to cover our year, mostly to remind myself of the things that we have to be glad about so please forgive me for the things that you don't want to re-read and enjoy some of our memorable moments from the year once again.
Our year began with a bang, literally, we were in Puerto Rico where a 7.5 magnitude earth quake shook us on New Year's Eve and continued with after- shocks all day. We said goodbye to Haydn and Marina who had been sailing with us and we arrived into USVI waters. We met up with Kirk and Cindy - dock mate from Florida and spent a lot of time exploring and sailing between the USVIs and the BVIs with them. Drinking far too much rum and revisiting places (bars) that we had enjoyed on our last trip. January 22nd was a very sad day for us as we said a final farewell to Miss Priss in Tortola, BVIs, we were now one crew member down and it still upsets me today to be remembering her. February saw the arrival of Maz, joining us for a couple of weeks sailing around the USVIs and BVIs - that was a fun couple of weeks and exquisitely timed as there were reports coming out about a virus that was having devastating effects around the world. As we waved Maz off home, countries were beginning to close their borders and travel was becoming more difficult. Dale and Lorie made a dash through Puerto Rico as it was closing and made it to the USVIs just before almost all of the world went into lockdown. We all got stuck in USVIs for the next couple of months, presenting me with a visa problem which eventually got sorted out with the Immigration dept granting extensions to anyone, like myself ,who had nowhere to go in the escalating Covid restrictions and lockdowns. Lorie did a trip back to Texas to pick up their granddaughter, Savannah, and bring her back to their boat for a vacation as her mother was having to work from home - not easy with a 7 year old to try and home school at the same time. We met some new friends - Gene and Renee, Mark and Gina, Rex and Cathy, Chris and Helen who we hope to bump into along the way again sometime. The time spent in St Thomas was not wasted, we did a heap of jobs that needed our attention, as did Dale and Lorie. Our biggest job was the fridge and freezer - which became the nemesis over the next few months as I'm sure you can recall we also replaced our solar panels, adding an extra one for good measure. As hurricane season kicked into being we finally had some good news - Grenada had opened up its borders to cruising yachts to enable them to get out of the hurricane belt for the season. Just as we were celebrating the possibility of moving forward we were devastated by the news that Gerry's step mum, Sue, had passed away. It remains one of the low points of the year for us, she was such a fun person and always so good to us over the years, she will be sadly missed. So we began planning our move to Grenada, of course there were restrictions and rules about pre registering to arrive there, quarantining for 14 days on arrival, Covid testing before being allowed to check into the country etc., etc. but we followed the rules and made our way to Grenada, sadly having to bypass so many islands that we had planned on visiting again but that were closed to cruisers due to the pandemic which, apparently, had its grip on the entire world now. Our original plan was to spend hurricane season in Trinidad but even as I type they haven't opened up their borders so we, and a whole heap of other cruisers, were unable to go there - the country must have lost thousands in revenue from the cruisers that didn't end up going there Ð still their lost was Grenada's gain. A whole lot of scare mongering and worrying reports were coming out of everywhere and the rules and regulations were changing on almost a daily basis but Grenada has managed it's response to the virus calmly and with mostly sensible rules and restrictions until the last couple of weeks which saw a small cluster of cases at a resort that had allowed overseas visitors in without all the testing etc. that we had to contend with back at the beginning. Dale and Lorie's horrible 2019 continued into 2020 with boat problems popping up at every turn, their 5 day trip from USVIs to Grenada was fraught with problems which needed fixing. We settled into life in the Port Louis marina for the hurricane season and began on the work projects that we had planned on doing in Trinidad. Savannah settled into a routine of learning to swim, doing school work and bouncing around on the catamaran's trampoline alternating with playing on the iPad - it's a good job that she could entertain herself reasonably well as there were next to no other kids to play with in the marina. With the new school year approaching and moving between countries becoming increasingly difficult the question of how to get Savannah back to Texas arose, to cut a long story short and after many hours of working it out, Lorie took her back, via Canada then had to return to Grenada, do another Covid test and quarantine at an hotel. It all turned out OK in the end and Savannah was now back home with her mum. Life became pretty mundane and not much happening as the months went by until October when Dale's uncle passed away and he had to return to Florida to sort out affairs for his elderly aunt. Whilst he was gone there was a power surge on the dock that Lorie was docked on and a fair amount of damage to their electrics occurred. Meanwhile it was time for us to leave the marina and have our boat hauled to do the antifouling which had been arranged for some time with the yard. Gypsy Palace was originally hauling at the same time but had to postpone for a couple of weeks until Dale returned. At this point Dale and Lorie had had enough and decided to call it quits and return to the USA once their boat issues were sorted out, the anti fouling done and they were happy to take off once more. We weren't surprised, and had in fact been expecting this for a while. We are sad that their trip has been turned on its head and that they won't be with us for the rest of the journey but we totally understand their reasoning. We dropped our mooring lines and headed around to Prickly Bay boat yard, hauled the boat and spent the week in air conditioned splendor at Cool Running apartments, just across the road from the yard. Gerry did most of the work on our boat apart from the sanding at the start and was done within the week so we splashed back into the water just as Dale and Lorie were ready to haul their boat out, at this stage Dale had been back just on a week. Then came the next bit of bad news for them, Dale's aunt had fallen and needed more care organizing so Dale had to do a second trip back to Florida leaving Lorie to supervise the boat stuff that they had planned on doing in the yard as well as dealing with the claim process at the marina for the power surge damage which was becoming the stuff of nightmares. As the work on their boat began more and more stuff came to light that needed fixing and a 2 week job (which was what they had anticipated) turned into a mega expensive 4 week marathon. Dale arrive back for the last week of it but was in quarantine to begin with, making it out and clear in time to pay the bill. The bill was eye watering and we hope that they get a reasonable deal when they sell the boat back in the States. Meanwhile we had made our way out into the harbor and dropped our anchor, where we sit until today. We had further issues with our fridge and freezer and finally ended up putting in an entirely new system which touch wood is operating brilliantly. Our next issue was that the dinghy sprung a serious leak, Gerry found a place that fixes them but in true Gerry form he went out and bought a new dinghy before the old one was fixed. Once it was fixed he managed to offload it to a consignment shop and they sold it for us which recovered some of the cost to repair it and whoever bought it got a brand new set of chaps thrown in for good measure as they didn't fit our new dinghy! One more issue arose - one of the water tanks developed a leak and needed fixing, so far it's holding up OK keep those fingers crossed.
This hasn't been the year that we planned on when we first set sail but we've had some great times, relaxing times and some Oh crap moments. We can look back and be grateful that we have been safe and healthy (if a little insane), we managed to sail a little, motor a lot, spend more of our daughter's inheritance, we've managed to keep in touch with most people, we've enjoyed some great foods and plenty of rummy things, had to hide from the sun on occasion as we were getting burnt, opened and closed hatches as the rain poured in and filled our water tanks, spotted turtles in the harbours we've anchored in, shopped in odd shops and markets, done laundry and had service washes done in exotic places, ascertained that there are no light leaks behind our eyelids on many occasions and finally watched the sun set, the stars play and the clouds fly past.
I'll end this recap by saying that we still haven't seen the green flash at sun set, even though we've drunk enough rum, so the quest continues into 2021 for us. I hope you'll all continue to join us as we continue on our journey, keep the comments coming, at least I know that way that someone is reading this rubbish!
We wish you all a very happy, safe and healthy New Year and look forward to the day that we can have a hug in person once again.
Time to put 2020 to bed and welcome in 2021.