We launched Oasis on December 20, and anchored out in Benji Bay, across the harbor from Clarke's Court Boatyard, where we've stored the boat for the past five years. Grenada is a great place to just hang out. There are so many cruisers who have made this their home, and there are always different activities going on. We were never bored. We finished up some projects on the boat and were very comfortable there, with laundry just around the corner, free shopping buses, happy hours, and free Wi-Fi we could pick up from shore (we bought a Wi-Fi booster and were even able to watch a movie!); it was very hard to leave. One of our cruising friends said its called "failure to launch." So true.

We finally left Benji Bay, Grenada, on January 7, and we've been traveling north through the Windward Islands. It hasn't been as difficult as we thought with regard to Covid protocols for the different islands. First stop was Tyrell Bay in Carriacou, which is part of Grenada so we didn't need a Covid test to go there. We stayed for a few days and took the bus to Hillsborough for some shopping and lunch.

Before going to Union Island, which is part of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, we completed their Pre-Arrival Travel Form, completed the Sail Clear Arrival Declaration, and then sent a follow-up e-mail when we received our PCR results. There is a clinic near Tyrell Bay where we got the PCR tests, at a cost of $100 EC each (about $37 US each), and the results were emailed to us the next day. On January 12, we arrived in Union Island, checked in with the Custom Agents in the Bougainvilla Hotel, and we showed them our negative Covid test results. They completed the paperwork, and in a few hours it was done. Union Island has a great local farmers market where we stocked up on some fresh fruit and veggies, and we always buy fresh banana bread from the guy who helped us tie up to the mooring ball when we arrived.

We left the next day (just a short hop) to go to the Tobago Cays, still part of the Grenadines. Unfortunately, it was so windy and choppy we didn't get to snorkel with the turtles or on the beautiful reef there, but we bought two lobsters from a local fisherman and grilled them on our bbq for dinner. Fresh out of the ocean; it doesn't get any better than that! We left the next day while we had a good weather window to get to the next island, Bequia, still in the Grenadines.

Bequia, one of our favorite places to go and another place where we got stuck and didn't want to leave (we actually stayed there for two weeks!). I absolutely love that I can call Daffodil Services on the VHF radio, they come to the boat, pick up our dirty laundry, and deliver it to us the next day neatly folded and smelling nice. We had some great hikes and delicious lunches with some cruiser friends, and felt sad when we had to say goodbye to everyone, but it was time to move on again. To get to the next island, Martinique (a French island, land of baguettes and croissants!), we only needed a rapid antigen test. The hospital in Bequia does the Covid testing, but didn't have the rapid tests. Luckily, our friends on Prism, Anina and Charlie, had a local friend, Africa, who gave us two test kits and made arrangements for the nurse in the hospital to administer them and write a report of the results, and only charged us $10 US each. It saved us a lot of money because we thought we needed a PCR test which was about $160 US each. Thank you Prism!

Before leaving for Martinique, we emailed a Declaration of Health form, the negative Covid test results, and our vaccination cards to CROSSAG (the French coast guard). On January 29, we left Bequia at 6:30 a.m. and stopped at the Pitons in Saint Lucia to break up the trip. We put up the yellow flag (Quarantine flag), didn't get off the boat, had something to eat, and went to sleep early. We left the next morning at 7:00 a.m. and arrived in Saint Anne, Martinique around 2:00 p.m. We put the dinghy in the water, and went to Snack Boubou (a cafe in Saint Anne) to check in on the computer. When you check in at a French island, usually in a small shop or cafe, they don't check your passports or vaccine cards, just print out a form which gets stamped, we paid our $3 Euros, and we were done. But the French have their protocols which must be followed in case CROSSAG decides to stop and check.

So here we are in beautiful Martinique! Our friends on Kalunamoo and Allegro arrived a few days ago, and it's so nice to get together with cruising friends that we haven't seen since before the pandemic. Sunday we went to Kalunamoo for dominos, which is always fun. Bill makes great Old Fashioned Rum Punches, so delicious! Prism also arrived a few days ago, so we'll be doing lots of hiking. And John on Out of Africa is back, and he's already scheduled a braai (beach bbq) for tomorrow (Thursday).

It's been very windy here and it looks like it will continue for another week, so we're staying put until then.

Next, the Leeward Islands.

After a few setbacks, we finally made it to Grenada and are frantically working on the boat to get it ready to launch on Monday, December 20. We left the boat here in March, 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, afraid we weren’t going to be able to get to the US as the airport here in Grenada was closing. It’s been a long 18 months since we’ve been on Oasis.

Our new batteries were delivered today! We use Terry’s Yacht Services to check on the boat while we are away, and he told us the old batteries were failing a few months ago. They are about 5 years old, so no surprise there. So we ordered new ones: two automotive-type starting batteries for the engine and the generator, and four 8D AGM house batteries. The batteries were shipped from the US and made it to Grenada on time, but had been stuck in a container waiting to clear customs. We were getting anxious since our boat is being launched on December 20 and we can’t start the engine without the new battery. In addition, we found out they were going to close the only road into Clarke’s Court Boatyard starting today for 7-10 days. But we lucked out and the road work didn’t start today, the batteries were delivered to the boatyard, and were installed by the end of the day.

Since the road will be closed for a while, we put our dinghy in the water and docked it across the bay at Whisper Cove Marina. We park our car there and take the dinghy to work each morning. Hopefully, it won’t be raining. It’s been raining on and off for the last few days and at times it rains very hard! Hopefully it’ll stop long enough for us to dinghy over to the boatyard.

Bob has been busy fixing things and putting the boat back together, and I’ve been cleaning so much my fingers are wrinkled. There’s been some mold around the boat, more than usual because it was closed up so long, so I’ve been cleaning everything with vinegar and tea tree oil. With our house batteries being dead, our water pump would only work for a few minutes, so no running water, and that was holding me up a bit. As soon as the batteries are ready, I’ll start washing all the dishes. I found some kind of droppings in the kitchen, not sure if they’re mouse, cockroach, or gecko droppings. So everything needs to be washed! Fun times!

After months of preparation, we’ve decided not to travel to the Caribbean to spend the winter season on Oasis :(

Grenada has done a great job keeping the virus under control with quarantining and contact tracing. Getting there, though, is the problem. Friday, January 8, the day before we were supposed to fly out, we saw a post on Facebook that 4 people, who were in quarantine from their JetBlue flight the Saturday before, tested positive. For those of you that don’t know, Grenada requires a negative COVID test 72 hours before travel. So how is that possible? Either the 72 hour test is not long enough and they were testing negative but still carried the virus, or they were infected on the way. Bob and I had two negative covid tests, one saliva and one nasal. We felt we would be safe on the plane, I had planned to wear two masks, even purchased the seat next to us, but the lines in the airport and boarding/de-boarding I felt would be the problem.

Grenada also requires that you stay in one of their approved accommodations to quarantine. They test you on the fourth day (not including the travel day), the test results take about 3 days, so a total of 7 days, give or take. If negative, you’re allowed to go on your way, but still must quarantine in your own residence (or boat). If positive, Grenada does contact tracing and quarantines the people who had any contact with the imported cases. That’s how they manage to keep the numbers under control.

With the new strain of the virus that was in the UK, Grenada stopped all flights from coming in from the UK. With this in mind, and with the new strain now in New York, we are worried that they might stop flights to and from the US again. We were so looking forward to spending time in the sunshine, but don’t want to be trapped in paradise again. Can’t wait for October!

Well, we made our plans to return to Oasis on January 5. At the time we set up our reservations, Grenada required a prior travel approval, including proof of a reservation in one of their approved "Pure Safe Accommodations" and proof of a negative PCR Covid test within seven days of our flight, submitted to them at least 48 hours prior to arrival. We made a reservation in an approved apartment for ten days, and we will order food to be delivered to the apartment so we don't have to order take-out every day. We are not allowed to leave the apartment at all and can only sit on our veranda. Hopefully, we won't drive each other too crazy! After four days, not including the day of travel, Grenada's Health Ministry performs another Covid test, and if it's negative you're allowed to go on your way. We will then rent a car, get Oasis ready, and launch on January 15. That was the plan.

Recently, Grenada has announced that they are changing the regulations effective November 28. The Covid test must now be within 72 hours of departure. This is a problem since our flight is on a Tuesday, and it would not be possible for us to get the test results within 72 hours of our flight since testing facilities in our area are closed on Saturday and Sunday. So, as Bob was checking the JetBlue website, he noticed our flight for January 5 was no longer there! JetBlue never notified us that it was cancelled!

So we now had to change everything. Our flight will be on January 9 (which is a Saturday and will give us more time to try to get our test results within the 72 hours), the hotel reservation was changed, and Oasis will be launched on January 19. Hopefully, Grenada won't change the rules again.

As we were finishing up all the work putting Oasis to bed for the summer (we were staying in an apartment at the boatyard), Bob was up almost every night trying to find a flight home. The government of Grenada was starting to shut down the airport, and Jet Blue had cancelled all flights. We had two flights scheduled with them, and they gave us quite a fight returning our money for flights that THEY had cancelled. It took weeks and many calls to finally get it straightened out.

We also had booked flights with Air Canada, and some of those were even cancelling, but finally there was one that was going. The flight was to Toronto, and from there we had a flight to Newark the next day. While waiting at the airport, we received an e-mail that our Newark flight was cancelled, and we knew that we couldn’t board unless we had a connecting flight. As we got on line to check-in, Bob was on the phone with Air Canada to straighten it out, and we received an e-mail that we were moved to another flight the same day. Whew! Bob kept the gentlemen on the phone until we were checked-in for our flight just in case we had a problem. When we boarded the plane and sat down, we both felt so relieved that we made it!

Luckily Bob had found some N95 masks at the marina store (if I would’ve known what was going on at home, I would’ve bought more!), but I was still very nervous about going on the airplane and tried to sanitize our seating area as best I could with some alcohol and wipes that I had on the boat. The flight was completely booked, and tensions were high. A fight almost broke out next to me as people were lining up to get off the plane.

Our connecting flight wasn’t until the next day, and Air Canada had no idea what to do with us. There were about eight or ten other people who had connecting flights to the US, and we couldn’t leave the airport. So after about 3 hours of standing and waiting, they finally told us to wait in the food area until the next morning. We tried to get some sleep, but the seats are not too comfortable for sleeping. Air Canada provided us with sandwiches, snacks, and drinks, which was very nice, even though they woke us up around 5 AM to feed us.

Toronto is the only airport that we’ve been to where you check in to the US at that airport. But of course there was a glitch. We thought that our luggage would already be transferred to this flight, but it wasn’t. We had to go back to the “Canadian” side to find it. Then back to the “US” side, through Customs and Immigration, then onto our flight to Newark. There were only five people on this huge plane, which felt really strange. When we finally landed on US soil, we again breathed a sigh of relief, rented a car, and drove home. We made it!

It was nearing the end of February, and as we were enjoying our time in Saint Anne, Martinique, our plans started to fall apart due to the coronavirus. Islands were starting to shut down to visitors. We knew we had to make a decision about what to do: we could stay put, see how things went, and risk being stuck in the Caribbean for who knew how long, or make a run for it and get out as soon as possible. I felt like a deer in headlights, trying to decide which way to go, not knowing what the right move would be.

Some of our friends chose to hold out and wait to see how things panned out, but I was anxious to get home. Things were getting scarier by the day in New York, and I was worried about my mother. If I didn't go home right away and it got worse, would I ever see her again? My mother is very independent, and she was still picking up her friends and going shopping every week. How careful was she being? How careful were her friends being? And one of her friends is 102 years old! The way the numbers were climbing, I knew it was just a matter of time before someone got infected. We finally convinced her to stop taking them shopping, especially her 102 year old friend who didn't really understand the severity of what was happening (and who shouldn't even be out of the house!).

So, choices.....We could go south to Grenada, where we usually haul out and store the boat for the summer hurricane season. We changed our haul out date from April 27 to March 27 (and then later changed it again to March 25, driving the boatyard nuts I'm sure), hoping that we could make it on time before Grenada closed up too.

Or, do we go north, and start making our way back to the US. If we chose to do this, it meant taking a chance that other islands were opened to visitors so that we could stop to rest and get fuel or provisions. Things were changing quickly, and we had no idea from one day to the next what the different island governments were going to do. We could possibly stop in Antigua (approx. 24+ hour sail from Martinique), if they were still open, then on to the US Virgin Islands, another 30+ hour trip. Bob wanted to sail directly to the US Virgin Islands without stopping in Antigua, a more direct route but about a 2+day sail. Then from there it's approximately 6-7 days to Florida. It was just overwhelming to me to think about all this: making sure we had enough food, what if I get seasick again, what if we're out there and the weather goes to shit, etc. We haven't done a long trip like this since we came down from the US in November of 2016. And I was seasick for 3 days of that trip. We had crew then so we had help, but this time it would just be the two of us.

I know if I said I wanted to go north and get the boat home, Bob would've gone along with that, but I was too scared of the unknowns and of making that long trip. So we decided to keep to our plan to get to Grenada, although earlier than we originally planned. After looking at the weather and sea state, I wanted to hold off until Saturday, March 14, for things to calm down, but Bob was getting more and more anxious, so we left on Friday, March 13. They say it's bad luck to start a trip on a Friday, and here it was also the 13th!

The trip to Rodney Bay, Saint Lucia, took us a little over three hours. It was a good sail down until we got to where the wind funnels around the north side of the island and tries to turn the boat sideways. After fighting with that for a while (where I think we must've done something to the steering and didn't find out until the morning), we finally made it into the bay where the wind calmed down a bit and anchored.

There's a nice grocery store in Rodney Bay where we went to pick up some provisions. We didn't need much because we only had about two weeks until haul-out, but I was looking for some kind of hand sanitizer or wipes to take with us on the plane, and there was none to be found. We had dinner with our good friends, Bill and Maureen on Kalunamoo, Bob and Brenda on Pandora, and Wayne on Meander. I was hoping to stay another day in Saint Lucia, but we got up early Saturday, March 14, and left Rodney Bay at 5:30 a.m. As we were lifting the anchor, we got fairly close to a boat that was anchored near where we dropped our anchor. We just made it by him and maneuvered around some other boats, when I noticed that our boat was only steering to the right and not the left. Then we had no steering at all! Panic! Should we drop the anchor where we were to try to fix it? Then Bob remembered that our autopilot should still work (we can steer the boat with the autopilot since it bypasses the steering quadrant), so at least now we could steer to turn around and go back. Bob went down below to further diagnose the problem. It seems that one of the steering cables came off of the steering quadrant, probably in the heavy winds we were fighting the day before. Luckily it wasn't too rough, and Bob was able to get the steering cables back on the quadrant, not easy to do when you're laying on your back in a tight spot. Another decent sail, and almost 10 hours later we were in Bequia.

Bequia, one of my favorite islands, I wished we could have stayed longer. I went to check in (and check out) with Customs and Immigration, which took a few hours. At this point, people were not wearing masks, but someone on line was joking around and started to cough. I tried to keep my distance and made sure to sanitize.

March 16, we are on the move again to Carriacou, an island which is part of Grenada. This time, we had to wait outside of Customs and Immigration, where we checked in through the window, again keeping our distance from everyone.

March 17, last leg of our journey to Grenada. We got there a little earlier than planned, but we had a lot to do before haul out. We like to stay on a mooring ball in Benji Bay. The price is reasonable, and we get free wi-fi from shore. The young man who takes care of the mooring balls comes to collect the payment, and even collects our garbage. Bob and I started working on our long list of items that we needed to do. Benji Bay is fairly protected from the wind, so we are up early in the morning before the wind picks up to take down the sails. Our mainsail is huge, the mast is 68' high, so it's always a struggle to get the sails folded correctly and stored in their bags. We are getting better at it!

We are scheduled to be hauled out on Wednesday, March 25, but on Monday I hear on the radio that another marina stopped hauling boats because the government wants everyone being hauled out to be quarantined on their boat for 14 days. We called Clarke's Court Boatyard and spoke to Larry, a great guy who runs the yard, and he tells us they are still hauling boats and can haul us out at 11:00 a.m. today, Monday. Phew! We didn't want to wait until Wednesday in case our boatyard decided to stop hauling boats, too. It's always nerve racking to get to the haul out bay, and we were already stressed about getting everything done and making sure we could get hauled out before they shut down, and on top of that it was windy. It took two tries, but we finally made it in. What a relief to step off the boat and be on hard ground in Grenada.

We stayed at the Clarke's Court apartment for a few days, getting the rest of our work list done. We were also still working on finding a flight; I think at one point we had five different flight reservations to get home, and flights were being cancelled every day. More to follow on our adventure to get home.