My apologies for another reference to an old movie but a scene from Jaws played out in my head this morning, (there’s a lot goes on in there you know).

In the movie, it was peak holiday time, the beach was mobbed but after the recent fatal shark attacks, no one, but no one, was going in the water. Not even for a pee.

Enter the politicians.

Dressed in his best 1970's, multi coloured, checked sports jacket, still very popular today among many European men of a certain age, (is it any wonder we voted for Brexit?), the mayor puts pressure on his colleagues, sunbathing a good ten metres from the water, to show some leadership, save the economy and get back in the water.

And of course, it all goes tits up. One death from a heart attack, another from shark attack.

Our Covid world seems to be re-enacting that scene.

The world's economies are in the tank. The only hope is tourism. (Whatever happened to manufacturing?) And so, the politicians have thrown open the borders and the eager tourists have flooded in.

Two weeks later. Guess what? You really didn't have to be Einstein or indeed Dr Fauci to forecast what would happen.

Covid spikes. Hospitals nearly "overwhelmed". New mutant strains emerging. Total lockdowns reintroduced. Jeez. What next?

All this going on while we sit in Rebak; our "Alcatraz". Delighted to be isolated here. Safe and secure on our own private island, off an island, off the mainland. Until the tourists started arriving.

Arriving from their Hot Spots in the south. We watch their 'planes fly overhead on the approach to Langkawi airport. Seventeen of them yesterday. We watch them climb into our ferry bringing them to our island. We eye them suspiciously from behind our reinforced, inadequate, fancy Batik patterned masks.

We now know exactly how those folks on the Jaws beach felt, not to mention the islanders of Sumatra, Maldives, Madagascar and Reunion who look at strange white sails coming over their horizons. Boats carrying STRANGERS!!!

It's therefore with a real sense of hypocrisy that we make plans to head for these very islands next month, finally en-route to South Africa.

The question is; is it really safe to go back in the water?