Commodore
June 27, 2020

Drenched in the Carenage

It was an early start for us to get back to the doctor at the Carenage (French word for the area where they do the boat building/maintenance). As my ear is not much better and we’re flying so soon I was determined to get some oral antibiotics as I know it is infected. There were a few people in the queue in front of me so I was very glad to be able to continue reading my book on my kindle, on my iphone (so clever how it updates where I am from my ipad!). I’m reading American Dirt, what a horrific story of the drug wars in Mexico and the caravan of migrants from there and South America all desperately trying to get into the US. It is really a gripping read. Rowan went outside to the Carenage and bought breakfast from the street vendors. The Doc looked in my bad ear and said I needed to go to the ENT surgery on Monday. I explained I couldn’t wait that long because of my flights and he did then agree that antibiotics were needed. I was a little alarmed when he wanted to put his scope into my good ear after looking at my bad ear. I asked him rather panically if he would mind changing the head to prevent spreading the infection, poor chap was mortified, but didn’t boost my confidence! All being said he was very polite and engaging, like all the rest of the staff and the pharmacist. A wonderful service to just be able to walk into.

Pink building on the left is the clinic.

Armed with my antibiotics we sat on the walls by the sea and ate our breakfast before heading into the old town to do a bit of exploring.

I liked the paint job on this tiny boat. In the very far distance you can see the masts of the boats in the quarantine area where we were.

All the ghastly touristy things closed, which makes it rather special for us.

My friend Kim had given me a few pointers as they have been coming here for years. Sadly though, the lovely batik craft shop was closed along with a lot of other places. We headed up the very steep hill to the Cathedral and got caught in an almighty down pour. We took shelter for a while under a shop awning but finally decided to make a run for the church and seek sanctuary there for a while. It was a lovely place to recover our breath and dry out a little, it is at the top of the hill and bathed in light with its big windows.

Our sanctuary bathed in light even in the downpour!

It looked like the rain was setting in so we headed back to our cabana, looking forward to an afternoon of reading and catching up.

We have to be at supper by 5:30pm to get served, which is a bit early for us, but essential under the curfew here. We have found them a very law abiding and conscientious country. At the restaurant our temperatures are taken, and contact details, for tracing, plus we get plastered with sanitising spray, all while wearing our masks. All a bit ridiculous as we have to take them off to eat! But all done in such good humour. The owner came and introduced himself as basically we are the first and only guests since lockdown, they just got their permit to reopen last week. He is German married to an English woman whom we assume has left him. He says the tourism ban has not been lifted yet because they don’t want Americans and Brits in spreading Covid. They normally have at least a flight a day from the US and 2-3 flights from the UK a week. He says the gov is very reluctant to let Covid in as their hospital can cope realistically with about 30 Covid patients max, so they just have to be extremely careful especially as they do not have a single case currently. He was very glad to see us and said the staff are so pleased to be getting back to work, really tough time for them.