Release from Quarantine

We have had a very hot week in quarantine. Highlights being the coast guard’s bursts of activity. We had a catamaran arrive and depart within hours, they must have picked something up in an emergency, the coast guard circled them the entire time, clearly they were not going to be allowed to stay. It varied between 5 and 2 boats in quarantine. An enormous 80ft Catamaran arrived, obviously with crew on board, we were a little rude about the name ‘Turkish Delight’ and Rowan was scoffing at the height of the boom over the helm bridge. There was a lovely old double masted classic schooner, 9 adults and two kids on board, who had sailed ‘slowly’ from Wales! They had two lovely little wooden tenders, one had a sail a bit like a Kenyan Dhow and they bombed around the bay in it all during quarantine, that seemed fine but motorised dinghies were not allowed off your boat during quarantine. Except for going to the Cruise dock where the quarantine officials and coastguard are based. We had our PCR nasal swab done on Wednesday, this lady really thought she had to do a major scrub out, as she vigorously twirled the brush round and round. We both felt it was the worst one we have had so far, and are longing for the day we don’t have to do them anymore. We were told our results would be back between 24 and 48 hours. We somehow managed to pass the time of day quite quickly not doing much.

Rowan was like a cat on a hot tin roof today (Friday), waiting all day for our negative test result. Stretching Rowan’s patience to the limit as it was hours longer than the 48 hours promised, we finally got our release at about 4:30 pm from our agent, Geoffrey. Elvis the boat man had been circling us endlessly all day to ensure he got our business on the mooring ball. He answered immediately on the vhf when we called – the fastest response we have ever had. Yachts are not allowed to anchor or moor anywhere else in Dominica during COVID, only in this bay in Portsmouth. Just a handful of boats about, can’t be many people visiting the island.

We moved straight away onto the ball just in front of the Madiba Bar. Elvis knew the drill, get the quarantine flag down and cut your wristband off, we were free. We decided we needed to stretch our legs on land and got a lift to the beach with him. Very pleased to dispose of our garbage after a week!

We hadn’t gone far, walking along the beach when we suddenly spotted the Coastguard circling PolePole, luckily we had taken the vhf with us, as it was the only way to contact Elvis who was giving us a lift back to PolePole later. After a number of attempts Rowan managed to contact the Coastguard on the vhf. They hadn’t been given our clearance but once they checked they were happy and left PolePole alone. Just shows they are on the ball, we had left the quarantine area only about 20 mins earlier! Certainly it all appears very casual and nobody about, but they are obviously on it. Makes me very relieved our sneaking into Martinique for the night went unnoticed by their coastguard!

Black volcanic beaches

We had a very good walk along the road to the bay just further north of us. Very colourful gardens and friendly people. All black volcanic beaches which are never quite so appealing. We headed back and had a delicious fish supper at the Madiba bar where there were a couple of other yachties. The local cold Kubuli beers went down a treat.

Lush vegetation and very colourful planted gardens.

We have no idea what this building is about, we assume a religious building.

Muscovy ducks on the little river

This flower is enormous, hard to give it scale.

Loads of hurricane damage.

Nelson Mandela is a hero here too.

Elvis took us back to the boat, we are buttering him up to be our security guard for PolePole while we are away. We got sorted doing our packing and clearing of perishables for our departure to our hotel tomorrow morning.