Month: March 2020

As the coronavirus rages across the world we are tucked away in Cap Cana, Dominican Republic. A very nice marina/resort with not many people around.

We have a curfew in effect from 8pm until 6am each day. The rental cars have stopped renting and we are becoming more reliant on friends we’ve met in the marina for runs to the grocery store. We’ve also made the acquaintance of Edward, who is the local “go to” guy. If you need it, he can get it. Thank you Jahrold for the tip! Jahrold owns Amazing Marine here in the marina, a local sundries store and we met him one of the first nights we were here when the restaurants were still open.

We will go to the grocery store on Friday compliments of Wally who lives on a catamaran just down from us. He lives here permanently and has a car. Everyone here has been very kind and helpful. We have multiple offers of “whatever you need just let us know!”

In the meantime we’re using our down time to make repairs on various parts of the boat and cleaning it. Trying to do one or two little projects each day and then take a long walk on the beach or kayak excursion. The marina/resort is rather large and connected by various canals so kayaking has become our way of exploring the area.

Everyone is taking the virus threat seriously so although there has been a fair amount of social interaction it’s been at a distance. Each evening we sit on the back of our boat with drinks and a cigar for Gary. That is the time that a lot of people are out walking trying to get some exercise. As they pass our boat, conversations are struck up and we get to know people that are in the various condos. Everything from the couple from Texas to the Russians from Evansville, Indiana (!) to the many Venezualans that have emigrated here. Wally is from Germany. It’s quite the international community.

We’re trying to keep abreast of what is happening in the rest of the world thru the internet and texts and emails from friends. The downside of this marina is that they do not provide wifi so we’re using our data plans. For the first time ever I used up my monthly data in less than a week (damn streaming netflix!) and am now on a time out. Gary has taken much glee in this situation as he is usually the data hog. Oh well. Guess I’ll find out what happens on Newsroom when we get back to the states.

Where to start? As we were flying back from the US to Puerto Rico news of the corona virus was just starting to become serious to the point where we wiped everything down on the airplane and were happy that the middle seat wasn’t occupied.

As we waited a few days at the marina at Palmas del Mar we kept tabs on what was happening. The decision was made to leave, overnight near Ponce, again at Pesquaderia and then on to the DR, all the while monitoring social media and the news, checking with PR, DR and Bahamas to keep up to date on developments.

We arrived at Cap Cana after a brutal crossing from PR to find out that PR had basically closed the door behind us. After two days in Cap Cana we were notified that DR was closing borders to all travel at least until early April.

So here we are at Cap Cana Marina and Resort for the foreseeable future. We played golf the other day and hope the courses stay open so we can do it again in a few days. There is a wonderful grocery store 15 minutes away that is open and fully stocked. We have access to a rental car. Although the restaurants are closed they do pickup/delivery so today we went to Wendy’s drive up for lunch. We also have phone numbers and menus for local restaurants when I get tired of cooking.

The resort and marina are both ghost towns. We periodically see a couple people here and there but we are fairly isolated which is both good and bad. Good because it’s easy to keep distance from other people, bad because there is no one to socialize with even from a distance.

Although we’re in a good place and probably safer than if we were in the US it’s difficult to be so far from friends and family during this crisis. We’re doing our best to query everyone regularly for status updates, knowing there isn’t much we can do to help from so far away.

We’ll have to adopt a wait and see attitude about how we get the boat and ourselves back to the US from here. If we leave this marina and cannot stop anywhere else in the DR we face a 48 hour run to the Bahamas. That only works if we get a good weather window and the Bahamas allows us entry. Of course we could just fly our quarantine flag and anchor out all the way back thru the Bahamas but we face the same issue arriving in Florida as so many marinas are closed there. And then we have the whole “need to be north of Georgia by June 1st” insurance issue.

Meanwhile we keep reading about shortages of toilet tissue, various foods and any sanitizing material be it wipes, gel or alcohol stateside. Through social media and internet news we see the amazing good of people as well as the selfish dark side of some.

Oh well. This is really a case of “control what you can, adapt to what you can’t and enjoy the scenery along the way.”

Wash your hands everyone and practice social distancing.

We had a nice trip home and were able to catch up with many friends and family. We seem to have returned to PR just as the corona virus started really amping up in the states. Guess it’s good we’ll be on a boat and somewhat isolated for the next month or two.

Tomorrow we leave Palmas Del Mar and head to Ponce and Pesquederia for diesel before making a run for the Dominican Republic on Sunday morning.