Work continues on Totem. Priming full: we’ll look to maneuver to the Cabrales paint shed for last portray as soon as Jamie’s superior swim step venture on the transom is finished. We slide again into shipyard life: yesterday, bringing the yard’s safety canine – Bonita – to the vet for a checkup.
Annapolis!
In October, we’re booked for the Annapolis Boat Present: it’s on! Jamie and I plan to show in Cruisers College. All Cruisers U members should be vaccinated and stay masked on web site. I’m wanting ahead to it, though social distancing will ache me as a pure hugger! The present is a superb time to see mates, outdated and new, and we love the TRU crew meetup.
Planning
Cruising plans are fuzzier. Is it doable to make cruising plans given all of the uncertainty? It’s: after I scroll by way of Noonsite’s superior mega-list of nation standing, most now say OPEN. Sure – open! On their curated record for cruisers, 44 are presently closed, however 109 are open. Right here’s one other solution to put it in perspective: within the 48 international locations encompassing our circumnavigation, solely eight are presently closed.
Future gazing is harmful these days, however right here’s a view for setting out in North America presently.
Caribbean cruising this winter
Juggling a changeable sequence of restrictions and entry charges/testing necessities takes some planning. However principally, the Caribbean is open, even holdouts like BVIs. However even this previous yr, mates had a fantastic season within the western Caribbean. Quite a lot of our TRU crew had a blast within the jap Caribbean islands. They only moved much less, or sucked up the price of shifting.
The only method this performs out, for these with restriction/regulation fatigue? Fewer clearances and longer stays, which is what appears to organically happen to most cruisers anyway. And for those who have to be on the transfer, then possibly skewing plans in direction of international locations the place a single entry means extra shoreline/islands/bays to discover, like St Vincent & Grenadines assuages the wanderlust whereas mitigating the hassles and expense.
South Pacific crusing in 2022
Amongst all in style world cruising grounds, the South Pac is the just one which stays overwhelmingly shut. Because of Delta, it appears simply as unlikely to re-open now because it did in January: small, weak international locations don’t have any incentive to tempt variants. Solely Fiji is open. Fiji, the place covid circumstances greater than ever.
