40 Some Dayz in Rodney Bayz (3/4/20 - 4/15/20)

March 1: The pitons were magnificent and having said farewell to our last scheduled guests we were excited to continue south to the Grenadines.  All of the cruisers we had met raved about Bequia, Union Island and Tobago Cays…..it was our last leg of the Caribbean before we did our passage across to the ABCs I (Aruba/Bonaire/Curacoau) and up to the Central American portion of our journey.  A few people had talked about meeting us in Aruba or Guatemala but nothing was “on the books” just yet.

We had come this far with little to no trouble, but our generator issues that began back in St. Maarten, had never fully been resolved.  A bandaid here, a bandaid there. After much discussion and gathering information from locals it became clear we had no choice but to head back up to Rodney Bay before proceeding.  It was the last place for a while that we could count on finding a knowledgeable and experienced mechanic.   Rodney Bay is 20 miles north of the Pitons.  A 3 hour sail….not a huge deal for us, but still we were hesitant to backtrack and knew we’d have to alter the scheduled route, depending on how long the boatworks took.  We thought 2-3days would be sufficient.  The sail was lovely…calm and easy.  We enjoyed the views of the western side of the island that we had missed when we arrived in the dark the morning of Feb 25. As we entered the anchorage of Rodney Bay, Lee surprised the crew of Genau with a night in a hotel.  OMG!  AC! Wifi! Shower! Pool! Hairdryer!  Just too much excitement to contain.  Not a minute after the last line was cleated to the dock Charlie and Mills hopped off the boat made a bee-line to the Harbor Club for our St. Lucian staycation. Before we left the dock, Egbert, the “mechanic of the hour” told us not to worry, that they would get everything fixed and we’d be on our way very soon.   That was Wednesday, March 4. The next time we saw him was Monday, March 9 around 11am. He came to tell us he was going to go get his tools and be right back.  He returned at 2pm and left around 4:30.  This was a glimpse of what we would experience for the next 3 weeks.  Meanwhile, we enjoyed the luxury of a real bed, a real shower, the breakfast buffet and conversations with other Americans, Brits and Aussies gathered around the swim up- bar in the evenings.  We enjoyed doing school work at the large tables in the lobby and not bumping into each other as we moved around the boat throughout the day.  Nonetheless, we were also ready to go.  With each passing day, we knew we’d have to give up a part of our trip somewhere to make up for the time we were losing.  All the while, COVID19 news became more and more frequent on television, radio, and in conversations.

We stayed three nights at the Harbor Club before moving back onto Genau.  However, having made friends with the GM, restaurant managers, concierge, bartenders and pool guys – they invited us to continue using the hotel amenities as long as we were at the marina.  Yes, Please and Thank you!  We got quite comfortable with our back and forth trips to the Harbor Club Pool.  Lester, Rohan, Shernel, Lex, and Ronnie were our buddies.  Every day they took the time to ask how things were going with the boat.  They memorized our orders from the pool lunch menu, our preferred adult beverages, and what we liked on our pizzas. Mills painted pictures for Rohan and Shernel that they hung in their offices and Shernel even helped us coordinate a trip to Castries to get Mills ears pierced one Saturday.  Fun Fact: Ear piercings are done at the pediatrician office in the Caribbean.  Not Claire’s boutique. That was certainly one of the highlights of being close to the capital of St. Lucia.

We tried out all the great restaurants – Key Largo Pizza, Big Chef Steakhouse, Rituals Sushi, Café Ole, Jam de Bois, and the Wood Fired Pizza kitchen at Harbor Club.  We attended the famous Friday night Gros Islet street party.  (Think DJ, street food, Carteret Seafood Festival-type vibe).  We spent Sunday afternoons at Pigeon Island, hiking up to the Fort for gorgeous views and snorkeling the reef off the beach.  We made weekly walking trips to the Massey supermarket.  We took evening sunset cruises through the marina most evenings.  We did the ninja warrior waterpark course (x2) at the resort nearby. We played skip-bo and ate chips and queso at sunset. Each new day we’d learn something new about our neighbors on the dock while seeking the most recent news about Coronavirus.  SV Contigo, SV Meander, SV Shining Star, MV High Rise, SV Sundowner – everyone had their own plans, tentative itinerary, and hopes to move on in their travels in the days to come.

On March 15th we attended the Gros Islet Baptist church.  Churches back home were already closed and streaming online.  This was the day that it really started to sink in that COVID19 was going to wreak havoc on the world.  We entered the church, our hands were sprayed with sanitizer.  The minister announced that the virus had “reached the Caribbean shores” and that we would not pass the peace as usual today.  He announced that schools would not be open the following week. Earlier the previous week, APA had already made its decision to close for 2 weeks.   Many islands around us had closed their borders to travelers, ceased air travel, and had marine patrol policing harbors.  New boats arriving must stay at anchor and were expected to quarantine on their vessels for 14 days minimum.  We tuned into the latest Caribbean news each morning tracking the cases on the surrounding islands and keeping our fingers crossed that a few weeks of social distancing would slow down the spread to that we could move on.  (Mechanics still on and off our boat at their own leisure so we couldn’t leave it we wanted to)  We were thankful to be safe in a place where the number of cases was very low as the statistics in Europe, Asia and America seemed to be increasing exponentially by the hour.

The week of March 16 we there was a noticeable decrease in the amount of tourist traffic on the island. Things were slowing down.  Hotels began to close.  Beaches were less populated.  Restaurants switched to take-out and delivery only.  Masks and gloves were a new trend especially in the supermarkets and chalk lines marked the ground 2 meters apart for patrons waiting to get in.  By March 19 there were 3 cases on the island of St. Lucia and 240K cases worldwide.  The crew of SV Genau had surrendered to the fact that there would be no passage to the ABCs, no Guatemala, Belize, or Jamaica.  We would have to turn around and head home, passing all of the islands from which the last two months of memories were created.  At the time, St. Vincent was still open and we held onto some hope that we could sail south for a bit more exploration before making our inevitable 180.

Our days were an odd juxtaposition of a desire to depart contrasted by the reality that we were very comfortable with our new lifestyle tied to a dock.  The luxuries of shore power, unlimited water supply, laundry service, the Marketplace, WiFi (zooming with classmates/ipad games/Facetiming/Netflix) and some great new friends on I-dock coupled with the fact that our only realistic destination at this point was home, made the desire to leave very low.  We had a long sail back.

Silver linings glistened all around us. What if we had not had engine issues?  Where would we have been “stuck” when COVID19 struck the Caribbean? The kids have been able to participate in online learning with their teachers and classmates.  Brooks was able to ZOOM with the APA Admin team to help them in some important schoolwide decisions. We have been able to join back in with our own Jarvis church family online every Sunday during Lent and Easter! We have made new friends in Wayne, Ricardo, Ed and Jody, and the fantastic crew of High Rise, Angie, Angela, Chapman, JD and Stephen who have spoiled us with gourmet dinners, fun theme nights with games, and an EPIC day of offshore fishing that brought in a haul of Mahi to feed the entire dock.

This was not a “planned” portion of our trip but we sure are grateful for the memories made here at Rodney Bay Marina.  We recognize that this was not part of OUR plan….it was part of God’s plan.  Did we every really doubt?  He has had us the whole time and will continue to as we journey back home.

We are leaving today.  We really don’t want to leave.  We will miss our walks to take the garbage to the dumpster and get money from the ATM.  A daily ritual we call “cash and trash.”   We will miss 2v2 football on the turf with Stephen and Chapman. We will miss gathering on the hot concrete with dock-mates to share the latest info from the morning news.  We will miss dinghy rides to the grocery store and long waits in lines outside Massey.  We will miss the security guards that open the gate for us a million times a day. Mills will miss doing art under the big tree, and climbing it.  Charlie will miss jumping rope on the dock and diesel-can lunges. We will miss Gregory’s fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, mangos and bananas.  We will miss afternoons at the marina pool.  We will miss flying the drone, throwing frisbee, and petting stray dogs on Reduit beach. We will miss IT ALL.  This has become our new home, but as Lionel Richie reminds us….it’s time to Sail On!  So long St. Lucia!  You were good to us.  We will be back “home” in time. (Please check back later for pics)