What a crazy world we live in these days, and it’s changing faster than any of us can keep up. And while I wished we would wake up to discover we’ve all been tuned into the latest Netflix binge-worthy apocalypse series – it doesn’t seem that’s the case.

We’ve been actively tracking COVID-19 since reports out of China started hitting the news back in January. And have been keeping it in mind as to what we might do as we made our way back east.

For a quick video recapping this post:

Return to Savannah – Getting Y-Not Launched

We were already planning to shift back to boat life in Spring to launch Y-Not out of storage at Hinckley Yacht Services (where we hauled out back in August for peak hurricane season), where we has also left a project list they were working through.

We figured being aboard our boat would be the best isolation option for us.

We arrived on March 1st (after attending RVillage Rally and seeing friends & family in Florida) with a huge Coscto stock-up run to re-provision the boat on our way in Jacksonville.

Reprovisioning is a normal part of shifting between our RV and boat seasons – but seeing COVID awareness really start to ramp up here in the states had us also adding on a little extra before panic shopping started.

While our service manager gave us assurance otherwise, Y-Not was not nearly as ready to launch as we hoped. Not to be totally unexpected – even a yacht center is a boat yard (just perhaps with Fleming lines, awesome showers, courtesy car and free laundry?)

Major projects were still barely started – such as removing, re-bedding and re-installing all of our port lights (which were suffering from corrosion and leaking). Our after-coolers on the engines still hadn’t been re-installed after full servicing, and our bedroom was torn apart as part of investigating a fresh water tank leak.

We were pretty panic stricken thinking we’d need to start thinking through Plan B and C and D.

Thankfully, the yard acknowledged our frustration especially once we re-iterated this was our home and COVID was dooming. There are some really awesome & skilled people there, and our faith was returned for why we entrusted Hinckley in the first place to store our boat and tackle projects while we were gone.

Within a week they were able to launch us, but it was a stressful week of living in the van onsite and not knowing if we’d have our boat to move aboard. Tracking things overseas, we predicted shut downs of services were coming and if we weren’t launched before then, our boat could be trapped on land and us left scrambling.

We’ve now been living back aboard for a week tending to finishing up a couple remaining projects, fully provisioning, getting the boat out of project/storage mode, getting the van into storage with nearby friends and awaiting some major shipments of new items that would aid to our comfort for extended self sufficiency.

Dometic was able to get us their brand new Dometic CFX3 100L freezer/cooler for provisioning frozen items after our prior CFW model bit the dust (the new model is supposed to be much more marine-durable).

And we splurged and purchased a Rainman portable water maker we had been eyeing for a while.

We shoved off the dock yesterday and are back at anchor surrounded by dolphins.  Ahhh… it’s been bliss amongst all this chaos.

 

We just hope we got away in time before community spread started happening in Savannah (still no reports as of today – not that it means much.)

The Plan: Headed Back to Florida

We weren’t sure what our cruising plans would be this year – continue north up the Loop? Hop over to the Bahamas?

The current situation has made it clear however, we’re heading back to Florida.

Yup, backwards on the loop.

With marina closures happening at quick pace, and most places to explore shut down anyway – pursuing the Loop this year just doesn’t seem feasible or fun.

Our parents are both in Florida and our legal domicile is in Florida – we just feel safest being there where it’s familiar and we’re not as likely to be viewed as tourists/outsiders during this craziness.

We haven’t planned beyond getting back to Florida – we’ll evaluate our options as things transpire as to where we head.

We should be provisioned for extended cruising/anchoring for a good 3 months or so without needing to touch land.. albeit we’re sure there are things that would be ‘nice’ to re-stock (fresh foods, wine, ice cream).

We’re intending to anchor out, perhaps somewhere with some non-populated land access to stretch our legs on occasion (other wise we have our paddle board and exercise bike on board for fitness).

All and all, we feel pretty good in our plans – and are looking forward to some downtime.

After the craziness of the past few months we look forward to catching up on work and content creation. We also look forward to hosting more live video events to hang out and keep each other company.

In some ways, it’s like we’ve been training the past 14 years of full time travels for this.

Full Time Cruisers & RVers Resources

The pandemic response is unfortunately making life a little more difficult for those living outside of traditional boxes. A lot of public camping resources that full timers rely on are shutting down this week (some being repurposed as quarantine locations), and some private parks are also choosing to close – forcing RVers to find alternative options.

Those not setup for extended off-grid living or currently out east with more limited boondocking options are even more impacted.

Cruisers are also impacted as public & private marinas shut down or turn away new arrivals, and even resources like fuel docks and pump out stations are closing.

We’re super appreciative of resources that are popping up to help track closures and openings.

For cruisers: