Two years into our ten-year circumnavigation, we have learned that future plans are about as solid as the shifting sand of an hourglass. We do our best to research and plot our travel based on weather, seasons, tides, and advice from more experienced sailors. We understand the best-charted plans of sailors can be thwarted for many reasons, boat repairs, hurricanes, family emergencies, pirate attacks. Who could have guessed that a virus could sabotage our summer sailing plans of traveling through the Baltic and sailing to our bucket list city of St. Petersburg?
Our nightmare began when a side-trip to Venice quickly went south as Covid-19 stormed Italy. The past year, we have been traveling with boat buddies, S/V Whatever She Wants. We met in Bermuda when we both had to make emergency stops during the 2018 Salty Dog Rally to BVI (along with at least 10 other boats from that rally). Our boatmance begin with our adventures in Bermuda and continued through the Virgin Island the chains of islands to the southeast. We ventured back to Bermuda and sailed as buddy boats for the crossing to the Azores. For one full year, we were joined at the spreaders. Our boatmance took a hiatus as Whatever She Wants parted to cruise to a warmer climate in Portugal and we made landfall on the southern coast of Ireland.
We missed each other a lot so we planned a rendezvous in Italy the last week of May, prior to the start of sailing season at which point we would go to the Baltic and they to the Med. Just for fun, we chartered a cabin cruiser powerboat to explore the coast of Italy around Venice. It seemed like a good plan. We wouldn’t be sailing but we would be on the water and back to our adventures together. After all, what could go wrong?
Earthquake, tidal wave, tsunami – I could have accepted any of those reasons, but a virus? None of us were ready for that surprise. Our boat trip was canceled. A few weeks whittled away and our buddies asked if perhaps we could get together for a week in Portugal at the marina where they were wintering their boat. We checked the latest news and while the virus was infecting certain areas, Ireland and Portugal were safe at that time. We booked a last-minute flight and headed for a quick rendezvous with our friends before our sailing took us in opposite directions.
While it seemed like a good idea at the time, the global tempest gained momentum at an astronomical rate. Excited to go exploring, we rented a car and were visiting a few cities near our home base of Lagos when things started going down-hill rapidly. News filtered in from our radio and brief moments when we were near a television. The virus was shutting down cities, states, and countries. Spain was the closest threat and by the time we had been there four days, Spain’s border was closed to travelers.
My husband, Dan, monitored Noonsite and all the virus update sites daily. As an engineer, incredible captain, Merchant Marine, and world traveler, he has good intuition and researches everything before making decisions. With four days left to depart Portugal, he still felt we would be able to get back to Ireland. However, even monitoring every new measure being put in place by the infected countries, he couldn’t predict the ripple effect now sweeping across the world like an asteroid plummeting into a still pond.
Three days until departure we got our first notice our flight back through Amsterdam, headed for Dublin, was canceled. Our hearts sank as reality set in. Things were getting far worse than we expected, far quicker than we could have ever anticipated. Most European countries were shutting down their borders to foreigners. Here we were, US citizens in Portugal trying to get back to our home in the United Kingdom. Not a favorable combination. Dan immediately got online and began researching our options.
At this point, there was no travel ban on returning to the United Kingdom. We were facing three major obstacles. One: flights were being canceled from lack of passengers. Two: the remaining flights to get us home before the weekend were full. Three: Northern Ireland was closing their borders to any foreigners starting Midnight on the following Monday. If we didn’t get back by then, we wouldn’t be able to return to our boat, our only home, for quite some time.
The soonest we could reschedule on KLM, our original flight, was mid-day Monday, the day the ban in Northern Ireland went into effect. Dan booked us seats on that flight as plan C. Plan B, he booked us on a British Airways flight going through London on another airline. It left Friday morning. While we did hear England had banned any residents from leaving the country, we figured we should be able to fly into Heathrow and continue on our way to Dublin. Lagos was filled with British tourists and we figured British Airways was our best hope of not being canceled. It was unsettling not knowing what problems we might encounter once arriving in England, but it was a chance we had to take.
With train tickets purchased for the next day, we still did some sightseeing along Portugal’s rugged and grotto filled coastline. It was spectacular in contrast to our muted enthusiasm as the pall of the unknown hung over our heads. With everything being so unsettled, we sadly bid farewell to our boat buddies at noon on Wednesday and took the train to Lisbon to be close to the airport for our Friday morning flight. We booked an AirBnB for two nights and counted down the minutes, with fingers crossed, until our departure.
Thursday, as we sat at an outdoor café in the ghost city of Lisbon, the only people we had contact with was the steady flow of elderly Portuguese ladies begging for coins for their starving families. It was heartbreaking and we doled out our change until we had none left. We sat in the eerie stillness eating our lunch when Dan’s phone vibrated. We both looked at each other in knowing silence as he retrieved the text.
“Your British Airways flight on Friday to London has been canceled”
My heart fell into the empty space that should have been filled by my sandwich. Tears filled my eyes and I quickly wiped them away before Dan noticed. I wanted to be strong but I had never experienced such an exacerbating feeling of frustration.
“Let’s leave, right now,” I said. “We’ll go back to our room, pack our things and go to the airport. There has to be a flight going to Ireland on some airline. We will find it and book a ticket at the counter.” Dan nodded and we left our sandwiches on the table and started our two-mile walk back to our BnB. I was willing to give up the night we had paid for in advance to find a seat on any plane willing to take us back to our boat.
We hustled back, packed up, left the keys for the room, and called an Uber to take us to the airport. Our life would be a crapshoot for the next 24 hours. I was praying that luck would change in our favor. Dan scoped out an airline that had a 6:00 pm flight still running to Dublin. It was only 1:00 so we had five hours to try to get on that flight.
It only took ten minutes to get to the airport, but the first sign things were not going to be easy was when the terminal we needed to get to was shut down by the police. In broken English, our driver apologized for not being able to take us to the terminal. She explained that all passengers had to be dropped off on the sidewalk in front of Terminal 1, where a long line of busses waited, with an even longer line of angry passengers.
It was impossible to get any information. Panicked travelers were pushing and shoving, trying to get on the bus first in line. The guards seemed to be checking for tickets before letting them on the bus.
“Crap!” I exclaimed when I figured out what was happening. “Dan, we can’t get on the bus to the terminal unless we have tickets.”
“How fast can you book a ticket on your phone?” he asked.
I pulled up the airline he had found with a flight leaving at six. It was still showing that it was available. It was expensive, but it was a non-stop flight to Dublin arriving at nine. How we were going to get from Dublin to Bangor, a two-hour trip by midnight was a problem for another hour. At this moment our only objective was to get on that flight. As I frantically began trying to book us a seat, Dan’s phone vibrated. What now, I wondered.
“It’s an email from the marina. The marina is closing.”
“What!” I screamed in disbelief.
“They know we are liveaboards, they have to let us back on our boat,” Dan said with some hesitancy in his voice. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Let’s just focus on getting on the plane.”
I succeeded in booking our third flight, this time to Dublin, moments before we reached our turn in the queue to board the bus. People were pushing and shoving, not respecting any proximity boundaries as I showed our online ticket confirmations and we scrambled aboard the bus.
In less than five minutes, we were deposited at the end of the next set of long lines in front of Terminal 2. Long lines were the theme of the day and we waited in lines for the next five hours. There was a somber and almost hostile feeling hovering over our fellow travelers. We moved from line to line, the last one being the queue to board the plane. It had been a stressful day. We were tired, we were hungry, but I couldn’t hold down the relief and happiness I felt the moment I stepped on that plane.
As we had lots of time in line, Dan bought tickets on a bus from the airport to Belfast that arrived at 12:15 AM. The last train from Belfast left for Bangor at 1:00 AM. With any luck, we would make the bus, then the train, and arrive in Bangor by 2:00. We had a mile walk to the marina and a key fob for the gate we prayed still worked to let us back on our boat.
Fortune was finally in our favor. We arrived almost 30 minutes early to Dublin and without a hitch, we disembarked, cruised through immigration and boarded our bus. It was cold and rainy and in the ’30s so a slight sheen of ice coated the metal railings as we boarded the bus. We slept until the bus stopped in Belfast, which was a good thing as our night was far from over.
We found the train station but it was totally dark with no signs of life. While the trains were supposed to run until 1 AM, someone had obviously changed the schedule without notifying us. We looked around, it was still raining, cold, and we were not in a nice part of the city. I wondered for the first time in my life what it was going to feel like to sleep on a street. I was THAT tired.
We wandered around for a few minutes and fortunately, saw a hotel. I ran up and pulled on the door. It was locked. There was a Holiday Inn across the street. As Dan stood there peering inside, I ran across the deserted street and tried the doors at the Holiday Inn. They were locked.
Wanting to scream, I settled for pounding on the door. I could see someone standing behind the desk. The man came over and opened the door just enough to talk. He explained to me that they were closed. I explained to him that if he didn’t give us a room I was going to have to sleep in the street, in the rain. He let us in.
I wasn’t sure if I was in a bed or on a fluffy cloud beyond the gates of heaven. As soon as our heads hit the pillows, we were out cold. We were so close to our boat, not there yet, but for now, we were back in Ireland, safe, in a warm bed, and tomorrow was a new day.
We awoke and found breakfast before boarding the train to Bangor. With full bellies and a great new outlook, we took our seats. As soon as we sat, Dan’s phone vibrated. I just turned and looked at him and shook my head. What now?
Dan read the emailed and laughed. “Just to let you know, our Monday KLM flight to Belfast has been canceled.” Thank God we no longer needed plan C.
After the train ride, we started our walk home. The town of Bangor seemed normal. We stopped at the grocery store on the way, there were no long lines, plenty of toilet paper, and alcohol. We stocked up on both.
When we arrived at the marina, there were two men in the office. As per our usual routine, we waved and walked up to the locked gate outside. We both held our breath as Dan raised the fob and we waited for the click. “Click” went the lock and with a huge sigh of relief, we walked down the long pier, to the very last row of boats, and found our baby patiently waiting for us. I was never so happy to see Equus, our home on the sea.
We are officially in lockdown now. We can exercise (take walks or bike rides) and go to the grocery store. Most countries are closed to travelers and the North Sea is closed to all but commercial traffic. We have no idea when the bans will be lifted and if we can follow through with our plans to sail through the Caledonian Canal in Scotland in May and onward through the North and Baltic Seas.
We went through great pains and expenses to obtain the visas, invitations and cut through all the red tape needed to visit Russia at the beginning of July. We have no plans now, for anything. We will wait patiently and adjust our journey as needed. We are thankful to be reunited with our boat, still be alive, still be in love, and still be afloat. When you live on a boat, you really can’t control the direction of the wind, you just have to learn how to adjust the sails. We are getting very good at that.