By Grant
Not often do we write about the boring, stressful and tedious aspects of cruising, but it is in fact an unavoidable part of living full time on a boat. Everyday there is always something not working which needs to be fixed. Top of the list is dysfunctional internet. Even though we have bought SIM cards that are supposed to work in all the Caribbean countries, it never did and we kept buying new SIM card in every country we visited. The French islands are the worst. Even the local SIM card doesn’t work half the time or connects at snail speed. We now have a collection of at least a dozen Caribbean SIM cards which the girls will turn into a collage.
Aside from troublesome internet, we would also encounter malfunctioning generators, engine, toilets, sinks and drains, light fixtures, electric sockets, water pumps, oven, coffee machine, gas stoves, etc etc. Sails, cushions and shades tear. Water sports toys break all the time (we have a lot of toys on our boat. To list a few we have diving gear, sea bob, foil board, kite foil, wakeboards, donut, stand up pedal board, magic carpet, etc). Grant has become a very competent engineer and troubleshooter, diligently reading through manuals and watching fix-it-yourself YouTube videos. His ‘to fix’ excel list is over 60 items long and growing.
In addition to boat problems, there is countless paperwork and online check in and check out of countries, numerous COVID PCR or antigen tests which cost a fortune, provisioning of foods and supplies, laundries, tidying (the boat gets messy as soon as it’s been cleaned with three crazy monkeys on board), washing and scrubbing of decks (it is shocking how dusty and dirty the boat gets even in such clean air and pristine water). Navigating the ever changing COVID rules and protocols is as challenging as crossing oceans. Fortunately we are connected to a huge network of cruisers through ARC (Atlantic Rally Cruising) and we shared latest news and information.
Normally the tedious bits of work just takes up an hour or few in a day which is manageable. However the last 24 hours since we arrived in St Maarten was the most intensely unpleasant and frustrating experience we’ve had so far.
Our main purpose of coming to St Maarten is to do our bi annual servicing and maintenance work, in order to prepare the boat for our Pacific crossing in June. Before arriving, we did all the research about the protocols for visiting the country. Every visitor needed to submit an EHAS application online prior to arrival. As Grant, Apple and I are fully vaccinated with booster shot, we only needed to upload our vaccines certificates and we could enter. Our children aren’t vaccinated, hence Arabella and Alexandra needed to get a negative COVID test result in order to apply. Azania is spared the COVID test as she’s under 5. We followed the instructions diligently and the girls went to a pharmacy in St Barths to take the antigen tests. Hurray! Results came back negative. Uploaded the test results onto the EHAS website and waited for application approval. A few hours later, we received application approval email for Grant, Apple, Azania, Arabella and myself. To my surprise, Alexandra’s application was rejected. How strange. Arabella and Alex did the same test at the same time and we submitted the applications one after another. How could one person’s application be accepted and the other rejected? We thought it must be a mistake. Insofar during our travels in the Caribbean, immigration and customs were not super strict as long as you follow the rules. We weren’t too fazed about the rejection email and felt certain that we could explain the situation in person and they would let Alex through.
So we set sail to St Maarten from St Barth as planned. We arrived at Lagoon Marina around 3pm and had to manoeuvre our very big and wide boat into a very tight parking space. A bit scary and stressful. At 4, Grant and I rushed to the immigration department to clear in. We showed then all our passports and paperwork. One by one the lady stamped our passports. Then she realised Alex didn’t have the EHAS approval. We explained to her the situation and that we didn’t understand how one sibling was approved and the other not? She said she couldn’t stamp her passport if she doesn’t have the EHAS approval. We asked her how to get the approval. She gave us a doctor’s number to call as he is in charge of approving applications. There’s absolutely zero mobile reception at the Immigration office and we couldn’t connect to the internet on our phone. We had to walk to a nearby Mac Donald for free wifi. We called the number and got in touch with Dr Perks and explained to him our situation. He asked us to send him our daughters’ documents and he would see how he could help. Sounds promising!! We were optimistic. He told us to wait for an email. Sat at Mac Donald and 45 minutes later, an email arrived! Rejection again for Alex! How strange. 5 minutes later, another email arrived. A new rejection for Arabella! How could it be? Arabella was approved earlier! They cannot undo her approval! We tried calling the doctor but he didn’t answer.
So we walked back to the immigration office totally confused. At that point, it’s already 6:30pm in the evening. Hundreds of mosquitos were buzzing around and sucking my blood! We told the immigration lady what happened and that we couldn’t get in touch with the doctor. Finally Grant got a hold of the doctor and the doctor said he made a a mistake and shouldn’t have approved Arabella’s application. The girls needed to take a PCR test, not antigen test. So he un approved his earlier approval! Unbelievable! I thought he’s supposed to help us! Arrrrrrrggggghhhh!!
We waited and waited at Immigration to try to understand what’s the resolution. Finally at 8pm the immigration lady gave us a telephone number of a clinic. We have to arrange a medic to come onto our boat to conduct the tests, as the girls are not allowed to go onshore since they’re not checked in. She withheld the girls’ passports and said we needed to come back within 24 hours with a negative PCR test result. She confirmed that the clinic is open on Sunday. We went home completely exhausted after spending 4 hours at immigration.
Early the next morning, we tried calling the clinic’s number. Nobody answered. At the same time, we needed to pack our belongings as we have to move somewhere while the boat goes on dry dock the next day for antifouling work. We also need to find an Airbnb apt urgently and was messaging with a few hosts. Grant had arranged meetings with different vendors to talk about the boat works. The girls were helping with packing and putting away things. Our mobile reception was horrible, and so we had to get a router and new local SIM card. Worst of all I lost Grant’s phone somehow. It’s a mystery how that happened. No idea how the phone got lost on our boat. Grant suspected that I dropped it into the water without knowing, and he dived in for half an hour trying to search but in vain. Everything was happening at the same time and nothing was going smoothly.
We went back to immigration around noon to tell the lady that the number she gave us didn’t work and we couldn’t get the PCR tests done within 24 hours. We asked if we can take the girls to a hospital for the test, and she said no as they’re not cleared in to the country. After waiting around for another hour, she told us to walk 500m to a mobile COVID test lab to see if they can help. In a parking lot, we saw this colourful van which is fitted as a mobile COVID test lab. There were two very friendly ladies at the van. They were very sympathetic to our situation but they can only do COVID PCR test on weekdays, not on a Sunday. She said she would ask her boss if they can make a special arrangement for us. Anxiously waited for a reply, and finally two hours later the lady boss called me and said they could do the test for the girls immediately. Hallelujah! USD 125 per test, on top of the 80Euros we coughed up for the useless antigen test! Some pharmaceutical companies are making a LOT of money! Relieved that at least we got the testing done, and that we don’t have to worry about testing tomorrow while busy moving the boat to dry dock. However we’ll have to go back to the immigration office AGAIN to see what happens next….