Lockdown Continues. A new grandchild is born.

 

Ramona Lily

The best news of February was the safe arrival of Ramona Lily in California. She is our fourth granddaughter and our second American grandchild. We were sad that we could not visit to help Simon and Erin and almost two year old Nina. Fortunately, both parents took maternity/paternity leave from work so they were able to cope.

Playing in the snowdrifts

February in the UK began in much the same way as January ended as lockdown restrictions continued. Winter struck with a vengeance with the temperature dipping to an incredible minus 23C in the north of Scotland. Even here in warmer Suffolk, we had several days when the wind chill factor was minus 8C.

Happy faces

 Ellie and Sophie loved the snow and wasted no time in building an igloo and snow bridges in their garden. They brought their sledge to our house and delighted in being dragged along by Jeremy. The lanes nearby were so full of snow and ice that we could sledge on the road as there was little or no traffic.

Pushing granny is hard work

 Just as the snow fell our local hospital invited me for a dermatology appointment. I was unsure about going and had to consider the weather and the large numbers of Covid patients in my “risk assessment”! I had been referred last October and who knows when my next appointment would be if I didn’t go? So, I went, taking extra warm clothes, a hot drink and a snack in case I became stuck in a snowdrift. All went well. The roads were practically empty, the hospital carpark deserted and only a handful of people were in the dermatology department. 

Waiting for a Covid jab

 The skin lesion that had developed in Australia had dropped off before Christmas, leaving a barely visible scar. It was decided that I should monitor the site for six months and report back to the hospital if the lesion came back.

Jeremy’s brothers and sisters-in-law had their first vaccinations against Covid. Within a week or two, we received text messages and emails from the local GP group and booked our places. We had our first Covid jabs on 12^th February.

St Valentine's Day meal at home

 Towards the end of February, Boris announced the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown. All schools and colleges would reopen on 8^th March. There were cheers from parents, grandparents and children alike.

Storytime

 Yesterday, we had our last day of homeschooling. It has been a challenging 8 weeks with many ups and downs as we all adjusted to our new relationships with each other. We are looking forward to being just grandparents again.

After the snow....floods

 Meanwhile, home maintenance continues. Jeremy has recycled our neighbour’s old fence and it now replaces our rather tatty and disintegrating back fence. The garden is looking tidier although there is still quite a bit to do. Perhaps we’ll decorate our spare bedroom. 

Swing ball in the park

 I’m hoping the Isle of Man Government will let me visit my Mum and sisters after 30^th April, when I’ve had my second Covid injection. As for travelling abroad, if all goes well with the cautious lifting of lockdown, this will be allowed no earlier than 17^th May. We’re not making any plans….yet.

Lockdown Returns

The government announced in late December that a mutation of coronavirus had been identified in London and the south east. It was spreading more rapidly than the original virus. London went into lockdown. There must be no mixing of households and people should not travel outside of the area. The announcement arrived quite close to Christmas. Many families had made arrangements to be together in different parts of the country; some were already in their holiday homes. For the rest of England, the five days of mixing were reduced to one.

  

Floods cut off some of our walks

Just two days into the school holidays, our granddaughter, Ellie, had a raised temperature and didn’t feel very well. Ben took Ellie and Sophie to a testing centre where they were tested for Covid 19. After a couple of worrying days, the results came back negative. Great relief all round!

It's definitely looking like Christmas

 We spent Christmas Day with Em, Ben, Ellie and Sophie. It was wonderful to be together again as an extended family. The girls were bubbling with excitement as they showed us the presents they had received from Santa. Any remaining gifts were soon opened and proudly shown around. Em and Ben prepared and served a super, traditional Christmas lunch. We were full to bursting afterwards.

After a family walk in the forest, it was soon time for us to eat again. We were very sad to leave for home at 4.00pm. Our house seemed eerily quiet.

Christmas Eve supper for two

 Full national lockdown number 3 started on Boxing Day. Covid numbers began to surge and Suffolk’s numbers were increasing faster than the national average. Boris Johnson insisted that schools would open for the new term. Em and Ben were wary and asked if we could help out two days a week if schools had to close.

The new term started. High schools were having a staggered return. Ellie and Sophie’s school had a professional development day, but the girls were both ready for school on Tuesday when they went to bed. At 8.00pm that night, Boris Johnson announced that schools must close with immediate effect and learning must go on-line.

Christmas Day present opening

 We formed a childcare bubble. Em spent the rest of her holiday from work home-schooling. We stepped in on week 2. The girls were dropped off at our house on Tuesday and Wednesday at 8.00am and we returned them to their parents at 6.00pm. We gave them breakfast, lunch and supper in addition to teaching one-to-one and taking daily exercise. The girls’ school was very helpful, providing videos and links to worksheets at very short notice.

Cosy childcare bubble

 We continue to feel blessed that out local and wider families are all well. My Mum, who is a care home resident, has had her first vaccination against Covid. The Isle of Man is in lockdown again, after 6 months of no Covid cases. Their borders remain closed to visitors.

Our non-school days here in Suffolk pass quietly; the only excursion out of the village is a once a week visit to the nearest Co-op. Milk and meat deliveries continue and occasional Tesco deliveries. Jeremy had to risk a visit to the dentist.

Home school exercise

 We walk locally most days and have added cycling to our routine. I am trying to learn Spanish again.

The first snowdrops have appeared in the garden so spring is on the way.

Snowy Suffolk

 Take care everyone. Hasta la vista!

Season’s Greetings

 

Home sweet home

We’ve been home in Suffolk for almost two months. The first two weeks were spent in voluntary quarantine. Our daughter had ordered food for us for the first week. On her advice, we booked delivery slots at Tesco for the next two weeks. Our first effort at online food shopping was successful except for the 29 bananas that we ordered by mistake! 

Ellie and Sophie

 We met Em, Ben, Ellie and Sophie from a distance and outside. It was lovely to see them again after being away for 10 months, but so hard not to be able to give them all hugs. Suffolk had very low numbers of people infected with Covid-19 and we were able to meet people indoors or outdoors in groups of six. Pubs and restaurants were open, so we enjoyed Sunday lunch in a local pub with the family. We had another meal out and I went socially distanced line dancing.

Family walk

 Covid numbers began to rise rapidly in the UK and the government announced that England would be put into one of three tiers. We were put into tier 1, the lowest level. Not long afterwards, the whole of England went into lockdown for 4 weeks. 

Masked pub lunch

 We were to stay at home as much as possible and only meet with one other person outdoors. No more pub meals (except takeaways) and no more line dancing. We met Em once a week for a walk and only saw the grandchildren through their car window once.

Halloween at home

 We booked GP appointments (online consultations) had flu jabs and had our eyes tested. Shopping was limited to once a week at the village shop and local Co-op. We went for a walk almost every day and tidied the garden. We kept in touch with our wider family by phone or video call. The local church held services via Zoom and the Westerly Owners Association arranged meetings via Zoom. 

Subdued lockdown Bonfire Night

 We feel blessed that everyone in our family is keeping well. Most have kept their jobs. We are sad that we cannot visit Simon, Erin and Nina in California or my Mum and sisters in the Isle of Man.

Log delivery

 Perhaps this will change in the spring now that we have vaccines. Perhaps we’ll be able to return to Sal Darago in the summer. 

Em and Kathy, socially distanced

 In the meantime, we are debating what to do over Christmas. We are out of lockdown now and in tier 2 along with most of England. Apart from 5 days over Christmas when three households can meet indoors and stay overnight, we can only meet one group of six outdoors. Pubs and restaurants are open again and non-essential shops.

Autumn mist

 It’s been a difficult year for many. We hope you manage to keep in touch with your loved ones and keep safe and well at Christmas and throughout the New Year.

Painting the pylons

 

 

Back in the UK

Carnarvon Airport

After several, hectic weeks, lots of bread making and many meals out of tins, we are home. To be precise, we arrived on our doorstep just after dark on Saturday 10^th October. Our journey started the previous Wednesday, when we locked up Sal Darago, said a sad good-bye to our home of the last 10 months and drove down the road to our first hotel. The next morning we returned our hire car to Avis at Carnarvon Airport, donned face masks and boarded our first flight to Perth.

International departures Perth Airport

A shuttle bus took us to our airport hotel in Perth. On Friday morning, we walked to a retail park and bought face shields. Our second flight left Perth in the evening for Singapore. Here we had a glitch. Australian Border Force cleared us to travel but Scoot Airlines said our carry on bags were too heavy. Unknown to us, they’d changed the weight limit from 7kg to 3kg. We scrambled around on the floor in front of the check-in desk, opening our hold luggage and transferring all we could from our carry on bags. 

Changi Airport

After an anxious wait while officials consulted with each other, they gave us our boarding passes. There was one cafe open serving a limited menu of pies, sausage rolls and quiches. No worries; better than nothing before our 6 hour flight. Our temperatures were taken before we boarded the plane.

Enterprise hire car

It was about 3.00am on Saturday morning when we touched down at Changi Airport. There were about 30 people on the international flight. We were all socially distanced. A tedious five and a half hours passed slowly as we waited in the eerily quiet terminal building trying to sleep in chairs. 

 

Keeping safe!

At last we boarded the flight to London Heathrow with about 20 other people and remained in our socially distanced seats for the next 13 hours, continuing to wear our face masks and shields. 

Zuytdorp Cliffs

Once we were through Immigration we picked up our hold bags, found the bus stop for the shuttle bus to the car hire area and collected our previously booked hire car from Enterprise. At no point were we asked where we had come from and whether we had Covid, a temperature or even a sniffle. Jeremy drove home in the rain. Hello Britain. Thanks for the welcoming rainbow.

Steep Point lighthouse

I’ll briefly run through our final weeks on Sal Darago. Once Jeremy felt better and had the all clear from his test results, we returned to Shark Bay. We spent a couple of days in Denham bouncing on a mooring in strong winds. When the wind eased, we motored south to Shelter Bay near the southern entrance to Shark Bay. More strong southerlies were forecast, so we knew the anchorage would be protected. Here we met Jonathan and Helen on board their trailer sailer called Jacana. We spent two enjoyable evenings having sundowners on each other’s boats. 

WA wildflowers

In the daytime we went hiking, visiting Steep Point and the Zuytdorp Cliffs. Several vessels have been washed on to the cliffs over the years. The Dutch trading ship called Zuytdorp was wrecked there in 1771. There is a monument to the trawler, Nord 6, that was washed on to the rocks below the cliffs in the 1960’s. There was one survivor. We had sailed past those cliffs a few months before giving them a good offing as the locals advised.

Don't jump!

We had hoped to walk on Dirk Hartog Island, which is famous as a place where a Dutch vessel, Eendracht, landed in the 1600’s and left an inscription on a pewter plate. Dirk Hartog was the Captain. This was a long time before Captain Cook “discovered” Australia as he sailed up the east coast and claimed the land for Britain in 1770. The strong SE winds meant we could only have a brief stop at the south end of the island and a quick recce ashore in the dinghy, before we returned to Shelter Bay.

Nord 6 monument

When the wind eventually calmed down, we motored to Tumbledown Bay off Dirk Hartog Island, where the holding for the anchor was poor. It was too late to go ashore so we took turns swimming and snorkelling instead. I was swimming near SD when Jeremy shouted, “Shark! Get out of the water now!” I kept close to SD’s hull and clambered up the steps as fast as I could.

Walking back to Shelter Bay. Dirk Hartog Island in the distance.

After a stop over in Denham for laundry and shopping, we set off for Carnarvon, anchoring for the night in rolly Gregories. We saw many humpback whales with some groups putting on a show for us breeching and slapping the water with their enormous flippers. We anchored in our usual place at Teggs. There were three catamarans in the anchorage and the big tug, MacLeod.

Drying the genoa

Bruce at Pickle Point Seafoods and Boatyard had made a special jinker for Sal Darago. We had supplied the measurements for our keels. Jeremy motored on to the jinker and tied up to it. Just to be sure everything was in the right place, Bruce waded into the water up to his chest to make sure. A small adjustment was needed and then we were out and in the yard again for the second time in just over a month.

Sal Darago on her jinker

There followed eight days of hard work putting Sal Darago to bed. Here are a few examples: anchor and chain removed and washed; anchor locker cleaned out and anchor and chain replaced; genoa washed, dried, removed, bagged and stowed; mainsail taken down and stowed (washed previously in the rain); all canvas washed, taken off and stowed; most halyards moused, washed, dried and stowed; all lifejackets cleaned, gas bottles removed; engine winterised; outboard motor serviced and flushed through with fresh water; solar panels, horseshoe lifebelts cleaned and stowed; boat batteries disconnected; food tins sorted and taken to HOPE charity (Help Other People Eat) etc.

Bye bye Sal Darago

Finally, we packed our bags, stowed the dinghy, the spinnaker poles and boom, locked up and descended the ladders for the last time. When will we return to Sal Darago? Who knows? When the pandemic ends or a vaccine is found? When Australia opens up it’s borders to international travellers? When the hurlyburlys done..?

Thank you Ellie and Sophie

We wish all of our readers good health through these uncertain times. Thank you for your support through your comments and emails. We will update the blog from time to time as we return to our land based life.

 

Update from Carnarvon and Shark Bay

There was a great deal to do once we’d made our decision to fly home to the UK. The most reasonably priced boatyard and one we already knew was Pickle Point Seafoods and Boatyard at Carnarvon. A haul out date was arranged for 29^th September.

 

Kneading the dough

We would have liked to use our vouchers for our cancelled Malaysia Airlines flights, but this meant spending 12 hours overnight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. No food was available overnight and the lounges were closed until the morning. There was also a restriction on how long we could stop over at the airport, but no actual times were published. We continued our internet search.

Preparing for our international flights

We were impressed with the Covid safe practices put in place at Changi Airport, Singapore, where our night-time stopover would be five and a half hours. Prices were competitive also and we were able to book flexible tickets. However, Singapore is not on the UK safe list, so a fortnight’s quarantine at home is mandatory. We fly from Perth to Singapore on 9^th October and Singapore to London Heathrow on 10^th October. We have booked a hire car at Heathrow so we can drive straight home on arrival.

Carnarvon is a nine hour drive from Perth. It has an airport. We booked a domestic REX flight on 8^th October with free cancellation up to 48 hours before. Now we needed a hotel in Perth and more internet searching led us to a suitably priced hotel, which we booked for two nights as our flight to Singapore does not depart until late evening. The final booking was for an overnight room not far from the boatyard for the night before we fly from Carnarvon.

Monkey Mia jetty

We could relax a little after this and plan a trip to Shark Bay. We made bread and lists of the food onboard which needed to be eaten first. Then Jeremy noticed a skin eruption or wart just below my collar bone. Another internet search told us we should have it checked out. We took the dinghy ashore to the boat harbour and walked into town. The pharmacist said to see a GP at the medical centre across the road. It was Friday and there were no appointments until next week. We were advised to go to the hospital. We walked to the Emergency Department. I was seen by a triage nurse and as they were busy with emergencies, I was asked to return later. I saw a doctor at about 4.00pm that afternoon. Although, a diagnosis can’t be made without a biopsy, she assured me it was not a melanoma, but I should see my own GP when I return home. The skin eruption was treated with liquid nitrogen and I had to take a course of vitamin B3 tablets.

We weighed anchor on daughter-in-law, Erin’s, Birthday and motorsailed 48nm to Herald Bight in Shark Bay. We saw whales, dolphins and a turtle on our journey. The first night was OK even though we were about a mile from the shore in 3.1m. The wind increased overnight and became increasingly gusty. The next day a gale force gust dragged the new Rocna anchor. We started the engine and motored towards the shore watching the depth decrease until we were as shallow as we dared. We re-anchored and stayed put. It was too windy to go ashore in the dinghy.

Monkey Mia Resort

We had lighter S-SE winds the next day, so we motorsailed south to the world famous Monkey Mia Resort. A local fisherman arranged a free mooring for us for three nights. Thank you, Marco.

Calm seas for a change

Jeremy started with the symptoms of a urinary infection while we were in Herald Bight. Fortunately, everything returned to normal after 24 hours. It was while we were ashore having lunch at Monkey Mia that his symptoms returned. Back on board SD, he began a course of antibiotics.

We left Monkey Mia when Jeremy felt better and motored south towards L’Haridon Bight. This eastern area of Shark Bay is poorly charted. Some of it has not been surveyed at all. We had a cruising guide and thought we would find the deep channel that led into L’Haridon Bight. Alas, it was not to be. We ran out of water and went aground. Jeremy was keen to keep looking for the channel. I was not. We turned back and motored to Cape Rose about four miles north of Monkey Mia. Jeremy was not well again the next day, so we did not go ashore.

Gale force gusts

On Monday 7^th September, we weighed anchor after making some bread. We motorsailed around Cape Peron to Gregories and anchored for the night in pleasant conditions. We had intended to go to Denham the next day, but it was becoming obvious that Jeremy probably had a secondary infection and needed to see a doctor. There is a nurse’s station in Denham but no doctor. It was decided to return to Carnarvon about 45nm away and go to the hospital the next day.

Force 6 at anchor

In the hospital at Carnarvon, the emergency doctor confirmed a secondary infection and prescribed ointment and another course of antibiotics. Swab tests were taken and sent to Perth. We stayed on anchor at Teggs until 14^th September, experiencing strong winds with gale force gusts to 38 knots. When the weather calmed we took SD into the boat harbour to fill up with water. Friends from yacht Sandale and another yacht from Fremantle Sailing Club were tied up in the harbour awaiting suitable weather to head south. We were invited aboard and were sad to have to refuse.

Sunset at Teggs, Carnarvon

All three yachts left Carnarvon on 14^th September. Jeremy was feeling better and did not want “harbour rot” to set in! We motorsailed to Gregories and the other yachts must have sailed further south in Shark Bay because we did not see them again.

Going fishing!

After a calm night at Gregories we motorsailed to Denham and picked up a mooring we have used before. A yacht called Chinook, from FSC, is moored nearby. Strong winds began to blow soon after tying up and they increased overnight. This morning the mooring buoy had disappeared. Fortunately, over a month ago, Jeremy had tied the mooring line to a ring under the buoy, so we were still attached. Today, he has attached a second line. We’ve had the anchor drag alarm on since we arrived. Better weather is forecast for tomorrow.