It’s been a year since our last post.
As you may have guessed, we didn’t make it back to the boat in 2020.
Here’s what the past year has looked like:
April 2020: Our first month back. This is the earliest we’ve ever come home, and it is COLD. We are in mandatory post-travel quarantine for two weeks. We are very grateful for our backyard, since you can’t even go for a walk while in quarantine. Our AirBnbs are empty so we have the entire house to ourselves, which is pretty glorious after 5 months on the 36-foot sailboat. We do lots of puzzles. We take turns doing the weekly grocery run. We start following Yoga with Adrienne and turn our upstairs studio into our personal yoga space. We see family from 6 feet away. We start worrying about finances because all our income has dried up. We wonder whether we would have been better to stay on the boat after all.
May 2020: Our AirBnb starts picking up again (thank goodness!). David feels he might go crazy if this COVID thing prevents racing from happening in the summer, so he decides to buy a small sailboat.
June 2020: Meet Careless Whisper, our 1983 Sirius 21.
Summer 2020: We do some major renos to our solarium and get lots of sailing in on the Ottawa River!
Sleepy time 
Token selfie
September 2020: We decide that this is not the year that David should start supply teaching! He begins woodworking to keep himself busy. Check out mainbracestudio.com!
We also decide that with the global situation being so unstable, we’ll stay home this fall so we can spend Christmas with our family for the first time in 4 years. We plan to fly south in the new year.
Fall 2020: Mel starts hosting virtual wine tastings, which are a great success. We manage to get lots of fall sailing in, and are one of the last boats in the water.
December 2020: As planned, we spend our first Christmas at the farm in years. There’s lots of room there for spacing out and social distancing (but we still self-isolate before going). Our province goes into lockdown on Boxing Day, so we book flights south for mid-February so we can looking forward some much-needed vitamin D.
January 2020: We book our quarantine accommodations in Grenada (all travellers must quarantine for one week upon arrival and get a COVID test on the 4th day). Without warning, Air Canada cancels our February flight. We reschedule for the next available flight – in April. On January 28, Canada announces it is banning all travel south for 90 days. Our flights are cancelled again. We decide to re-assess in 90 days. Meanwhile, Mel’s translation work picks up significantly.
February 2020: Our sailing club asks us to do a presentation on our experiences cruising the Caribbean. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube!
March 2020: Our dog, Gomez, has been steadily declining for a few months due to some sort of neurological disease that eventually starts causing seizures. On March 22, we make the difficult decision to say goodbye. There are no words to describe that loss. But we are glad that we were home to take care of him while he was sick and to be with him at the end.
April 2020: The winter is mercifully mild and short, ending quite early. We launch the little boat. Then Ontario goes into another lockdown to combat the third wave, so we’re not even allowed to go sailing. We give up on trying to get down to the big boat before hurricane season. It has now been sitting in the water for over a year. The bottom growth must be insane.
David starts getting boat work requests like fixing sailcovers and doing gelcoat. We launch our Sailboat Consulting Services.
David is now eligible to get a vaccine and is on every waitlist imaginable, so now we wait. Mel is one year too young to be eligible. Ideally, we both get our first jabs before the summer so we can get the second one by October and get back to Ar Sgrail to pick up where we left off!
How was your year?
Where the Wind takes us 
Thanks David and Mel. Great to hear from you again. We are in limbo too. Walter and I have both had our vaccinations and hope that the border will open soon so we can visit. Everything is open here and we are enjoying all that Florida has to offer. We do wear a mask and social distance when required. Wishing you a great summer in what ever you are doing and hope that things open up for you too. Carol
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mel, we can starting booking May 17. I’ve got it marked in my calendar. 🙂 It was nice to see photos of Gomers *hugs!*
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think we are eligible as of that date. We’ll see how that rollout goes. Fingers crossed for getting appointments quickly!
LikeLiked by 1 person