Virus takes wind from our sails

When our best laid plans are foiled, typically it’s the fault of something vital breaking on the boat. Not this time. The pause button has been pressed on the world.

We were heading for Alaska and had a fairly long list of things to do. Yes, that list, the same as yours. Every boat owner has one, a to-do list, items ranked by importance: things that must be done, things that should be done, and things that would be fun to have done.

And slowly but surely, one by one, they were being crossed off. A few of the jobs were things I had never before attempted, which is perfect fodder for creative procrastination, finding reasons to avoid making that cut into the teak, like needing that perfect tool which I never seem able to find. But deadlines have a way of blowing through your excuses.

And we would have left for Alaska in late April, within the next couple weeks, come hell or high water, returning in August. Plan was then, if all was seaworthy, we felt good and nothing had broken on our Alaska journey, to head south to Mexico and the Sea of Cortez.

And then this. We are liveaboards in Victoria Harbour, at the Causeway docks under the looming BC Legislature where politicians bicker and the Empress Hotel where classy grannies go for tea. We love it here.

We are in the winter program, a very good deal, which allows moorage for eight months, October to May, as long as you leave for at least four months over the summer so the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority (GVHA) can host boat shows and regattas and cater to better-dressed transients.

At the end of March, the GVHA came to boaters here, offering to let us stay longer, through the month of June, at least, since events were being cancelled as we spoke. We didn’t have anywhere to go, so we signed up for June, essentially kiboshing Alaska for this year. Many boats around us were filled with plans, now largely evaporated.

The GVHA earns the lion’s share of their annual revenue from the cruise ship business. This is distantly followed by summer events and moorage. Our boat amounts to very small change, driven home by the sadness you feel when the person you spoke to yesterday is home, laid off, when you called back today.

Downtown Victoria is now a ghost town, no more bickering politicians or tea-drinking grannies or tourists snapping photos or float planes taking off. It has been taken over by the homeless, who cry out in the night from the doorways of shuttered souvenir and candy shops along Government Street, screaming at the unfairness which not even a vaccine will ever make right.

The peace is broken at 7pm, when boat horns sound around us to salute the health care workers who are risking their safety on the front lines of the pandemic. It a special time of day for Lynne who has two daughters who are nurses. One of them works in an ICU and has watched people die from this disease and worries about bringing it home to her children and must tear off her work clothes in the garage before going inside her home to shower.

For some reason, few of the jobs on the list, for which there is boundless time, are getting done. It’s hard to concentrate, to accomplish anything of value.

Our evenings are mostly spent having video group chats online with family and friends, wishing we owned a piece of Zoom. The dominant topic is less and less the virus, though at least once in every conversation is the silent pause and head shake in disbelief that this is happening at all. Afterward we might play a hand of cribbage or Wizard adapted for two players.

There’s a beauty in the quiet, the amazing sunsets over the harbour, and a sense of freedom in the release from the responsibilities of being a family member and friend.

Maybe I understand a tiny bit why some people feel freer in prison, free from the difficulties of dealing with the outside.

Stay safe