Short walk in town

Tuesday 17 Mar, KY day 3: One day of isolation was enough! We visit quiet George Town today for a couple of inquiries.

Really not much to report today. We seem to have slipped into a very chilled mode, not minding just being relaxed on board, protecting ourselves. The morning and evening is again taken up with more video editing. And at midday we head ashore to find out what happened to our two shipments for which the tracking states they have arrived to the marina but are not physically received there. One is new bladders for the leaky kite and the other is spare Empirbus cards from Sweden.

We tie the dinghy up at the south terminal, the dock where cruise liners normally ferry their passengers to and from their anchored ships. Today of course it’s deserted, with the liners all banned for the next two months. Nearby there is the usual array of jewelry, brands shops and eateries always associated with cruise passengers. But today there are no customers. Just the odd few holiday makers from hotels, wandering around. We quickly find the FedEX store and find the shipments are with customs, waiting on me to provide invoices. Once I fill in some forms, they should be released in 3-5 business days.

Next stop is Flow shop where we need to find out why our Jamaican Flow SIM card is not working here. We had loaded it with 6GB specially for our arrival to Caymans. But this Flow shop has already closed due to Covid-19 and we don’t know where the other stores are. So we end up buying a new sim at the Digicel store. It’s very expensive at US$73 for 10GB of data, but we really need to have the internet access and now is not the time for unnecessary taxi or public transport trips to the next Flow store.
Talking of being careful, Oana is handling everything with her gloves on and we are glad to see most other people dealing with the public are also wearing gloves. Very sensible. But beyond that, there are more people out and about than we thought there should be. After enquiring about scooter and car rental, we find a Thai restaurant and we simply cannot resist treating ourselves to lunch there. We love Thai food. It doesn’t look a very fancy place, but the food turns out to be delicious. Pretty authentic Thai. Yummy.

We then head back to Cloudy till late afternoon when I dinghy over to chat to Mike, an American on a nearby yacht whom we last saw in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He advises where the best supermarket is. On the way back we dinghy along the shoreline where we find a very nice terrace with restaurant and bar, where we decide to have a sunset drink. It has a dock of sorts and we tie the dinghy up and go in, as we usually do. But we haven’t even sat down before an Italian manager interrogates us if we made a reservation. Of course we didn’t, it’s not like they are packed with clients. He immediately tells us the only way in is via the main entrance and landing by dinghy is not allowed and… unless we have a reservation we must leave, like now! This makes me pretty mad. Their bar is completely empty and only third of the tables occupied at the most. Pffff classic Italian hospitality, just like we experienced when we popped into Italy on the way back from Greece to Gibraltar a few years ago 🙁

I drop Oana off at Cloudy then go to investigate the supermarket. Wow! It’s paradise! Even better than supermarkets in the USA. I’m so happy, I buy two delicious cakes and take back to Oana. We instantly eat the heavenly delights in the cockpit. Hmmm, it could be nice to be marooned here. It seems so very civilized. Clean, modern, nice people, good food. I did note the supermarket shelves were all full, even the toilet paper isle!
With just one official Covid-19 case, who died (from a cruise liner) it’s possible that the virus is not actually here yet. But we are glad to see they are still taking precaution. All gatherings over 50 people are banned and the boarders will shut on 22-March to allow their citizens back in. As of today no foreigners are allowed to enter. That said, yachts can still enter, but as of today they are required to quarantine themselves aboard for 14 days before Cayman will officially check them in and let them come ashore. All sensible stuff.
We go to bed still a bit uneasy with the situation but glad we are here, of all places.