Pants! and all the other tribulations of coming home (by Annie)

Hello all!  We arrived in the U.S. on April 4^th, and now (one week later) we are almost home.  We expect to be in Madison by tonight.

This morning, we had to put on long pants for the first time in a VERY long time.  One of the unexpected consequences of ending our journey early was that we didn’t quite get the endless summer we had hoped for.  We left Madison last June, had some fall weather in October and November, but then throughout the entire winter experienced another summer in the Caribbean.  We thought we would get back to Madison just in time to usher in the next summer.  Alas!  We have returned during the spring and now will have to dig out pants, coats, gloves, etc.  No one will notice our tans now!

Weather aside, our trip has ended with quite a bang.  Some of you know that we ended up <basically> fleeing the Bahamas.  Initially the country seemed like a safe place to hide out – no early cases of COVID, lots of uninhabited islands, etc.  But as the pandemic took hold and the Bahamas government placed their own quarantine orders, it became an increasingly difficult place to be.  Their curfew was 24 hours with just a few exceptions, there was limited access to healthcare (only in Nassau), and they closed all their beaches.  By last week, they had banned all inter-island travel, and only American vessels trying to return home could leave.  We had stopped in Nassau on March 29^th to get propane and groceries.  The next morning we obtained permission from the harbor master to make the passage to the Berry islands.  On our way out of the harbor, we were chased down by six police boats (3 jet skis and 3 skiffs) as we left.  Once they confirmed with the harbor master that we had permission, they let us leave, but only after Rogge had a mild heart attack.

By April 2^nd, we were at the island of Bimini (a common point of exit from Bahamas to FL).  We were hoping to stay one day to recover from a long sail the day before and then set off for Florida on April 4^th.  Early in the morning on April 3^rd, the Bahamas government banned ALL movement of vessels into or out of Bahamas waters, including American vessels trying to go home.  We spent about 5 hours on the phone with the U.S. embassy, the office of the prime minister, other vessels trying to leave, the WI state department, the federal state department, and the office of our WI representative – all to no avail and still no dispensation to leave.  By the end of the day, a local marina owner was able to obtain permission for U.S. flagged vessels to leave only if they were going home.  They told us we could leave that night or the next morning.  We decided to take off that evening and sail overnight.  We are so happy we did so, as just a few hours later they entirely locked everything down again.  Vessels that had waited were stuck at least over the weekend.

We approached Florida early in the morning on Saturday, April 4^th.  We were coming in while still dark.  As we were coming in, a U.S. Homeland Security vessel pulled us over.  It had been lurking in the dark waters with all lights off.  After seeing our kids, they realized we weren’t drug runners or doing anything nefarious, and they let us in based on our word that we were U.S. citizens and had already checked in with customs on the app.  However, once again, the level of security was alarming – this certainly didn’t happen last summer as we re-entered U.S. waters. 

Despite the health risks, we are happy to have repatriated successfully and so glad that we aren’t stuck in a foreign country.  Also, the viral risk was becoming more apparent in the Bahamas as well.  We would have NEVER guessed our year would end like this, but are happy to be relatively safe and so glad we did this trip when we did.  More than having to wear pants, our biggest disappointment in coming home early is that we don’t get to see all of our friends and loved ones that we were so looking forward to seeing.  We hope that sometime later this year we will be able to have the homecoming party we were anticipating.   In the meantime, we hope to see at least some of you at parks or around the neighborhood for an appropriately distant hello.

We’ll have a few more posts on the blog - things already written but we didn't have the data to post.  The kids have written some posts about fishing, and we have lots of good pictures to share.  We do have some great pictures - check back soon for sharks, sharks, and more sharks! ...as well as sunsets, boats, water, and other fisk.