
Our plan was to go to Bounty Bay, make VHF contact with the island and then see if there was any place we were able to land with the dinghy. With the massive swell it seemed that our own dinghy was not up for the task in Bounty Bay, but possibly in other bays it may be different. Gijs made contact with the island and after some formalities, we got the green light to see if there was any way to come ashore. They were more then happy to launch one of their boats to come and ferry us in! After a very friendly conversation, the man on the radio said, give us 30 minutes to organize a team and we will get back to you with a plan.
We drifted around for 30 minutes, as anchoring was way too rough. We heard some parts of conversations of gathering, having a discussion, making plans for new opening hours for the shop etc. It all seemed somewhat strange, but hey, its an island community, without regular cellphone reception, so all communication is probably still via radio etc. We saw a drone come out to fly a few rounds around the Tecla before it got chased off by terns. And then, 30 minutes later in came the call. We were advised that there was a corona outbreak. Three persons had been confirmed infected that morning and so the doctor was going to give us a call in 5 minutes.
Ok, wait, game changer.. The doctor explained that as off that morning they had three confirmed corona cases. We were welcome to come to the island, but in full disclosure they wanted to let us know. A vessel had visited before the weekend, possibly infecting some local people. If we were ok with it all, they would further organize the boats.
But for us, this was a deal breaker. We have many amazing islands ahead of us that we want to visit. Remote islands with small communities living on them. We have no infected people on board and we really do not want to spread an infection among the Polynesian islands! So we thanked them for the hospitality and all their efforts, but we had to decline. The risk was just too great.
And so we moved away from this beautiful island and headed back out to sea. Wind had decreased in the morning, but was picking up around noon. Around 14:00h we were back sailing, doing 7 knots to les Gambier!
All well on board, Jet
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Amazing to get so frequent updates!! I was following the Tecla on MarineTraffic and wondering why they left Pitcairn so quickly.. there is the full story!
Disappointing but many other islands are waiting indeed!
Gambier next?
I can’t wait to join 🙂