The year 2021 seems to have gone so fast for us. My husband and I have been busy getting back to our yachting lifestyle, we didn’t notice the time passing. At the start of the year we acquired a bigger yacht instead of just a small motorboat for island hopping, as planned. Some years ago we agreed to lay low on southeast Asia cruising and retire in a small island. Then the ‘pandemic’ happened that reconfigured what we thought was a well-laid out retirement plan for us. There were  several factors that prompted us to go back to yachting lifestyle, mainly:
. Travel restrictions
. Quarantine inconveniences
. Vaccine passport requirement
. Yachts on sale

At the start of the ‘pandemic’ we still managed to get on with our holidays and travels abroad despite the inconveniences posed by the covid protocols. We took it as a different kind of adventure so we responded to it in a non-depressing manner, but with some strange excitement despite being aware of the dangers. Of course, we acted responsibly though in a maverick way.

After a year, with countries adopting stricter quarantine protocols, more travel/work-related companies opting for vaccine passport requirement; and more talks about emergence of covid variants; we got more convinced that going back to our old yachting lifestyle can make us deal better with the new normal without sacrificing the quality of our life.

What benefits do we get from having a boat?
– More freedom to travel from one country to another or from one island to another remote island, without having to depend on airline or ship availability and be forced to follow their policies.
– Wherever we go, our quarantine facility is our boat.
– We don’t need to queue for boarding and be exposed to many other people.
– We don’t need to wear mask and observe social distancing in our boat.
– It’s like being on holiday on most days especially when the weather is good. And when the weather is rotten, we take it as part of the adventure.

– Even if a country or a town is in lockdown, our boat could still get in to refuel because to let the boat run out of fuel out there at sea is inhumane.

It’s not all roses though. The nerve-racking element of boating could be more fatal than covid even to the healthiest of us. How can we truly dread that when our spirit soars everytime we set sail?