Stuck in Beautiful Ocean Falls

April 1st  (Wednesday)

After a couple of hours of calm winds yesterday evening, it picked back up again and howled through the night.  At around 10:00 this morning Ken came down to see us.  He wanted to let us know that the dock master had made the call to close the dock, and that although we could leave overnight to get supplies, we could not take our time and go adventuring.  

Disappointed, we headed over to the municipal building to try to get in touch with the manager of the Shearwater barge to see if we could arrange for our mail to be picked up by the barge and brought to us in Ocean Falls.  If we could not go out and anchor we were not very enthusiastic about making the four-hour trip one way just to get our mail, and then come back.  

Through the day things seemed like they were with us, and things somewhat sorted themselves out.  Word got around, and people got talking, and we were not the only people who thought that it did not make sense to confine us to the dock.  If we were going to be even more isolated while at anchor than we already were here at the dock, and if they would allow us to go to Shearwater, why not let us anchor out for a few days?  Anyway, we got word passed down from the dock master that we were free to leave and come back as long as while we were at anchor we had no contact with other people.  That sounded perfect to us!

In the evening we were very surprised to see a sailboat pull into the dock.  It was not long before Ken was down to tell them that unfortunately they could not stay here.  We really felt for them because it would have been very easy for us to be in their shoes.  We had been planning to leave here before the whole virus situation got serious and we would have been somewhere up the coast in a few more weeks pulling into some little dock and probably being told the same thing.  These poor people were from the United States; they came across the border long before the virus was an issue, and they had been taking their time coming up the coast.  Since arriving on the central coast they had been without cell service and had no idea how restricted things had become.   They were headed for Sitka Alaska and they were stunned to hear that borders had been closed.  They also could not fathom the fact that it was near impossible to buy toilet paper.  

“Why toilet paper?” they asked.  

“Good question”.

Unfortunately, while he was here Ken also told us that we can not/ should not leave.  He said that if we did, we would not be allowed back.  He said that he had talked to the dock master after the other people in the community had, and that that was the latest word.  So we were left feeling very uncertain as to what was actually the case, and wondered what all was going on with communication, but we had now come full circle and were once again not leaving.  

We headed up to the municipal building, hoping to have an email back from the Shearwater barge coordinator.  Upon reading her reply, however, we were quite disappointed and frustrated.  She replied by saying that yes they would transport our mail, and assuming that it would only be a few boxes we would only be charged the minimum cost of $75 plus taxes, which would be $90.  The trip from here to Shearwater is about 22 nautical miles, and in our slow sailboat it would only take us about 4 hours, so to charge $90 for 22 nautical miles of travel on a barge that was making the trip regardless seemed so absurd that we decided to look into other options.  

This was all so frustrating, but at least we were stuck in a beautiful part of the world where we could still go out hiking and fishing.  Things could be much, much, much worse.