Things Keep Changing

March 24th (Tuesday) 

Today was another beautiful sunny day, there was a heavy frost in the morning, but that quickly melted as the sun came up above the mountains.  

Our day was partially spent trying to figure out where we stand in terms of getting stuff from the outside world. Things seem to be changing so quickly with regards to restrictions because of the COVID-19 virus that it is hard to make any plans at all. 

Just four days ago our plan was to be leaving Ocean Falls on Thursday and to be heading north toward the Queen Charlotte Islands. Then we found out that the provincial park was closed and also that the island was requesting no visitors, not even for fuel and supplies. At that point I asked my mom to contact Shearwater for us to make sure that the fuel dock, chandlery, grocery store, and post office would still be open. She was told, “Yes, but perhaps with limited hours.”  

Then the next day we heard that Bella Bella was self-isolating and requesting no visitors. After that, we heard that we would soon be able to go to Bella Bella because Ocean Falls was going to be added to the Central Coast isolation, and so we would be free to travel between here and Bella Bella.  

And, this morning we heard that Shearwater was now saying no to people coming in from Ocean Falls, no fuel and no store.

With that news our morning was thrown into disarray as now our fuel supply was potentiality cut off, and we would not be able to get our mail that was waiting for us in Shearwater. 

We had tried to get some fuel off of the Shearwater barge, but unfortunately they would not fill jerry cans, and they only sell a minimum of 200 litres (a barrel).

We made some phone calls and talked to some more people.  

We found out that there are some empty barrels in Ocean Falls that we are welcome to use if we want to purchase 200L of gasoline from the barge. We also found out that potentially, if we just show up in Shearwater, no one will have an issue, it simply seems like they may be saying no to people on the phone, but not actually in person, as one person from Ocean Falls had been there this morning.  Shearwater and Bella Bella are the only stores that people from Ocean Falls have access to, the only fuel dock and the only grocery store.

As it stands, everything is somewhat up in the air for us. Who knows at this point what we will end up doing.  

The Shearwater barge should be arriving tomorrow with our groceries, and it will be interesting to see what we get on it.  

Today we found out about an alternative food-ordering system, which we might get some stuff on, as it seems much better for heavy items. If we decide to, we will order from the Co-op in Bella Coola, it would get picked for us and taken to the ferry terminal. Once loaded onto the Nimpkish ferry it would arrive here in Ocean Falls on Friday afternoon. It would be a flat rate of $25 for shipping, and so we would be able to order heavy items like flour and rice without paying the per-pound freight cost of the Shearwater barge.  

We had been holding off on purchasing these heavy items because we thought that we were going to be going to Bella Bella this week, but at this point I don’t think we will wait any longer, especially now that this opportunity has presented itself. 

We also heard today that the Save-On-Foods online order system is now so busy that all of their time slots to request our food to be picked off the shelves by are filled up several weeks in advance. We can no longer make an order and have it ready for pick up to go onto the barge next week. It’s Crazy!

It is interesting to think of what a different experience we are having during all of this than most people. Most of the time it all seems so unreal, it is hard to picture the grocery store shelves empty and the city roads quiet, but it is definitely still having a large impact on or plans. I think that the biggest thing is the amount of uncertainty. It will be interesting to see how things change from here.