March 13, 2020 - PANDEMIC and Border Closures

March 13, 2020 - PANDEMIC and Border Closures

As we had remained open to purchasing a boat on the east coast, we needed to consider how to bring it around to our home in Seattle.

On January 8, 2020 I had reached out to San Diego Captains to inquire about bringing a boat from the east to the west coast.  I had learned of Sand Diego Captains at our Selene Rendezvous where Captain Nikolay 

Alexandrov had given a talk on boat deliveries.  When I reached out to him his reply was:

Yes, we do deliveries from East Coast to West Coast. The last one I did across Panama Canal was this last December on a Nordhavn 60’. We have done several Selene Boats across the Canal- 53’, 55’, 57’, and 62’.

There is a lot to be said about this trip. We can do it without you on board, just captain and crew, or if you have the time and desire, you can come along and hire just a captain. We can do it straight shot, only stop in Panama and 1 stop in Mexico, or we can break the trip on several parts so you can enjoy some of the best cruising grounds in the world.

Please call me at your convenience, I will be happy to give you some information about the trip and different options.

So as we made our plans to purchase a Florida boat, we had visions of a trip of a lifetime bringing this boat through the Panama Canal and home to Seattle.  We would be able to make stops, as necessary, for rest or exploration and thought we had a great plan.

But as the COVID-19 virus spread and was quickly turning into a pandemic, countries began to close their borders.  And on March 13, 2020 the United States closed their border to foreign nationals declaring a National Emergency.

This horrific virus was spreading and impacting communities around the globe resulting in terrible loss of life and suffering.  As a result many countries were also closing, or had closed, their borders AND PORTS.  This also left a canal crossing in question as the Panama Canal had not determined if/how they would allow pleasure yachts to transit the canal as they wanted ensure the safety of their personnel.

We now had to re-think our plans as we were no longer looking at a pleasure cruise.  We had a deadline to move the boat out of the hurricane zone based on our insurance - this would mean taking it north to Virginia.   We also had a deadline, based on Florida State tax laws, to move the boat out of Florida by 90 days after closure - which was on March 2, 2020.

Options are:

• Take the boat north along the east coast - but it was uncertain what services would be open.
• Haul the boat out for hurricane season or find an acceptable moorage for the insurance and pay state tax.
• Ship the boat home on a freighter.  Problem is they only deliver to Victoria, Canada - how to get to the boat?  Besides, there was a solvency risk with the companies as the economy was ground to a halt.
• Briefly considered trucking the boat - too big, complicated and costly.
• The Panama Canal is closed to pleasure craft - no longer an option.

What to do .........