Get in.
Holy ****, is that a shark?
My name's Colin, I'm 34 years old, I'm from New Zealand.
I decided it was time to do something for myself
and follow my passion to sail around the world.
So we bought the boat after Hurricane Irma,
which was the largest hurricane in Atlantic history.
And a lot of people like myself came to Tortola,
and started buying these hurricane-damaged boats.
We were in Panama, but we were hoping to get to New Zealand
across the Pacific
before the cyclone season started in November.
This meant that we had to leave by May,
or else we’d be trapped.
Do you have avocados?
-How much? -Two for one dollar.
Life is good.
We were ready to clear out of Panama,
and go to Costa Rica.
Oh, he’s a nice one.
Here it comes.
All of a sudden, the coronavirus pandemic started.
We were kind of just trapped in these Pearl Islands.
It was so confusing trying to figure out what to do, where to go.
We're stuck due to the coronavirus that's on the other boats here.
We were about to pull up the anchor and I said,
“I want to check the news one more time.”
I checked the news and I said, “Look, if there’s no vaccine
and there’s no treatment,
then it’s not a small deal.”
We had our passports ready, our cruising permit
ready to check out, it was on a Friday.
And that’s when we got notice that immigration closed.
In South America, our response to the pandemic
will be impacted by the arrival of winter.
While hurricane season will complicate our efforts
in North and Central America, and especially in the Caribbean.
So when Panama went into lockdown,
it was one of the most strict countries in the world.
They only let men out on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays,
and women on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
And it was for one hour on your day,
with half an hour allowance to get to the supermarket,
the bank, or the pharmacy.
Virtually impossible to do any decent amount of shopping
or anything like that.
You had to just go to the supermarket,
buy your fresh vegetables.
A month ago, we had provision for three months to cross the Pacific
for eight people.
And none of this coronavirus stuff was around
when we actually did it.
A hundred and fifty kilos of rice,
100 kilos of pasta, 1,500 cans of food,
450 rolls of toilet paper.
We spent $5,500 at that time on food and provisions.
There’s nearly a thousand cans.
Milk, corn flakes, lentils,
some noodles, more ramen.
Pesto, 50 jars of pesto.
It was like a bit of a horror movie.
When we were there on the taxi,
and we’re just watching from the window
once we arrive and make all the line.
Also, you could see that people were scared.
But whenever you asked something in the store,
people would look at you and they would step back a bit.
We originally planned for eight people for three months.
So now we’ve got enough food for five people for six months.
Thirty five boxes of beer.
Toilet paper, not all of it.
What we really learnt about the situation
is we don’t need too much to survive.
Muesli, rice, beans, pasta.
We got 100 bottles of one litre bottles of rum.
And why did we do that?
Just in case everything turns to **** here,
and we have to just go somewhere.
I was in the island,
and suddenly I woke up and I didn’t have a job anymore
because my dad’s shop was closing.
So I was not sure what I was going to do.
And me and Colin had been hanging out for a while.
So I was like, “OK, maybe I can just go to the boat,
it could be a good opportunity.”
This virus, things started to go crazy.
So it was all of a sudden a race against the clock
for us to be able to clear out of Panama
and then into Costa Rica before their borders closed.
But the hurricane season is approaching.
So that’s not a very good option to be up there during this time.
But what we’ve been fighting is the lightning season.
Three days ago,
we got struck by lightning.
All of a sudden, we just heard this terrifying bang.
Pretty sure we got struck.
The ****... the antenna is not there.
The VHF’s ****.
The anchor light’s ****.
The deck light’s ****.
The wind vane’s ****.
And soon the camera will get ****, too.
Can’t see ****.
You think it’s worse?
**** ****.
Fix the head together.
What we found was some serious structural damage
to the underside of the boat.
We still to this day don't know what has caused it,
but what we did realize is that
our dreams for crossing the Pacific Ocean were over.
We’ll just take it day by day.
We’ll see what happens.
The best we can do,
and what I’ve been learning these days,
is just to accept what comes.
-That hole looks good. -Yes.
You fixed it good.
Probably here, there’s probably 22, 25 boats in the anchorage.
And it’s just kind of a weird vibe here because everyone’s in lockdown,
so no one’s really talking to each other.
We’re kind of like the new guys,
and no one's really wanting to come near us
because they're not sure if we've been in isolation for two weeks.
We’ll see how this all plays out, but...
We’re just going to go do a little fire on the beach tonight,
and cook a curry.
And a few other boats are bringing some meals as well,
and we’ll just do a shared potluck dinner sort of a thing.
Going to the beach, we’re going to the beach!
We’re going to the beach.
Who’s going to the beach?
So we were all hanging out in these uninhabited islands,
and we were totally alone.
We’re having little fires on the beach, cooking food.
We even had a little soccer game that we organized.
We were in our own little world.
We’re not 100 percent
supposed to be on the beach tonight.
But this is a very remote island of this archipelago,
and it’s uninhabited.
And so we figured it was OK to come here for a little meal.
And we’re just so...
blessed to be here right now.
We are family in this time of struggle.
Right here, sun going down...
we’re pretty lucky.
I guess what’s happening with everyone in the world at the moment
is just a huge challenge.
And we always like to say that there’s no problems,
there’s only solutions.
So we will get over this.
We will get through this.