A Slow Motion Tsunami

This is me this morning at the Billions Supermarket (Langkawi, Malaysia) with a cart full of apocalypse food. The store was crowded , but not crazy. Plenty of fresh and dry goods. And even with the occasional Australians around there was still toilet paper available. As of today Malaysia is shutting down for at least two weeks. No boats are allowed to clear in, non-essential businesses are shut, Malays cannot travel out of the country, etc.

We are currently working on Plan G, having blown through Plans A through F.  Our original plans were to leave Malaysia and spend a month in Thailand, then clear into Indonesia in Sabang. We would then spend a month going down the outside/west coast of Sumatra, and leave from there for Chagos in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Then off to Madagascar and South Africa.

Then we decided to hold on Thailand as we would only have a 30 day visa and didn't want to get stuck. We then heard about the problems of boats trying to clear into Sabang, Indonesia. Officially they were allowed to clear in, but it was clear that the local officials did not want any new foreigners on the island.

That brought us to another plan.There was still a little wind in our direction if we sailed to the Maldives. A 1,600 mile slow, slow sail with a fair amount of motoring. Either way it seemed like a way for us to continue across the Indian Ocean. Friends of ours who left Malaysia in February have just arrived in the Maldives, after a stop over in Sri Lanka. They were put into quarantine on their boat and it sounds like they may not be able to get off on any of the inhabited islands. Now South Africa, where we had hoped to land this fall, has announced entry restrictions. It's a long way to go in a small boat without knowing you'll be allowed to enter. It's a long way to go and a lot of provisioning even if you can enter.

So Plan G says we give up on crossing the Indian Ocean this year. This means hanging in Malaysia for a long time while not being sure we can extend our 90 day visas and dealing with the oppressive heat. Or, taking our lives in our hands and heading back to the epicenter of covid-19 in the US, Washington state. Being in the over 60 with pre-existing conditions bucket, health care is a consideration. Would you be better off in an overworked Malaysian hospital or an overwhelmed US hospital? Surprisingly it's a close call for us. Malaysia has some high end healthcare facilities and good experience and infrastructure from dealing with the 2006 SARs epidemic. This call to shut down the country came a bit a late. There was a very large religious gathering a week ago at one of the mosques. After the thousands of participants went home to all over the country, the covid-19 cases started to spike. Of course the US planning and execution for this epidemic sounds less than stellar, (although we can't watch Fox News here, so maybe it has been stellar, in the alternative facts universe).

After flipping the coin many times till it always landed on heads, we have a plan that we intend to stick to, until we change it. We say goodbye to our friends here and leave tomorrow from Langkawi and sail for 4 days or so to Pangkor. In Pangkor we'll haul the boat and ready it for land storage. Then start trying to get flights back home. That's all assuming the airports stay open and allow foreigners to transit.

May you live in interesting times.

Paul