Cruising through the pandemic

Kia Koropp and family spend the Covid-19 pandemic crossing oceans, negotiating borders and exploring quiet destinations

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While there's an estimated 10,000 people living on their boats globally, there's a much smaller number actively cruising. Fewer still, since Covid turned the world on its head and kept cruisers at home. With lockdowns and border closures, quarantine procedures and PCR testing, travel has been a minefield. Changing regulations means constant uncertainty. If you are in your home port, best stay there until the storm clears.

That said, there are a number of cruisers who were caught away from home and the choice to sit out the pandemic wasn't an option. This is where we found ourselves in early March 2020 as we readied ourselves for the cruising season in South Africa. Far from our home in New Zealand and on a limited income, we couldn't just sit out the year ad infinitum.

My husband, John Daubeny, and I have been cruising on board our cutter-rigged sloop Atea since 2011 with our two children, now aged 8 and 10, who were born into the cruising lifestyle. We had a boat to move half way around the globe and we had a tight timeframe to do so — we'd have to navigate travel through the pandemic.

Ready to launch

We were in South Africa getting ready to launch off into the Atlantic when Covid became a global reality. Word on the street was that a deadly virus was spreading, but no one could foresee the extent to which it would spread or the collective response that it would trigger. For the first time in history, nations reacted in unison.