We have tried a few different sailmail and winlink stations and have found some reliable connections to get weather, emails and even the bbc and reuters newsfeed. Additionally we informed boats over in the main village that the mobile phone network was down–maybe that helped or it was just a coincidence, but the network’s back up! That’s nice for us, but vital for the handful of locals who live away from the main island in quarantine and couldn’t even phone their families on other islands for a while…
Today is day 14 of the quarantine in the Gambier–so far we have not heard of any covid-19 cases in the village and we really, really hope that it stays this way. The next supply ship will arrive in 10 days, then the next quarantine countdown will start ticking again… We won’t go there as we have all the supplies we’ll need for the next few months, but of course many other cruisers and most locals are looking forward to the ship despite the health risk it imposes. Testing the supply ship crews before they leave Tahiti would lower the risk for the outer islands, but we don’t think that’s being done yet.
So far there are only around 20 sailboats in the Gambier (and it is no longer a port of entry so no more new boats should arrive), so we are not perceived as a great competition for the local population regarding supplies etc. We get the feeling that the people here realise that we’re just as well quarantined as they are (or even better) and we haven’t had any negative encounters. On the contrary: locals make an effort to supply the anchorage in Rikitea with eggs and even fresh produce. We heard that cruisers in the Marquesas have collected info about skilled professionals among the sailors to offer support to the commune–a great idea and one we should propagate here as well.
