Martin Finkbeiner. Somewhere in West Africa a year ago. Our "Aracanga" is moored at a buoy in the river and we are waiting on the shore in a pub that is poorly lit by candlelight due to a lack of electricity for the friendly gentleman with the cotton buds to test us for coronavirus.
Do you have corona? Then we can save ourselves the trouble of doing the tests. I'll bring you the certificates tomorrow lunchtime. Ibrahim drives up on time the next day in his battered red and hands us the negative test certificates. We tick one last box on the long list of documents that we have to present when we enter the country on the other side of the Atlantic.
We want to go to the Caribbean. But cruising has definitely not become any easier in times of the coronavirus pandemic, nor has it become any more affordable. At the equivalent of 50 euros per certificate - delivery service included - the tests in West Africa are the cheapest and least complicated. Almost a year earlier, somewhere in southern Germany. It's March , we're on holiday at home. We're sitting on the swing in front of our parents' house, rocking ourselves and the reason for our holiday, our two-month-old daughter, and thinking about how to get back to our floating home.
It is nine metres long and is waiting for us at a buoy in the Gambia River. Our booked train and train tickets are cancelled and almost every other scenario for getting back to West Africa also fails due to coronavirus. All but one: sailing.
As luck would have it, my dad has recently retired and wants to spend his new freedom on the water. His boat, the "Ivalu", is again a good old friend of mine. Ten years ago, I sailed around the world on her for three years. The solution is obvious and we kill several birds with one stone: the more extensive than expected equipment for Kira, our smallest crew member to date, fits just as generously on the 42 feet of the "Ivalu" as our small family.
