Quarantine and Sound Camo

The thing about living on a boat is that there isn’t much privacy. Well, that’s one of the things. There are others. Out at sea the sound of the water against the hull and the wind in the shrouds helps to muffle the more basic sounds of human comings and goings. But tied up at the dock there is little in the way of sound-camo. So every plop, groan and push is a matter of public record. A particularly busy moment in the head can cause crew to bail up the companionway for a bit of clean smelling air.  Burning bunker fuel from the trawler berthed upwind can be a beautiful thing.

The olfactory assault can be tolerated when there’s shore to go to. A bar to drown in, a restaurant to get a decent meal you didn’t cook yourself. But Covid19 has played its hand and the officials-who-must-be-obeyed have decreed us a fourteen day quarantine.   

Apparently the regulations don’t recognise the isolation we’ve been in at sea, even though we’ve got passport stamps and a satellite tracker to prove it. So here we are, morale seeping into the grubby dock-water and provisions down to the boring and the bland.

There are worse places to be quarantined. I can sit and gaze across a marina of masts and yachts to the mountain. We’ve been baking fresh bread. A very pleasing smell-camo, especially when followed by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.  The beer and wine hasn’t run out. Yet.

Meanwhile the harbour carries on as though everything is normal: the cops in the police inflatable wave as they return to base. The crew of the service vessel carrying supplies to passing ships wave at us as they come and go. The pilot vessel hangs out in Duncan Dock until the tugs guide a container vessel out to sea. Who’d know that Cape Town is in zombie-apocalypse mode?

I chat to the seal that is using the brand new catamaran opposite as a bedroom. He doesn’t say much. Occasionally he coughs or sneezes. The gulls are more chatty but they are a bit loud and aren’t good listeners.

The other guys on the boat are good listeners. And good piss-takers.  One is a good pole-dancer but the less said about that the better. With a bit of sound and smell-camo we’ll get through the rest of our quarantine in good humour.

  

Hang on, how much beer is left?