It would seem the zombie apocalypse is upon us! We're hearing from friends in England and various parts of the US about empty store shelves, closed schools, overburdened healthcare systems, economic meltdowns, politicians pointing fingers and avoiding responsibility. You claimed to own the booming economy, Donald. Now own this.
We request via email and receive a Reuters news feed Monday thru Friday, a couple pages of text that summarizes what's up around the world. Haven't figured out how to get that from NPR or BBC or perhaps the Economist, but if anybody knows that trick we'd love to hear from you! No Fox, no CNN, no Facebook, thank you very much. The command in our email that we send out is "send reuters-daily-news. I've tried that and other permutations with BBC and NPR to no avail. Rob, Stas', you're both IT kinda guys, hook a brother up, will ya?
There' a danger for folks with constant access to BS "news" that spews sensationalism to sell ads. Could get the natives all restless and worked up, wanting to "take action". In the US that could get really ugly given all the guns and ammo laying about. Social unrest is a real risk. My gun enthusiast friends stockpile ammo, but perhaps what they should really stockpile is food and water and rent a porta-jon to put in the back yard. Imagine what it would be like if the fresh water stopped flowing, if the sewage system backed up, if the electricity went out for multiple days or weeks. Those are the kind of situations that would rapidly lead to civil unrest, martial law, riots, etc.
Sounds like the UK is taking some really smart steps to get ahead of this thing, while the US has been pretty flat footed and is now playing catch-up. No surprise with the lack of real political leadership in our country. At least the Brits finally went hard over for Brexit, so the uncertainty factor is less in their society even though the final deal is undefined. In America the Republicans and Democrats are trying to figure out who will run the country for the next four years. The poor handling of this latest crisis combined with the economic meltdown will either prompt a change in administration, or perhaps fear will prompt a "stay the course" response. Given the travel situation it remains to be seen whether we'll even be able to cast an absentee ballot given our own state's electoral policies.
Out here in French Polynesia we're all under lock down. As invited, legal guests in this country we are doing our best to observe all restrictions and limit our exposure to others. We're confident we're virus free, but no telling who we might encounter that's been exposed to the thing. In a couple of weeks we'll go over to the local village to see about provisions and cooking gas (that would suck to run out of), otherwise we'll enjoy our own company and that of a few other yachts who have also self-isolated for weeks on end.
French Polynesia is now indicating that arriving boats, or at least their crews, will not be allowed to stay in country. All inter-island flights are stopping, and we hear the last international flight departs this weekend. Countries to the West are denying entry to yachts, and no telling what New Zealand will come up with - we're still waiting to hear. The local government is now trying to decide whether even long-term visitors with all the appropriate visas will be allowed to remain in country or told to leave.
Interestingly enough our only option (and this is a really long shot) could be to sail back to the US, sort of on the old clipper ship routes. The scenario would likely be that we sail either to Tahiti or Nuku Hiva to provision and clear out, then make for Hawaii as an interim stop for food and fuel then continue on to somewhere like Bellingham, Washington. Great place to visit (in normal times) but I wouldn't want to live there. Given what's going on in the US right now we're better off right here. Hopefully common sense will prevail.
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