From the perspective of a sailor, one of the downsides of the current pandemic is that it’s more or less impossible to sail anywhere. The authorities in Chile are not currently issuing permits to leave, and even if they did very few countries are allowing boats to enter.
That means that there are more boats than normal here in Valdivia, so one of the unexpected benefits of the pandemic is that we’re able to meet and get to know people we otherwise probably wouldn’t.
Aside from the local boats in the marina, there are cruisers from all around the globe – New Zealand, Argentina, France, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and of course good old Madrone from the USA. Everyone has a different background and has followed a different path, but everyone has ended up here.
Since there’s such an interesting variety of backgrounds and experience sets, we’ve asked people to answer a few questions for us. We’ve recorded the responses, and over the next few weeks we’ll post a summary of the interviews. It’s been fascinating for us, and hopefully it will be half as interesting to read.
