COVID 19 Safe Trip Concept
Hey Naleians, Friends, Followers, and Naleians-to-be,
I suppose some of you have already made many attempts at sailing in your bathtub or winching the hell out of your balcony sunshade. Well, I have to admit, this sort of activity definitely did not substitute sailing for me ;). I still want to get my dose of vitamin SEA this year! Therefore, we hatched a little plan that that may make it possible for all of us.
A few governments are testing already the concept of unfreezing the economies. Local movement bans are being lifted, small gathering of up to 10 are being allowed outside in the fresh air and restaurants with outdoor seating are allowed to reopen. Some scientists are hoping that summer and high temperatures will curb down the virus spread. If the experiment of giving people more liberties and the high temperatures will show that the basic reproduction number of the Coronavirus (R0, R-naught) stays below 1, I expect further measures to be loosened, maybe even international travel.
In this light, I have thought of a concept that could allow us to enjoy sailing in 2020.
Covid19-Safe Sailing Concept:
- All the scheduled trips in 2020 (see below) will happen only if the Coronavirus situation allows it. We will monitor the situation in each country and decide latest around 1 month before the trip if it is happening.
- The sailing routes will be adjusted to reduce exposure to crowded places and travel responsibly in the Covid19 perspective. This means that we will rather focus on exploring the nature and limit our city explorations to minimum, i.e. groceries shopping with masks on and a proper distance.
- When on our boats, you can keep your mask on, but I think this is not the point of a holiday.
- All that will result in a trip where if we want to we can stay on anchor in a remote bay all the nights of the trip, watching stars and enjoying the beauty of sailing life.
This is how I imagine most of our stopovers during Covid19 safe trips.
Rescheduled Summer Sailing Programme
Our future-predicting tea leaves session did not help at all to get a better gut feeling about the summer. However, I decided to reshuffle all the sailing trips nonetheless. My idea was to limit the amount of trips we originally scheduled and go forward with the ones which are left on the table.
I preferred to play my cards safe and not jump hastily on the first travel occasion available (I silently assume July). In the end, I would not like myself, neither I want you to be a guinea pig for the government experiments with pandemic spread. This is why the schedule which is published on our destinations page has the 1st trip starting in August. Let’s hope the situation is better then!
Our updated sailing schedule has exactly one sailing trip in Croatia, one in Greece and one in Italy planned as well as one exotic trip in the Seychelles in the late fall. We hope to see many familiar faces on these trips, drop anchor in remote bays, and feel the wind in our hair. These trips will for sure be different to our standard Naleia trips but I am quite sure that the mood will be the same Naleia mood as we are used to!
Realistic Holidays Planning and Booking
We know it’s very difficult, and it is actually a matter of faith, to do plans for this summer. But hey, life goes on! And we are all bored of the four wall of our home, so we have decided to be cautiously optimistic. We hope for the best, and want to be ready for when the best comes! Being ready means, taking some assumptions and at taking some mental commitments.
So, we suggest the following plan:
- Choose the trip(s) you’d love to be in and do your booking on our website. Yes, please also book those dates in the holiday calendar of your employer, assuming it will have some flexibility.
- No, you won’t have to pay anything at this point, we’ll wait until we have more certainty on the feasibility of each trip (and we cannot have more fingers crossed on this!).
- As soon as the general situation is clear and travelling is feasible, and always with at least one month in advance, we’ll confirm if the planned trip is happening or not. Then, you’ll have a few days to confirm your booking and make the first payment, or inform us about your resignation. No risk here.
If you already booked a trip with us for this year, you can have your credit moved to one of the scheduled trips or request a discount voucher to be used for any of our future trips. We wrote more about it on Covid19 Update #1 blog article.
Outlook on the summer
I hope that the new concept of a Covid19 Safe sailing trip is be something that will allow us to meet again and enjoy responsibly our favorite way of spending holidays. I take this as an opportunity for exploring natural bays, snorkeling, hiking for sunsets and star gazing all the while avoiding visits to crowded places. This actually does sound like a great idea for holidays to me!
Let us know what you think about these plans in the comments.
Stay healthy!
Dominik