This evening, at midnight, New Zealand goes to Alert level 4 and into a four-week lockdown to contain the spread of Coronavirus. The instructions are ‘where you sleep tonight you should stay’. That leaves me locked down on Truce for the next month.
The guy I met ashore yesterday, his name is Graham, offered to pick up diesel for me in Picton. A generous offer that I have accepted, now I don’t need to go to the fuel dock in Picton with Truce. He is providing a couple of his jerry cans as I only have small cans on board.
During the day I made a few trips backwards and forwards to the dock in the dinghy to pick up fresh water. By mid-afternoon I had all the freshwater tanks topped up. After that I stowed and lashed the dinghy on deck in preparation for sailing tomorrow morning for the inner sounds.
Later in the afternoon Graham came back from Picton with full jerry cans of fuel. What a gentleman, he has really helped me out. After delivering the fuel we had a beer, him standing in his dinghy alongside and me standing in the cockpit – the statutory two meters apart.
It has been a nice calm warm day in Oyster Bay. I am happy the water tanks are topped up and that I have more diesel on board. Hopefully, enough to last me the next four weeks.
As I write this in the evening, the forecast is for N’ly gale force winds in Cook Strait tomorrow. I may not be able to sail around to the Tory Channel entrance as planned in the morning. First thing tomorrow I will check again and make the final decision.
The Adventures of Captain Ray Penson 
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