reopening Archives - Juliet Sailing and Diving

Signs of life are starting to return to the streets and states around the country are slowly reopening their economies for business in whatever this new normal will be. We’re still on standby but here is the latest update:

Miami is beginning the reopening process with many marinas reopened May 18 along with the bulk of other non-essential businesses. Many restrictions on occupancy are still in place, including limiting charter boats to 10 total individuals on board, and our dockage location is not yet open to commercial operations. Also, according to the emergency order categorization we believe we fall under hotel and travel lodging, which have not yet been allowed to reopen but is anticipated for June 1.

The Florida Keys announced they will be reopening to tourism on June 1. If this lines up with hotel also reopening in Miami-Dade, we could be on track for restarting charters in some capacity in early June with the Florida Keys as the destination to start.

As Bimini went into full lock-down for 2 weeks over recent unexpected spreading of Covid-19, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas announced over the weekend that the country anticipates they could reopen for commercial travel on or before July 1. It is still unclear what that means for commercial boating as flights were the only thing mentioned in the address. We hope to be able to return to the beauty of the Bahamas by late June, early July.

In the next few days we’ll be reassessing what traveling on Juliet will look like as we reopen. Not too much will change – our sanitation protocols were already in line with CDC guidance – but some things will as we adjust to abide by local and federal requirements to open our doors and remain in operation. We ask for your help and thank you in advance for keeping us compliant if you are coming on board this summer.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words, encouragement, and overall understand and compassion these past few months. This virus might be terrible and confusing, but it has shone a light on the good that is in the world through all of your kindnesses.

Fair winds.

We are just as antsy as anyone to get back out on the water, and believe us, we are ready to go at a moment’s notice. But there are a few things standing in our way.

While most of the state of Florida is resuming business as usual in early May, the city of Miami is keeping non-essential businesses closed as of this writing until further notice. That puts a bit of a damper on us being able to dock the boat (marinas are considered non-essential), never mind board passengers, provision, etc. Once that is lifted…

The Bahamas has extended it’s State of Emergency until May 30. This means no visitors, sea ports are closed to all private vessels except essential trade, and all hotels and resorts are closed until further notice. They have released a 5-phase plan for reopening the country, and tourism falls into phase 5. There is no time-table set, though some family islands are in phase 1b as of this writing.

If Miami reopens but the Bahamas doesn’t, we can just go to the Florida Keys, right? Not exactly. The Keys will remain closed to tourists and visitors through the end of May at least. Plus Keys trips only work in close-to-perfect weather, which is never guaranteed. It’s a good alternative, not a great only option.

But we don’t touch land, so can’t we go either location because we’re so low risk? Yes, we’re lower risk than most tourism, but if something were to go wrong – we had a medical or mechanical emergency – we would have a long, slow haul back to Miami or risk putting an undue burden on a location that has made it explicitly clear they are not prepared for visitors.

This is hard. This is frustrating. But this will change and we will feel the wind on our face and the salt water on our dive suits as soon as we are able. Hang in there!

Fair winds.

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