Content pfp
Content
@
0 reply
0 recast
0 reaction
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
1/34 My small family spent two years of our lives essentially stateless, stranded at sea, 18,000km from home, floating on 40ft of fiberglass. 'Freedom to transact' literally became a matter of life or death. This is our story👇
32 replies
39 recasts
131 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
2/34 Australia locked its citizens out from returning during the pandemic. My family (wife and three kids 3, 5 and 6 months old) were sailing on a catamaran in the eastern Caribbean at the time. We ended up there for two years waiting out the pandemic.
4 replies
0 recast
21 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
3/34 When the pandemic hit, we essentially became stateless. For a time, all countries within sailing distance closed their borders to Australian-flagged vessels. No flights or cruise ships. My son couldn't renew his passport, and we had to get him temporary (refugee) papers.
1 reply
0 recast
17 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
4/34 Initially, we got locked down for 91 days on our boat in an overseas territory of France. The gendarme nautique (water police) prohibited us from leaving the boat. We technically weren't even allowed to swim off the boat at anchor.
1 reply
0 recast
20 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
5/34 Early on, desperate to get the kids some exercise, we took the dinghy to an isolated beach. The gendarme came with guns and megaphones to enforce our isolation. The next day, a mini aircraft carrier arrived, and military control was implemented on the island.
1 reply
0 recast
17 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
6/34 Hurricane season arrived while we were still in lockdown, ramping up the stress. We provisioned to head to sea if a hurricane approached; stateless, the last resort plan was to drift at sea, waiting out the season. I studied the weather manically.
1 reply
0 recast
16 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
7/34 Months passed, hurricanes became imminent, the outlook dire; then Grenada saved us. They let 1,200 stranded boats in, despite their borders being completely shut. A tiny poor country was saving us when my own affluent country was blocking its citizens. This hit home hard.
3 replies
1 recast
30 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
8/34 We sailed 3 days non-stop to Grenada. Too late in the season, we faced terrible weather, experiencing multiple frontal systems, winds of 30-40+ knots, and at one point, three tornadic waterspouts closed in around us while the gooseneck bolt on the boom vibrated loose.
1 reply
0 recast
17 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
9/34 Two more weeks of quarantine, then freedom after 4 months restricted to the boat. NOAA then issued a hurricane warning with a track map directly over us. We scrambled to prepare and tie to the mangroves. Thankfully, it fizzled out and passed just south of us (blue dot).
1 reply
0 recast
16 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
10/34 As time went by, we became forgotten citizens. 'Freedom to Transact' issues began to arise. We had been living in Canada for the 3 years prior on global expert visas. Canada had also locked us out (it remained open to citizens & PR but not to work visa holders).
1 reply
0 recast
17 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
11/34 Our Canadian bank cards expired, and we needed to physically be in Canada to activate new ones. Subsequently, our online banking account was suspended for suspicious activity. Again, we were required to go into a branch to remedy, which was impossible.
1 reply
0 recast
16 reactions
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
12/34 Our Australian bank access also became restricted. After roaming overseas for too long, our Australian phone SIMs expired and we lost access to our 2FA numbers needed for access to our bank accounts there.
2 replies
0 recast
14 reactions
max @ devcon ↑🎩 pfp
max @ devcon ↑🎩
@baseddesigner.eth
how could your sim card get expired? you stopped paying for the card while overseas / run out of money on account to get charged for it and then it got disabled and you couldn’t open bank app to pay?
1 reply
0 recast
0 reaction
intrepid ⛵️ pfp
intrepid ⛵️
@intrepid
No they just have time limits on roaming overseas (this is normal even sims like Google Fi have roaming time limits. Also in Australia unlike the US etc you cant just get a sim card and register it you actually need to present photo ID when registering a SIM and it has to connect to a local network in Australia (not a foreign network) before it activates. They brought this in as 'anti terror' laws after 9/11
1 reply
0 recast
1 reaction