Is your boat still floating?

   POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - Two decades ago we were getting ready to sail our 48-foot sailboat Sabbatical under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific Ocean and - as Mexico-bound sailors still say - turn left.
     It would be the start of a trip I had been dreaming of for years.

Sabbatical in Zihuatenejo, Mexico

     Even so, for many of us heading south to Mexico as part of a race/rally called the Baja-HaHa, sponsored by San Francisco Bay's Latitude 38 sailing magazine, there was more than a touch of anxiety.
     Ocean sailing, even within 10-20 miles of the coast, has plenty of potential perils.
     But a year or so before we turned left, Latitude 38 published a guide for people getting ready to head to Mexico. It contained a reassuring checklist for captains and their crews about how to deal with the manifold problems - large and small - they might encounter.
     It advised that the first question to ask yourself in an emergency was simple:

Is your boat still floating?

     It was the best - and perhaps most obvious - thing to know, miles from shore or anywhere.
     From there the list branched out to things like, "Can you still steer? Can you make the boat move via sails or engine? Is the crew all healthy? Does your two-way radio still work? And so and so and so on down the list that I am sure had "do you still have beer?" somewhere towards the end.
     That article full of nautical (and life) wisdom has been on my mind ever since the coronavirus pandemic started buffeting people's lives like huge waves and winds on the ocean. I tried to adapt it to the complicated situation we face. But somehow saying, "Is your house still standing?" didn't have the same cachet as "Is your boat still floating?"
     But then this morning, a friend from Penn Yan, New York forwarded a very to-the-point helpful piece with advice about how to reset panicky thinking as we deal with COVID-19.
     You may have already seen it on Facebook or Twitter:

     Good advice all around, I think.

     What am I planning for today? Admiral Fox and will take a long walk with the family and Biscuit, our dog.

    And we will keep the above "mindset shift" advice in mind.

    We know the boat is still floating.

Waiting for Mr. Coronavirus

   POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - Everyone reading this is likely in the same boat, so to speak.
The coronavirus has us all hiding out inside our homes. Or if outside, we are wary of anyone getting within 10 feet of us.
     Yes, I know the recommendation is 6 feet. But when you are about to pass someone walking on a sidewalk it's hard to gauge. Ditto for having a small dog on a leash when you pass someone with young children who just have to pet your pooch.
    This is prelude to restating a bit of the bad news you have already received from screeching media sirens of disaster about how quickly this virus is infecting people - and spreading.
    For days I have been fascinated by a virus-case online graphic published by Johns Hopkins.
     Fascinated and horrified.
     The only good news - such as it is - is that it updates every hour of two and doesn't have a running tally in real time where you could watch the number of cases in 167 nations as they pile up.
     It is still startling to log on every couple of hours and see the upticks.

     The screenshot above shows that the total number of confirmed cases worldwide has hit 297,000-plus as of 10:43 a.m. Saturday, March 21.

     A couple of hours before, that number was about 279,000.

     A couple of hours. Jaysus.

     Of course, there's a lot of argument to be had about the world's population being 7.8 billion and that the infection rate of confirmed cases so far represents an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the globe.

     But if you start watching the numbers the way I have, and see how the totals are jumping (for the U.S., especially) you get a mathematical understanding of why health authorities are soooooo freaking insistent on people sheltering-in-place.

     Until we get reliable testing of everyone, any one of us could be carrying the disease, period.

     The cute little kid that wants to pet the dog. The grocery store clerk. The gas station attendant at Costco. Your neighbors who you normally enjoy a glass of wine with. 

     For the moment, we all have to be paranoid to the point of being, well, paranoid.

     The hardest part for me is sitting still while this unseen enemy steadily advances. Like most people, I can barely contain my anger at the federal government and the narcissist-knothead masquerading as president of the United States.

     How many people opined when he was elected that "Trump is going to get us all killed"?

     But at that point the fear was mostly about a nuclear Armageddon, not a microscopic enemy threatening life as we know it.

    There. I feel better having vented. Sorry if it rattled you even more than you might be rattled. But if you got this far, you might take a peek yourself at the Johns Hopkins coronavirus website by following this link:

Johns Hopkins Virus Tracker

     Or maybe not looking is a better strategy.

    Stay safe, amigos, wherever you are.