It's a seige mentality. Lock everything down, restrict movements, check papers, glove up and mask on.

Here are the papers we have to carry around with us in case we get stopped by the Gendarmes (the police), who patrol the streets, and set up roadblocks to make sure people on the roads have the proper paperwork. We were advised to write the bottom date in pencil so we could erase it and reuse it each time.

They even broke up our morning exercises — one person led the routine, and we were all 6 feet apart on our little yoga mats, but nevertheless apparently considered a group. So the police turned on the lights, pulled over, and told us to disperse back to our boats.

In addition to refraining from rampant grouping activities, we are allowed to go only 1 kilometer from our boat, and cannot go into a grocery store with another person. Dottie and I got nailed by the mall cop in Champion because we broke this rule, and went shopping at the same time, clandestinely talking to each other as we passed in the aisle.

Psst. You see that cheese? Yeah, got one. Me too. Go put yours back. You put yours back. Mines totally better. You sure we need another butter? And what's with the zuchinni? That things like a human leg, there's no way we'll eat all that …

Then, mall cop came around the corner with the store clerk who was so very uncomfortable to have to translate all this.

Yezzz, zzo you know zat you can onlee be in, ahhh, zees store with one person at a time, oui?

I never outright said that Dottie was a stalker and I have no idea who this crazy person was or that I need police protection, only “yes absolutely, I agree with you completely, wow thank you so much for that [cue vigorous nodding]. Soon she was nodding too, had no idea why, and slowly backed out of the aisle to reconvene with mall cop.

Anyway, they didn't throw us in jail, so we didn't get to be stars in the next episode of Locked Up Abroad: The Covid Connection. But now, because we are SUCH law abiders, we go alone to the store so as not to inflame the locals.

In the end, I totally get it. These people have been decimated in the past when people who look like me brought in random viruses. They are a small island nations and can and should do whatever they need to to protect their population.

We are happy to play by their rules while we wait this thing out.