Don Larson's "boat" Chickcharnie is currently marooned by itself in a marina in northern Belize. Larson is working to find someone to move it to its home port in Guatemala where it will be out of the hurricane zone.
Don Larson has spent the last 22 winters fishing and cruising off the Central America coastline. Due to the coronavirus, both Larson and his partner Rosie Strope ended up staying out on the open waters a lot longer than expected.
"This year we got down and got our boat ready to go, got out there and they closed all the borders," Larson said. "We were marooned for three months!"
According to the news company Reuters, many Central and South American countries opted to close their borders as early as March 15 to stop the coronavirus from spreading. This effectively stranded Larson and hundreds of internationals on ships in the Gulf of Mexico. Many countries have still not reopened to United States citizens.
Larson guided his 48-foot trawler to the Gulf of Mexico from a Guatemala river as usual. As he made it out to international waters, Guatemala decided to shut off its ports from outsiders to protect from the pandemic sweeping the world.
Belize and Honduras soon followed suit and closed their borders too. With no way back to land, the couple had to make do with what was on the ship and in the ocean. Yet it wasn't time to panic for the couple.
"We made our own water, we have our own generation through solar power and we have a freezer," said Larson.
The rest of it came from Mother Nature. According to Larson, the Gulf of Mexico region is full of opportunities to fish.
"We have three of the five atolls in the Western hemisphere," Larson said explaining that an atoll is an ecosystem that rises thousands of feet from the ocean filled with life. "We anchor off those and hang out."
Besides the fish, Larson and Strope also went to port for supplies, but could not leave the ship.
After quite some time living off of seafood, Larson found a state department-sponsored flight back to the US. The restitution flights were to help stranded Americans in Central America and they jumped right for it.
"I happened to find out it was leaving in four days," said Larson. "We got on no problem. We had the last two seats on the flight."
If Larson and Strope opted to stay on the boat and wait out the border freeze, they would still be off the coast of Belize. Instead, they left the boat parked illegally off the coast of Belize. Not only are they expecting to pay thousands in fines but also a worry of a hurricane destroying the ship.
"The reason we park it in Guatemala is because it is below the 18th parallel, the boundary for hurricanes to form. Belize is not," said Larson.
He was thinking of flying down in the event of a hurricane and trying to move the boat. He hopes the border to Guatemala would be open by then. Though there is still a concern about what happens to his situation in Belize, Larson is glad to be back in Seeley.
"I wanted to kiss the ground the second I got back," said Larson. " I'm very happy to be here."
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