My small family spent two years of our lives, essentially stateless, stranded at sea

18,000 kilometers from home, floating on 40 feet of fiberglass. Freedom to transact literally became a matter of life or death. This is our story. Australia locked at citizens out from returning

during the pandemic. My family, wife and three kids, three, five and six 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.

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.

Initially we got locked down for 91 days on our boat in an overseas territory of France.

The Jean-D'Artic, water police, prohibited us from leaving the boat.

We technically weren't even allowed to swim off the boat at anchor.

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.

Hurricane season arrived while we were still in lockdown,

ramping up the stress.

We provisioned to had to see if a hurricane approached.

Stateless, the last resort plan was to drift at sea, waiting out the season.

I studied the weather manically.

Months past, hurricanes became imminent, the outlook dire.

Then Granada saved us.

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