Well… my flight back to WildChild has been booked for less than two weeks now and so far not cancelled by the airline. I have heard of so many sailors having many flights cancelled so I am extremely anxious about my return, there is so much unknown to face.
I have been very busy while back in Canada, I have written and published two full books about my last two years of the sailing adventure. They were hard to write, despite how quickly I accomplished the task, as they are like reliving my past, my dreams, and my nightmares. The things that have caused my PTSD that I have excised from my soul into the therapeutic catharsis of the books is all true stuff, and when you read the books you will understand. JUST WOW
I have also worked hard to try and catch up the YouTube videos for you guys to get a bit closer to real time. I was 15 months behind now I am only 11 months behind. It is very difficult to catch up though because time keeps marching forward and it takes a full day to make a single video, I put a lot of effort into them for you to try and tell a story and not just show you the pretty beach we visited like other channels do. I try really hard to keep my channel commercial free and for sailors by sailors about sailing. I do not want to become a tourism promotion blog or sell you the cruising life dream as do the others. Cold hard reality is all I tell you about, both the raw pure good and the raw painful bad, just reality TV.
Season 2 is now finished and I have mostly skipped the boring parts about the 4 months trapped in Luperon. There will be two collage videos coming about it though to give you the jist of the boredom. I also just finished making two videos about the trip to Haiti last September 2019. They will release first week of November for you. I will say… I cried a lot making them… reliving them… (I am so emotionally sensitive) and these videos were hard to make… but…. they will not be boring.
I have been trying to crank out videos to schedule their releases into the end of December so that when I do return to WildChild soon I can focus on her and get a break from the YouTube work, one project at a time. The blogs however will become active again soon and where you can follow the live story.
***********************************
Covid Stupidity warning long rant coming
Trying to figure out the ever changing Covid stupidity rules is a source of stress that brings me to tears. This is my podium so I will be free to rant here. The world has completely lost its collective mind over this stupid flu. I have now been back in civilization for 3 months now, had access to unlimited high speed internet to research this, and have concluded something else is going on. If you study real statistics, scientific ones, this is a bad flu, nothing more. BUT… logic and reason does not rule the world… the “BE AFRAID” narrative rules everything. I am tired of it now… I just want to be free again… don’t you? Maybe going back to my yacht in the ocean will not be such a bad place to sit this stupid thing out for a while, sit out the coming economic collapse.
Honestly the normal flu has a 0.3% mortality rate (mostly old people)
This Covid has a 0.6% mortality rate for ppl under 60. (but 6.9% over 60)
Ebola had a 60% mortality rate… be afraid of that
The plague had a 40% mortality rate… be afraid of that.
If we weigh out the cost benefit analysis with some reason….
Destroy the world economy… mass unemployment homelessness and hunger… crippling economic debt for future generations to repay…
………….is the cost of saving some lives……….. (But which lives?)
You were never willing to be homeless and unemployed to stop people from dying of cancer hunger or anything else before… what makes this flu worth destroying everything over?
It affects Babyboomers… the wealthy old people with all the power and money… that’s why…. the trillions and trillions of dollars of future debt to keep them all safe and comfy now is a small price for all the young people to pay forever… mortgage their futures.
….. sigh…. ok off my podium now …..
*************************************
So anyway… I need to leave my country… and enter another country… something complicated and hard to do now-a-days. I have been a responsible girl, done everything I am supposed to do, trying to submit to all the stupid rules, make all the necessary arrangements. My flight is booked for November 1st to return. It leaves really early in the morning so I had to arrange a bus to the airport the day before, I will get to sleep on the airport floor YAY 🙁
I have arranged to get a proper PCR Covid test within 7 days before my flight as per Antigua’s rules of entry, to prove I do not have this Flu. I live now in an area with a population and physical size about equal to Antigua with ZERO cases of Covid here. I have been living in self isolation for two weeks before my flight. I have ZERO symptoms of the silly flu, I have not been around anyone with symptoms of the silly flu. I am super sure I do NOT HAVE COVID… but does logic and reason apply… nope.
I have been trying to understand the Antiguan governments ever changing rules. They are always unclear and confusing. You try to figure this out for me… feel free… Noonsite says relax officially Antigua is open. The government website often says one thing and then the president of the country comes out the next day and says something unambiguous and unclear contradicting the official stuff. They are a confused unclear place at best.
Look more into it…
So okay… try to go on the Government of Antigua website directly and see for myself… but it does not help much…
Okay so I go click more directly into the official government edicts page and do not find much help there either. I read through pages and pages of crap all the time trying to find clarity… but you know “its a fluent dynamic ever changing situation“… so constantly changing… this shit is very hard to make plans around. I am trying to plan my life here in the middle of this stupid shit and they do not make it easy do they…
So the airport is open then… I am allowed to return to my yacht.. my home… but it seems maybe they will randomly force me into a quarantine… and maybe not… at their discretion…
Okay… whatever… I have already been through so many stupid quarantines already… what’s one more… so IF they do force my into a quarantine upon arrival what does that mean? That is unclear too.
In the past.. in an attempt to force generation of tourism money… they have forced people into expensive resorts at their own expense to generate economic income. I don’t have money to waste for this… I don’t have a few extra thousands of dollars to reassure them I do not have Covid… that’s why I showed up with a negative covid test … what was the point of paying for the Covid test if they just ignore the results?
If they force me into Quarantine (against my will) do they pay for it? shouldn’t they pay for it? or at least provide it free… It is unclear.
*********************
To make things worse the Jolly Harbour marina is adding their own extra layer of complexity to the stupid situation… they are holding our boats hostage to ensure forced compliance… they have added extra paperwork and security measures to keep us away from our boats. They “take Covid very seriously” yes I am sure they do.
They are having a great year… more full than ever. It is costing me a forced $1000cdn a month to store my boat there… they did not lower their marina fees out of compassion for those of us that got trapped there by Covid… they will not consider waiving future fees if people cannot return to Antigua as scheduled because of future Covid stupidity… they will just keep charging you these crazy high fees and getting rich off our collective sailor misfortune. If I cannot afford to keep paying them after November they just steal and sell my boat. They win win if we are kept away.
It would be nice if the corporate entity released an good news e-mail… something like
“hey sailors… relax… come get your boat whenever you are able to… we will not charge you any extra fees if Covid forces you to stay away longer… we take safety very seriously and we just want to do what is best… ” but this will never happen huh? Always look for the money as motive.
Instead the message is…. we are working hard to make it as difficult as possible to come back to your boat… and we will keep charging you our very high marina fees as we all try to keep you away… no exceptions.
If everything I own was not in and on WildChild I’d rather walk away than deal with this much stupidity… but I cannot… I must face it… walk straight into the stupidity… completely submit to it… and open my purse and prepare to be robbed. Just be vulnerable again. It doesn’t feel good…. really. I stay focused on the eventual end result… I will be back on WildChild in the ocean and free again eventually. There are just hoops to jump thru between me and my girls freedom.
The thing that actually helps me to sleep at night… in the face of so much stupidity… is that the Antiguan people themselves… individually… are very nice and well educated people. There is a chance the Airport Health officials will be reasonable. Humanity is the only hope here.
and so… I am very nervous about my return… I have trouble sleeping at night… so much stress worry and fear… facing so much unknown… If I was a rich old Babyboomer this would not stress me so much, I could just throw money at the problem… but I have very little money left after the first financial raping they gave me last June.
BUT… I AM A SAILOR CAPTAIN… WE ARE STRONG SMART AND TOUGH… WE FACE THIS KINDA SHIT ON THE OCEAN ALL THE TIME DON’T WE… FACE THE UNKNOWN
**********************************
So this just arrived as I was writing this blog. It seems the boat yard is making up their own rules irrespective of what the government does. They are forcing me into a resort stay. Who knows how they are in cahoots with the local resort businesses. They are also trying to deny boat owners access to our boats and trying to pressure us to just leave our boats in their yard indefinitely and keep paying them the $1000cdn a month storage fees forever.
So it looks like they are already trying to rob me again. This will probably cause me to run out of money before I can sail home… so I will probably starve out there before I get back. They are stealing my future grocery money. Always follow the money. They have me over a barrel and they are determined to squeeze huh. There were a bunch more emails that followed that I have not included.
**********************************
PREPARING FOR MY RETURN
As for me personally… I have been shopping online while home. I have been collecting those things I will need on my boat to go forward. I have bought the things I could not buy out there, or that will be so ridiculously expensive out there in the islands.
I am most excited about a new BBQ burner replacement. The one on my boat BBQ rusted into dust like a year ago. It will be nice to have a functioning BBQ again. Also I bought a cheap drone, a cheap action camera, and a selfie stick so maybe the season 4 videos will get better for you. I do not make any money from my YouTube videos, and I do not have very much money left in savings to live on, so I am hesitant to spend the big bucks to give you nicer videos for free… but I am trying to with my very limited budget.
The other personal thing is… I am still limping from the foot surgery I had about 3 weeks ago to remove that broken needle that was imbedded in my toe. I am not exactly sure why the surgeon had to fillet me and take the needle out sideways but he did. I think I have nerve damage now. The toe is mostly numb, but if I try to bear weight on it I get shooting nerve pain. It feels sort of the same way it feels to stick a 9volt battery to your tongue. Like shooting electricity. That cannot be good.
To be completely open I am very tired of limping when I walk. A six month limp feels like more than enough suffering to me. I did not leave the needle on the floor of my boat. I am still suffering for it… but I do not want to anymore. If I am lucky the wound will be closed enough to be protected from the risk of infection by the time my flight leaves. I suspect full healing will take a long time though. I also hope the nerve damage is temporary, the doctor seems to think the nerve damage will go away in 6 months, here is to hoping. I just would love to be able to walk normally again, to be healthy and strong to return to the ocean as a chic sailor captain.
Sooo… sorry if this was a bit ranty sailors and sailor fans… its just the situation now.
Hopefully the next blog will tell you how wonderful the return flight went… how great the government of Antigua was to deal with… and how wonderfully helpful the Jolly Harbor boat yard was in helping me get WildChild launched again.
Cheers
Captain Lexi….
…………… the almost healed and almost strong again …………