Well I have had a very peaceful easy and boring life for the last week, no drama, so that’s good. After the drama left the yacht everything onboard returned to its usual peaceful existence again. I spent 3 days anchored alone in the cove then moved and have spent the last 4 days alone here in Deep Bay. I am beginning to see the pattern that I seem to be safer when I am alone. The biggest danger to me out here, the biggest cause of hurt, seems to be human beings.

 

 

Recovering From Harm

The insanity that the most recent crew brought with them into my world left deep emotional scars on my soul. It is not the first time I have been hurt in life though, so my ability to recover seems to only get stronger over time. I solo sailed WildChild just a mile down the bay to anchor alone in “the cove” as the chart plotter calls it. There, it seems, I had inadvertently anchored outside of the Coast Guard station so I did take some comfort from that, at least help would not be so far away. Also I had the bay to myself, which I am beginning to prefer.

 

I sat there alone for a few days to reclaim my center and just think and breathe again. My teddy bear, ever my constant companion, who is never mean to me, kept me company while I healed. To be honest I did not do much of anything for the first two days. I mostly just laid around and let my mind process what it needed to. Meditation helps to find your center again and I needed to recover.

What was interesting from where I was anchored, right off the commercial port facility that China just built for them, was watching the operations on the docks. I watched the cranes moving shipping containers around and tug boats help position the huge cargo ships.

Processing the mental information to find my healing place again has revealed a few things to me. I know myself, there is a reason I am an engineer, math makes sense to me, it is comforting and consistent. I have a degree in psych and ten years studying and working in the field but never found such comfort with human beings. People are not so clean and neat as mathematics are they?

I used to operate under the assumption that my inability to understand other peoples behaviour was my short coming. I have decided I am not the problem. I am not socially retarded, as I had previously thought myself to be.

I have decided… that human beings are very messy… very complicated…  and mostly operate unconsciously. I think very few people are self aware or thoughtful and reflective like I am. I think most people have no idea why they act behave and say the things they do. If most people have no idea what they are doing or why, I can be forgiven for having a hard time catching up to, and figuring out, their unconscious programming. I am not the problem.

I think I am safer alone

 

 

Also, after analyzing the behaviour of my last crew, an American…  I have to wonder what has gone so wrong with your society as to produce people like this? I get that I live in an information black hole out here alone on a yacht in the Caribbean, so I am like pure or unaffected from the never ending stream of propaganda the rest of you are being feed 24/7, but that girl had so much crazy shit implanted by your society into her head. You all are a mess, you should fix your society, reclaim it from the propaganda machines and try reading old books. I am currently reading William Somerset Maugham, just splendid stuff.

This got me to thinking further about the allure of my lifestyle. Maybe this living on a sailboat in the Caribbean is so attractive to so many people because it represents the ultimate unplugging from the machine. Maybe millions of you have figured out that all your societies have gone mad and many of you seek a way to escape the constant control and domination. Maybe I have found the magic eject button from society.

I used to dream constantly about anxiously awaiting my return to society. I remember that I used to be so wealthy, just like you are now, that I could have a shower with unlimited water anytime I wanted to. I could turn on lights at night without nary a concern for running out of electricity. I had a machine to wash my clothes and clean my dishes, just like you take for granted now. I could drive anywhere I wanted to, go to any food source I craved, go for a walk anytime I wanted to. So much luxury you live in and take for granted….   but now I think about the cost…

Society has given you many comforts but exacted a terrible toll of slavery and repression. Wasting your life away working at a job only to give away your paycheck at the end of every month to the banks who own you. A cost of living going up and up, your wages going down, your debt loads soar you into eternal servitude. The price of your comforts are high.

With seldom any free time to enjoy a sunset, you surrender all your precious freedoms and do not even seem to know it. Police everywhere enforcing millions and millions of stupid rules. Governments justifying unlimited repression and stealing all your rights and freedoms while you are denied even a whimper of objection… intelligent discord stolen from you.

…starting to sound horrible to me actually…

Maybe I am better off alone and safer out here in the tropical heat on my boat than surrounded by so many people forming a society of insanity. I have given up many creature comforts for my freedom, but I really do cherish my freedom. I do basically still live an easy life, crazy crew problems aside.

I am not the crazy one….

Your whole society is

is this what crazy people say..?   hmmm…

 

Boat life creeps back in

 

For the first few days I only sat around and thought about things. Once that was processed I returned to my simple boat life. There is a never ending to-do list on any sailboat that was accumulating, chores that needed my attention. I ran the water maker many times to replenish the depleted water stores on board. Conserved electricity to get my drained batteries recharged from recent over use.

 

The other day the arm that holds up my front hatch failed. Originally I had put it on the needs to be replaced list, but then got to thinking….  what exactly was wrong? Sailors are super good and figuring out how to fix stuff, and engineers love to figure out how things work, how they were designed. I thought at the very least a Root-Cause-Failure-Analysis was in order before I made the decision to dispose of the old failed arm.

It seems… the cheap poor quality metal it is made from, failed. The female threads where the tightening knob threads into had simply ground away over time. Teddy and I analyzed the thing and decided that we could drill a new hole 130 degrees beside the original hole and tap new threads into it. We could rebuild a new female “nut” for the screw to fit into. It took me a while to figure out but for the record it was a metric M6 x 1.0 thread. I fixed it as good as new so saved myself some money there.

 

Another little project I have been working on…  when I was back in Canada a while ago, I took advantage of the unlimited access to stuff and bought myself a replacement hand held VHF radio. My old one died in Luperon a year ago… two year ago now..?   hmmm…

Using my friends Amazon account I ordered this brand new radio and brought it back here with me. However, the charger failed after only 3 or 4 uses. It was rather disappointing, mostly because it was a lot of money I can barely afford to spend, now wasted, but also I have little to no access to a remedy out here.

Using my fancy dandy electronics engineering degree I did open and diagnose the problem. It seems the circuit board for the charging unit was rusted before I bought it. I did try to clean the corrosion bridges on the board to no avail. A perfectly good radio that I could not charge was a problem.

Well….  I have new crew coming at the first of July… and she has agreed to bring along any items I might need. Not wanting to waste this golden opportunity I contacted the supplier and pleaded my case to them. CEDAR electronics was awesome to deal with. A real human being handled my email request for help. I provided reasonable documentation of purchase and explained the problem. David was happy to help and has mailed a free warranty replacement charger to my next crews home.

🙂    YAY   YAY   YAY   🙂

This was like pulling off a miracle and has made me happy. Radio saved.

 

There has also been the matter of finishing cleaning my hull waiting patiently on my to-do list for 3 weeks now. I cleaned the port side alone before my last crew came when I was anchored off Freyes point. She said she would help me clean the other half when she came, she loves swimming she told me. Well… you know… that never happened and two weeks of my life was wasted dealing with that nightmare.

Well, now that I have a peaceful life again and lots of free time I decided I should probably finish that chore soon. Yesterday, anchored alone in crystal clear waters in Deep Bay, I decided to finish the job. I dawned my snorkeling gear and my scraper and jumped into the water.

 

One of the things that concerns me greatly about swimming here in Deep Bay, is the jet-skiis. The resort here rents out jet-skiis to their tourist guests who run full speed around any anchored yachts. Most bays with grass bottoms around here have turtles in them but not this bay, the jet-skiis have long ago killed them all off. Turtles are too slow and vulnerable to high speed boats. Swimmers like me are also very vulnerable to the high speed demons too.

 

 

After an hour of hull scraping, where I am proud to report I did not pass out in the water once, I finished getting the hull cleaned. I must say I am still so impressed with this bottom paint. 7 months in tropical warm waters and still very little marine growth.

What do you think…. pretty sexy huh…   🙂

 

sigh….   I know… you land people have no idea how satisfying a clean hull is, how sexy and wonderful and joy inducing this above image is…  Boat hulls in water all develop marine growth on them, this is the bane of sailor existence and our eternal reality. If we are lucky we are in waters warm enough, and safe enough, for us to dive and clean our hull ourselves. There is no escaping this chore… but this bottom paint is like a godsend, it works so well.

After finishing my hull cleaning yesterday I decided to go get my go-pro and have a look at my anchor. It helps us Captains sleep better at night if we know we have a good set on our anchor. I thought since I am in the water anyway, and there was a slight pause in the jet-ski activity, I would risk swimming out to check on my anchor.

For all you sailors out there…. this is what a perfectly set anchor looks like.

 

I have said it hundreds of times but I am going to say it again…

I JUST LOVE MY ROCKNA ANCHOR…!

 

The other good news for me is that I have finally found an artist to help me get my latest book finished. It is very different than any of my other published books so far. It is written in the style of the great book “Johnathan Livingston Seagull“, simple story with deep meaning and lots of illustrations.

I have gotten tired of waiting for Alex the local artist to find free time to help me. I found a young lady in America to help me. She is great and we have been working together online. She had finished the cover art and the first 2 of 19 sketches for the book. Depending on the pace she can work at I am hoping to have this book published in mid July.

I have a little busy-ness to attend to that will monopolize my time soon.

 

Hurricane Season Approaches

 

As you know, the Caribbean does frequently get hit by hurricanes. I have never witnessed one personally, but after viewing the devastation of many of them, I know I never want to see one. The entire reason I have been working so hard to find crew is that I need help to get south soon, hurricane season started 2 weeks ago. My great hope was the last girl, and that went badly. My new hope is a girl named Candy, also an American, whom I have been corresponding with for the last several months. She has agreed to come help me get south.   yay….  🙂

I know my track record of being able to find and select good people to crew for me is not so good. I know my ability to identify and avoid the predators is terrible. I know I attract predators, they seem to find and select me. My people radar is awful and I know I cannot trust my instincts.   but…. that all said….  I have a good feeling about my next crew. All indicators are she seems to be a lovely balanced human being, intelligent, thoughtful and very kind.

Time will tell

The plan is simple enough. Sail straight shot from Antigua to Grenada. All the countries in between are closed due to “Covid restrictions” anyway. Pre-pandemic times I could have easily solo sailed day hoping from island to island. Now… due to restrictions and price gouging… this is no longer possible. WildChild will have to make the 300 nautical mile sail in a single shot. I really do not want to suffer this and do it the hard way… but social reasoning is this keeps the world safe..?   whatever…

 

 

I know you land people never worry about the possibility of being killed or kidnaped by pirates, but I do. Us sailors read every report, study every incident we can find out about. I know when I say pirates you first think of the 1700’s… then you think of Somali pirates.

The reality is… the second worst pirate waters in the world right now are off the coast of Venezuela. That entire country is starving and desperately ruined. The pirate attacks off their coast is so bad the local fishermen in Trinidad are afraid to fish even a mile off their own coast. The pirate activity within 50 miles of the Venezuelan coast is severe and terrifying. There have been hundreds of kidnappings in the last few years. There are YouTube videos you can watch to understand this stuff better if you are interested.

Few sailors risk going south to Trinidad anymore.

There was a report just a few months ago of pirates going after fishermen as far north as the east coast of St. Lucia. There is an active drug trade down here that motivates them to come this far north. And… if they can snag a sailboat or sailor for ransom along the way, they do.

Martinique seems to be the cap on the problem. They have a professional navy and helicopters at their disposal. They actually do patrol their waters and will respond with force to any pirate incursions. So up here in Antigua I feel pretty safe. Once you get south of Martinique though, to poor islands with no navy and no coastal water controls… not so safe anymore.

I know the odds of probability of pirates finding me is low… maybe only 1% chance. But it is not a zero percent chance. I worry. I know I am a worrier… and I know it is not a huge gamble, it is a calculated risk. Still… I worry.

Two years ago, when I sailed from Barbados around the south end of Grenada, a sailboat a week before me was shot up by pirates just ten miles south of Grenada, in the same waters I passed thru. I know full well bad things can and do happen in the real world. This stuff haunts my nightmares.

Also the poor people in Dominica and St. Lucia and especially St. Vincent, where the recent volcano eruption and financial collapse of the government has lead to hunger, lawlessness and desperation, these people might find a passing yacht tempting too.

Calculated risks right…

I will, of course, do everything possible to be smart and stay as safe as possible.

I am also unsure how long this trip will take. It is not a simple distance divided by speed calculation. It depends on how well my new crew does. We might decide to heave-to a few times for rest and to make meals. I am unsure how much I will reef down at night when I am sleeping, slow the boat for safety. It will depend on how well my crew can perform… and right now this is an unknown variable.

There is also the government robbery problem to consider.

Understand that these governments down here would never give up a golden opportunity to profiteer off this medical pandemic. They will pick our pockets as much as possible for permission to move to a different island.

To go from Antigua to Grenada we need to…

Pay for a PCR Covid test in Antigua…   $200usd… yes even though the local people only pay $40 for the same test… and yes even if you are fully vaccinated. The government is entitled to pick your pocket, after all… you have no choice.

Then I will have to pay Antigua a bunch of fees for permission to leave. I have no idea what they are, they do get you for monthly charges though.

Then when we arrive in Grenada… we have to pay them again for another PCR Covid test $150usd… upon arrival. Yes even if fully vaccinated… yes even though you showed up with a recent negative test with no symptoms.

Then we have to pay them to use their mandatory mooring balls for our “quarantine”… because you know… anchoring is obviously way less covid safe…? They must have a study proving covid risk is higher for anchored boats vs boats paying for a mooring ball.

If they really did care about Covid safety these tests would be free, as they are everywhere else in the first world. If this was not about robbery then the price we pay would be the same price everyone pays. If it was about Covid safety there would be no reason for the second test…. if we were tested negative… came from a low covid country…. sailed non-stop as they demand… and quarantine as they demand…  there would be no need for the second expensive test…

except… each country deserves a shot at your wallet.

It is about money not covid safety.

So all told… it will probably cost about $900usd for permission for us to change countries. This is rather expensive.

Grrrr…..  I think China owes me about $10,000 and 16 months of my life back so far.

***

Well…  I have another ten days in beautiful Antigua alone before my new crew arrives and we begin her intensive training for the big jump coming soon. I am hoping to be able to see local friends soon. A week alone on my yacht and I get hungry for human contact again.

 

 

Cheers

Captain Lexi

 

….  the soft gentle kind girl safely alone in her yacht in Antigua …