Well… I am not sure exactly what to tell you. I think the last time I spoke with you we were in Mayreau and I had safety concerns. Much has happened since then and suddenly my blogs are somehow already behind my reality. Of course some very interesting stories have occurred since then. We have left Carriacou and sailed on up to Mayreau in the Grenadines where we got stuck for a few days due to extremely bad weather in the North Atlantic. We hit bottom due to a bunch of small errors compounding when we left Mayreau. We sailed into Lovely safe Bequia and then on to the not so safe island of St. Vincent, where we spent a few days exploring. Right now we arrived in the french island of Martinique and are at anchor in St. Anne’s.
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Anatomy of a Grounding
Personally I think this is an interesting story slash life lesson worth expounding upon. Please bear with me as I go back in time with you to last week. If you remember we had anchored off the small Grenadine island of Mayreau which is technically part of the St. Vincent island chain. We had just gotten ripped off by the random boat guy in Union island as our introduction to the Grenadines.
We sailed quickly out of there 8 miles north to the lovely little island of Mayreau. There we remained at anchor for about 4 days as the north Atlantic Nastiness caused uncharacteristically strong winds all the way down here in the Caribbean. Although WildChild’s deep and urgent call homeward and north to Canada calls upon my soul I remain wise enough to respect the moods of the ocean.
I think that despite the iffy reviews of St. Vincent most of the Grenadine island chain reviews remain relatively positive. I was a bit nervous at first to leave the dinghy (locked up but unattended) on the shores of Mayreau but the local inhabitants actually seemed rather chill and docile. Cruise ships dock there for the lovely beach and the locals seem to understand how important the tourism was/is for the economic well being of their tiny impoverished island. They seem to understand their inherent personal benefit for not messing with the tourists.
We had a lovely time on their small island and felt pretty safe walking among the locals. No worries. Although the locals are kind of shy about talking to the tourists I found that if I say hello in a friendly manner and give a little wave almost all of them open up with a friendly greeting. Of course you have to understand you are also inviting them to try and get into your wallet as often they begin to try and sell you something, but you can’t really blame the poor people for trying.
Well Saturday Feb 15th we found a sufficient weather window to make our jump north out of Mayreau up to Bequia. The reviews for Bequia are some of the best in the whole of the Caribbean island chain and it is considered a lovely and very safe place to anchor and spend time, as it was highly recommended by our Barbados friends.
So it was at around 8am last Tuesday when the crew of WildChild got up a bit early to get ready for our easy day sail north to Bequia. The weather was a bit cloudy but otherwise fine and the crew was in good spirits. I put Elena on the helm, the position she always takes and is comfortable with, and Mr. Kol and I went forward to raise the anchor.
It should be noted for this story that Elena has done this dozens and dozens of times, she has been taught what to do at the helm during the anchor raising and the hoisting of the sails many times and has much experience doing this part. As the Captain I am always ultimately responsible for everything all of my crew does and I admit that on this morning I had assumed Elena would be okay on her own at the helm, all my attention was on teaching Mr. Kol.
At first I wanted to raise the sails while still on the anchor but had decided at the last minute that the crazy mountain wind gusts made this an unwise plan. So I had changed the plan to raise the main sail just a little further away from the anchorage but still within the wind protection of the mountains.
If you pay attention to the images above the wind was coming from the east and all the boats at anchor were thus facing that direction, into the wind. So after the anchor was lifted, with Kolja and I still on the bow, I directed Elena to motor straight down wind for about 500 meters, then turn into the wind, heading straight back east towards the anchored boats so Mr. Kol and I could get the mainsail raised. Usually I can get the mainsail up within about 200 meters but gave myself an extra 300 meters of sea room to execute the manoeuvre.
What I did not see, because I was not at the helm was that Elena had not gone due west dead down wind but had gone kind of a bit WNW and a bit closer to the point and the danger bouy marking the shallows. We were still pretty far away from the land so it seemed to me visually we still had sufficient sea room. I gave the order “Turn into the wind… prepare to raise the main…” Mr. Kol and I got ready on the main halyard to raise the main quickly, it should only take us about a minute to finish.
As we begin to raise the main we have to stop 8 feet up because Elena does not have the boat into the wind. We wait for her to correct whatever is happening and get us back dead into the wind, time is ticking by. I think the winds we were in further offshore were not as steady as the winds closer in. Elena had trouble finding the true wind direction, time is ticking by. I holler back at her… “Elena where are you going… head into the wind…” time is ticking by and we are losing valuable sea room.
What I failed to realize is that Elena was not heading straight back into the deep enough anchorage but she was moving north east into the shallows of the point, and I cannot see the chart plotter so I do not know it. Elena knows, has been clearly trained, is that the person on the helm is responsible for the safety of the boat, they can and should override anything I say if they see the boat is at risk. Safety first. Elena stayed silent and did not mention anything to me that we were heading into shallow waters. She silently watched the depth begin to get shallower without uttering a word of warning or calling off the manoeuvre. On deck I did not catch these tiny mistakes beginning to compound, and I was responsible for her and these mistakes she was making. I am focused on Mr. Kol, over watching him to make sure he does not make any mistakes, and help us get the main sail up as quickly as possible.
Elena has driven the boat, too fast, straight past the danger bouy and into the rocky shallow dangerous waters off the point. Suddenly on the deck, as I am tightening the boom vang I look overboard beside us and I clearly see rocks and shallow water. I urgently holler back to her… “ELENA DANGER… FALL OFF… FALL OFF…. ” but instead of turning towards the deeper water to the south she spins the boat towards the rocks to the north, she turns the wrong way!
I start scrambling back to the helm and BAM…! we hit a rock on the bottom hard…! The boat shudders from the impact but climbs over the rock and keeps moving forward. I get to the helm yelling .. “… NEUTRAL NEUTRAL…” as I know that slow motion crashes cost less. I grab the wheel and put us hard over towards the deeper waters and we all hold our breaths wondering if we are about to get grounded on the rocks. A few scrapes but slowly we drift into deeper waters.
I am looking at the chart plotter and NMEA bus displaying all the necessary information to tell Elena this was dangerous but somehow she didn’t see it? or didn’t understand it?… she drove us straight into danger and didn’t react properly to the information she had in front of her. Elena was making small errors that kept compounding and I did not catch it. This is how all disasters happen… small mistakes that quickly start adding together to create a dangerous situation. And these small mistakes are SO EASY TO MISS…!
This is what I later texted my friend about. Being the Captain is SO FREAKIN STRESSFUL..! I do not enjoy this Captains stress. This grounding is all my responsibility. The buck always stops with the captain on the ocean… there is no bullshit or weaselly excuses to get out of this ultimate responsibility, mother nature does not accept good excuses she just spanks you.
Although having a third crew member on the boat, in many ways, makes all our lives easier it also brings to me, the captain, an additional level of stress. Now I have to always have room in my mind to over watch two people. I must always be mentally thinking about what they know and what they are doing at all times. I have to try and find their tiny invisible mistakes before they start adding together…. AND THIS IS VERY HARD TO DO… VERY STRESSFUL. I mean I love having Kolja’s help on the yacht but he makes all kinds of small mistakes on things and in places that completely surprise me. It is really stressful for me to anticipate what things he might screw up. So I have to be extra mentally alert to his actions, and it seems remain completely cognizant of Elena’s actions as well. I had assumed that her hundreds of hours of experience performing this manoeuvre meant that I did not have to mentally watch over her shoulder and I was wrong. There were tiny subtle clues around me in my environment at the time that should have alerted me to Elena’s mistakes and I missed them.
This is Captains stress. Only other captains can really understand this. The enormous and constant responsibility of being the captain of a small sailing yacht in the big nasty ocean. This is life and death stuff we have to face all the time. Complete disaster is never far away and we have only our experience intelligence and wits to ward off the “bad day”. This is also why I want out. It is not fun for me to face so much stress, it ages me.
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St. Vincent and Boat Boys
As we sailed our way north to Bequia then onto St. Vincent a couple days later WildChild kept making a weird vibrating humming noise every time our speed got up to 6 knots. It seemed like something was wrong, something was damaged. The sail itself was common enough, we close hauled starboard tac in 12-25 knots of wind which often got squirrely and shifty on us. Hard sailing but nothing new to WildChild. The last 5 miles to get into our planned port of call in St. Vincent took us an agonizing 3 flippin hours to finish. I admit to getting very frustrated with mother for her very unco-operative moodiness. Winds and currents just fought us all the way into the port of ChateauBlaire.
Eventually though, as we got closer to the wind and wave protection the mountains afforded, we began making progress into the bay still about an hour and a half before sunset. We are all tired and hungry and looking forward to some rest as soon as we got the anchor securely down.
Here comes another interesting story. Now I openly and freely admit to being a worrier. It is my job to forecast possible dangers and avoid them. There is not a big chance of running into pirates out here but it does happen many times every year. Most boats sail happily around but some do sink. Most locals are lovely people but many many dinghies and dinghy engines do get stolen around here every year. Personally if our dinghy or outboard did get stolen it would not be an expense we could NOT afford, and you can bet my crew will in no way financially contribute to replacing them.
St. Vincent was an iffy decision for me to make, to decide if we should visit the island or not. It is poor and it is high crime. Read the reviews for the island and you will understand why most cruisers skip this island entirely. BUT… the reviews for ChateauBlaire in the middle were actually not so bad. It seems as though there are enough positive reviews that we decided to see for ourselves. The reviews do warn about the “boat boys” which is locals who paddle out to your boat to try and sell you things. We don’t mind this so much as long as they do not get aggressive and accept the answer “no thank you”.
As we were approaching the bay in ChateauBlaire we see some boys on paddle boards in the bay moving directly into our path and waving at us. I keep steering corrections to avoid running them over but they are deliberately moving themselves into our path of travel. I am forced to slow down. 500 meters before we even get to our chosen anchor spot the boat boys are hanging onto our lifelines trying to get our attention and talk to us. Their eyes are searching the contents of our cockpit and trying to peer down below. I get a bad feeling, this is not a good start.
The boys are absolute pests and constantly in our way as we are trying to get the boat anchored. They are hanging onto our lifelines, banging their paddle boards into my hull, and even at one point directly under our dinghy up on the davits holding onto our rear boarding ladder, WHILE WE ARE STILL MOVING! They interfere so much with our ability to manoeuvre and get our boat to anchor I have to yell at them several times to get off the boat and move out of the way. They keep smiling but they will not go away. They make the process of anchoring so much harder than it needs to be but eventually we get our hook securely down.
Now I am not sure if it is because we ourselves on WildChild are young people, which is rare out here, or because these boys are mesmerized by the sight of a chic captain in a pink bikini, but these boys refused to go away. We want them to go away but we also do not want to be too rude or aggressive towards them as to cause them to want to come back in the dark and rob us. We stay polite and friendly but we keep asking them to leave. They refuse and more of them come over. We are polite and kind but consistent, no thank you we do not want to buy anything, no we will not give you things from our boat, no you cannot have my tablet, we are very tired and hungry we want to go down below and rest now, please go. They will not. It takes us 2 hours to get them to go away after the sunsets.
I have about $800 worth of fuel and Jerry cans on my deck I fear they might come liberate in the dark. I am trying to be polite but consistent please go away. The younger one in the green, yellow, and blue striped shirt in the image above is 17 years old. He begins hitting on me. He wants to be my boyfriend. I am kind of shocked, he is just a kid why is he trying to get into my pants? Really I am not that hot. He is the more aggressive and rude of the boys. He is very persistent. Why can’t he be my boyfriend, he is a good lover. Oh geez… why do I have to deal with this…? The boy persists and holds his arm, with a closed fist, elbow near his groin and arm extended like a penis and tells me “… I have a very big tool… I make you feel good…” We all burst out laughing, this is the most ridiculous thing we have ever heard but his intentions are not levity.
I do not sleep well that night, listening for someone boarding us in the dark.
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The next day we get a visit from a German boat anchored nearby. It is the German boat that adopted Kolja for a night before introducing him to me. It is Claudia and Martin on SV. Selena. My crew is eager to explore the island and Mr. Kol knows there is a volcano nearby he wants to climb. I dropped my Germans off onshore that morning, but, as I do not trust this place enough to leave my yacht or my dinghy unattended I remain to guard my stuff. Claudia invites me to come visit them on their boat after I drop my crew off.
As we are sitting and talking, just normal pleasant cruiser type stuff Martin keeps noticing my crappy old dinghy engine. He seems weirdly focused on it asking me questions I do not know the answers to. I thought it a bit odd but not at all intrusive. Little did I know that the hand of fate was about to bless me.
It seems they have almost the exact same engine for their dinghy, but they broke their main drive shaft inside. Their engine is extremely well cared for and runs fantastic, but without a drive shaft is completely useless to them. Martin was sizing up my engine as his brilliant mechanical mind began exploring possibilities. He felt quite confident that my drive shaft could be transplanted into his engine. As we talked he figured it is a waste for him to keep carrying around an old engine that is of no use to him. He agreed to sell me his engine for 50 bucks, which at the very least would give me a complete set of spare parts for mine.
Eventually though Martin agreed to help me transplant my drive shaft into his engine to make a better engine. Now my old engine is stored away on WildChild as a complete set of spare parts and we have a much better working dinghy engine, best of all, with an internal gas tank.
Thank you so very much Martin and Claudia.
So it turned out that as my crew was exploring the jungles in search of this waterfall, I had a very productive day myself. Getting a better more reliable dinghy engine for such a low price was a blessing for us.
I picked up my weary German crew as agreed at 5pm and brought them home to rest. They had decided that the Volcano was too far to walk in the bad weather that day but they wanted to go early tomorrow morning to find it. The hike, up a very steep mountain was 28km there and back and not something I had any desire to suffer thru.
I dutifully dropped my Germans off onshore the next morning early enough to give them time to suffer their adventure and I returned to the boat to keep watch and make another YouTube video for you guys. I had given Elena my Garmin tracker and had it on tracking her progress so I could keep an eye on them. I felt a little bad when by middle afternoon I saw them turn around in defeat still several kilometers from their goal. Still they had an adventure and saw some of the island. They seemed happy with their day.
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ChateauBlaire Guide named boy-boy.
I don’t normally do this kind of thing with my website but on the small chance some future sailor is considering coming to St. Vincent I want to recommend ChateauBlaire and a local guide.
It was on our third day in ChateauBlaire that I finally had the chance to make landfall, as I had to get us checked out of St. Vincent. Mr. Kol dropped Elena and I off on the beach and he remained with the dinghy to watch over our boat. Although beach landings in breaking surf are an iffy proposition we try to avoid there is no dinghy dock here at all. (The government is currently rebuilding it)
I think St. Vincent is poor. The people are not uneducated, the kids do have the chance to go to school, which speaks well for the potential future of their society. Although the locals have very little for themselves, which I can understand their need to try to make a buck from the cruisers, they are not aggressive or scary. I think they, as a society are beginning to understand how much they need tourism. Although they used to be a high crime place too risky for cruisers to stop on their island I think their government has figured out to educate the people to “not steal” from the tourists despite any personal gain.
I learned that yes indeed there used to be guys here who used to steal from boats but the locals apparently formed a mob and chased them out of their town, the police also arrested several of the hoodlums. The government checkin/out here is wonderful easy and friendly.
If you come here the local guide Boy-boy will find you. I think of all the locals who came out to bug us on our boat Boy-boy was always gentle kind civilized and very polite. He is really interested in people and is not pushy or threatening in anyway. He is happy to guide you to go see the local sights for a fair price and despite his own personal poverty does not try to rip you off with crazy high gringo prices. For around $60 e.c. he will guide you for half a day to the waterfall and for around $100 e.c. he will guide you up to the volcano, which takes a whole day.
If you need anything he can help you find it. He was willing to take away our garbage for a small fee and can deliver to your boat any food or provisions you need. What I found endearing about the guy is that he seems to have a good soul. He seems very open and honest and genuine. I never got the feeling he had any devious or ulterior motives. He is just a nice gentle guy trying to make a living being kind to us cruisers.
If you are thinking of making a stop in St. Vincents I do highly recommend ChateauBlaire and Boy-boy. He says if you are coming and want to make advance arrangements he says you can phone him in the evenings at
Boy-boy 1-784-527-4228
or 1-784-432-1143
I think supporting the good people is the right thing to do.
Anyways… that’s enough for now…
Cheers Sailors
Captain Lexi…
……….. the calm and peaceful right now …..