So… we thought we had a buyer for the boat but it fell through this morning. It would have been lovely if the boat just sold and I could go home… i was praying for this. But now I have to face my biggest fears….
I understand that I am responsible for getting myself into this mess… I do not duck personal responsibility. I loved sailing so much years ago that I wanted to go sailing around the world. I bought the boat on my own and began my journey. I allowed Michel to talk me into letting him sail with me… I allowed him to talk his way past all my restrictions and hesitations and all my protests… he did a great job pursuing me and fooling me with nice words.
In the end I said yes… (my biggest mistake of my life) and Michel and I joined together to go on this sailing adventure together. I am not the first stupid girl to be con’d by a man. There were many signs of something wrong for years before we left and I did not heed them. All my bad. Sometimes we women just swat away those red flags we do not want to see. But self pity set aside… I have to face my reality… I am here.. what happened is what happened… I have to deal with this…
Michel made a promise of sobriety 5 days ago when I kicked him out… He has been keeping it and he has been well behaved… he says he figured out the alcohol is to be blamed for his bad behavior. So he swears not to drink a drop while he is still on the boat. What kind of a solution or truth this actually is/ will be… I have no idea… He still has to get out.
So what are my options… This morning after the shocking news the buyer backed out… I got so afraid… like my fear bubbled up. HOLY CRAP…. I am still trapped. What am I going to do. I know my fear and my emotions are clouding my judgment… I need clarity… so I sat down with pen and paper and made a list of options with pro’s and con’s… Here is what I am facing… What do you think I should do…
2 things are clear… Michel and I cannot be together… I have to get him out of my life… and WildChild has to be sold… but how to achieve this?
Option 1/ Believe Michel will stop being a dick and he will be a good guy from now on and we keep sailing together until the boat sells.
Option 2/ We get the boat back to Florida and get it safely to a yacht club… Michel keeps living on it until it sells… but I get to go home immediately… walk away.. end the suffering.
Option 3/ Buy Michel out right now and get him out ASAP… I will be left alone on the boat…
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Soo… my option 3… this is hard for me… WildChild is a big girl… she is a serious race boat designed to be run by a crew of 6. I am terrified to be alone on this big boat.. alone in the ocean… I never agreed to be alone on a sailboat… I never wanted it.. I fear it… Like I keep having nightmares about it… I think back to all the nasty sailing we have done… and every time the shit hit the fan how glad I was that I was not alone on the boat… That I had someone to help me save her from danger…
We have only released about half of the video so far and Michel has deleted more than half of the video footage… So we know full well every little thing we went thru… you see some of it… can you imagine yourself alone on this boat in those situations… when I think about it I break out into a cold sweat…
I think solo sailors are a bit crazy and way braver than I am.
But I am about to be alone on the boat despite my protests and fear… the consequence of my bad decisions and Michel’s bad behavior.
Can I face this… am I brave enough… can I do it alone… My friends know how good a captain I am.. how well I know my stuff… To be honest I am far better than more than half the captains I see here in the Bahamas. I get men asking me for help and advice all the time.
When I think back to the adventure so far… if I am honest with myself… Michel really makes everything so much harder. Honestly if I was sailing with a 10 year old they would have been better crew than Michel. I really did handle almost every situation alone anyway… Michel only made each event harder… argued fought and resisted a solution. Michel has sabotaged the boat and the sailing so many times… stuff we don’t show in the videos because it is impolite to Michel… I call him my monkey.
Sailing with Michel is like sailing with a monkey who will do random things at random times. Bad things. He has jibbed the boat hard so many times… gone off course… got us turned around… got us on the wrong tac… lost control of the sails…released them and let them just flog at the worst moments. So now I’m wondering… what would it be like to not have a monkey on board sabotaging things?
If you sail alone you have only have you to blame but you get to control things and avoid doing the wrong things. You sail to your own competence level.
Often I feel like the smart girl in class who gets partnered up with the dumbest boy in the class… I am used to doing everything perfect.. or to the highest standards… Straight A’s… always do your best to your highest potential… and now I’m partnered with a kid who wouldn’t even care if he failed… doesn’t even try… accepts failure as normal. It does make me crazy…
Like the YouTube videos… I don’t know if you guys can tell the difference between a Lexi made video and a Michel made video… I would love to be making awesome videos for you guys… I could do so much better… but Michel has been deleting all my video everyday for more than 3 months… we had great video… I taught him literally 20 times how to copy the videos and clean the video card… every day he told me he is not an idiot and he knows what to do… I can trust him… everyday he told me yeah no problem I downloaded and archived your camera today along with mine… everyday there is a folder for my video… everyday he was deleting all my footage from my camera and deleting all my record of this adventure…
He says that it is not deliberate sabotage…. but it is almost inconceivable that anybody could have done that accidentally. All of his video footage from his camera is fine. Not deleted. So now we have to make videos for you guys with his shaky bad camera work.. or make an episode out of the 30 minutes of dinghy ride footage he took but missed the rest of the day.
Okay wow… I’m babbling… I guess I had to get that out… but complaining aside… If I were alone… I would have not made so many mistakes… I would have D/L’d the video myself… i’d have better footage and could be making better videos.
But teamed up with Michel… the shared average score goes down… Without the monkey on my team… or … better yet… with almost any other human being on my team… and better yet…. with a good intelligent and competent human being on my team… I’m starting to wonder how much better sailing could be.
I try to imagine living on a boat not walking on eggshells… with no tension all the time… sailing with someone helpful… someone who can learn… understand… grow… someone pleasant to be with… good company. I used to laugh and joke around… I used to be way more relaxed and happy… I have to get back there….
So for sure Michel has to go… but should I quit this adventure or just go a little further…? what is around the next bend… what possibilities await…
What if I could find a nice person to crew with me. Not be alone on the boat… but change my adventure partner? Imagine being with someone helpful kind and good. What if I could find crew… someone nice… easy to live with… not so angry all the time… someone who does not want to fight and argue everything everyday and always do the opposite of what the Captain (me) says…. hmmm…. what an idea…
To get to this one possible future though… I have to be willing to be alone on the boat… face the possibility… face my terrifying fear… am I brave enough… because crew would have nothing invested in the boat… they are free to leave at anytime. Crew comes and goes… so even with great crew there will be times I will be alone on the boat… can I face that..?
the easy thing to do now is go home.. walk away… lose the hundred grand… call it lesson learned… move forward.
So do I take the easy path…? Or do I face the hard path…?
Hmmm… I am so scared… so lost confused… so upside down… so unsure of what to do next…
but decisions have to be made…
Lexi….
………..the big chicken again…