As with everything, I do what I want to do when I want to do it, unless the yacht demands things of me, then I suffer for her. This is a thing about freedom, it feels nice, but none of us can have total freedom, there will always be limits. The physical constraints of the matrix do keep us enslaved to the system, the body needs food, gravity will always ruin your day, lack of money always makes things harder.

 

Boat Sale

If you remember waaay back to the last blog, I was so excited that I had sold WildChild. Everything was good to go, I was busy making all the final upgrades to get her up to tiptop shape for the new owners. There was some discussion that the mast camera was not working, they thought it would be nice to have. I understood they would not have the technical ability to install the replacement camera I had already purchased.

I had the mast camera removed from the inventory of the boat for the purpose of the legal sale but told the broker to assure them I would do my best to try and have it installed and working before they got the boat. I was cautious because I knew it would be a technically iffy struggle.

 

 

If you have been following along with the real time videos you saw how all that turned out. You can CLICK HERE to enjoy the details but in conclusion…

LEXI WINS AGAIN…!

WildChild is in fantastic shape right now, really just like a racehorse at the starting gates, she is ready to sail around the world, this tough and true blue water yacht is the one that CAN do it…! I am really proud of her. The new owners are going to love her too, I am sure of it, she is such a good girl.

 

 

So on the Thursday (Nov 18th) last week my yacht broker tells me “Lexi everything is good, they seem happy with everything…   they are paying the deposit tomorrow (Friday Nov 19th) …  and I will draw up the agreement of purchase and sale on the weekend…” I kept my excitement restrained until a deposit was paid. The in water survey was scheduled for the Friday (Nov 26th) and everything was good to go.

On the Monday (Nov 22nd… my birthday) I signed the agreement of Purchase and sale, and the broker and I had begun making arrangements to get a notarized bill of sale after they finished signing off on the survey results within 7 days. Everything was good-to-go.

I had asked on the mornings cruisers net if any other sailors might have luggage they could give me, so when I delivered the yacht at Christmas I could pack everything I own into airline approved bags. The cruising community is wonderful and came thru huge for me.

On my birthday (Monday morning) when I climbed up the mast for half a day to get the mast camera all ready for the buyers I had a buyer and everything seemed to be going well….     

By the time I came down the mast and could check my phone messages, the buyers backed out and the whole deal fell thru….!

Happy birthday to me….   

FUCK…!

If you remember though how I ended the last blog, which was full of hopeful positivity and optimism, I said “nothing ever goes according to plan“…  years of sailors wisdom has beaten that lesson into me well.

What goes up, excitement enthusiasm joy and hope, must eventually fall down…   RIGHT…? The ying must balance with the yang as Brendan would say.

I am going to fucking die out here on the ocean with this boat…. sigh…. it feels like fate or inevitability. I fall down in negativity.

I was appropriately full of positivity and positive thinking and sent positive vibes out into the universe just as all optimists are sure will influence the karmic energy to align the stars…  so why did it not work…?   Is it possible the power of positive thinking is all boomer bullshit that does not actually influence physics..?

 

Helm Station

ohh well… this is life… C’est La Vie…  as my friend French Alain would say.

The good news is though I am still on WildChild and she is in fantastic condition now. It is not like all the upgrade efforts are lost, they are now to my own benefit. WildChild is also very shiny now and clean looking, not something I care about very much, but meh… I can say it is nice.

 

 

If you can use your imagination and just mentally remove the white tarp in the front, imagine driving this huge beast to land at a dock you cannot see below the freeboard as you approach. Or trying to solo grab a mooring ball that disappears from view when you get within 50 feet of it. Or even going thru an uncertain shallow patch full of unmarked coral heads in the Bahamas.

Isn’t a birds eye view forward kind of a lovely thing to have on a boat?

I LOVE it…!

 

 

WildChild is a fully equipped long distance yacht, she is technical to sail. She is ready to sail in the dark, total fog, blind and in unknown waters even with unreliable chartplotter maps. This is super sexy stuff for any real sailors out there reading this. With the Radar looking at real life above the water, the sonar forward scan looking at real life below the waters ahead, and the camera showing you visually what is right in front of you… this is awesome stuff that excites me.

If you look on the left of the forward scan image, it has a water temperature sensor.

This image was taken an hour ago Nov 28th 2021 here in Prickly bay. The water is still over 30 deg C in the winter now. Interestingly I had an old man sailor friend say to me recently he did not want to dive his hull because the water was too cold…!

I was very polite and restrained my hysterical laughter… old people… so funny.

In Canada we skate on our frozen water. Then we wait anxiously for it to thaw out in the spring. Then we wait for it to warm up to a reasonable 15 deg C in about June so we can begin going swimming. Us Canadians get so excited when the water gets so warm in August it can sometimes get as hot as 20 deg C, and we love it. Everyone is at the beaches and rivers and lakes at the cottage frolicking in the water with glee.

BUT… for the old boomers who hate winter and want to escape to this insanely hot place… 6 deg C less than body temperature is intolerably cold… ha ha ha…!!!!

so funny….   🙂

 

Fair Warning

It was last weekend, maybe Sunday or so, that I was alone in the afternoon having a cockpit shower. I usually wait until dark to have a shower because then I can air dry up on deck in the dark. This anchorage is too crowded to naked air dry on deck during the day, remote anchorages give this benefit.

With the side curtains drawn down, you really cannot see much thru them from the outside world looking in. They do afford shade and a fair amount of privacy inside the cockpit. The nearest yachts are 80-130 meters away anyway. No big deal.

 

 

As I was showering I was not expecting any company, nobody ever just shows up at my boat anyway. I had conditioner in my hair and was pumicing my feet when it sounded like a dinghy was passing pretty close behind me. Because of my dinghy on the davits blocking my view I could not see the person. Eventually I just feel like whomever it is sure must be close and I duck my head down to look under the dinghy… and there is an old man in a homemade dinghy approaching to say hi.

Ahhh…. hmmm… well this is very bad timing.

I grab the pink yoga mat I was sitting on and use it to cover up with and greet the stranger. He has a confused look on his face as he figures out his bad timing.

He apologizes and says he wanted to talk to me, would I like him to come back later? He was very polite and kind and I could tell the coincidence of timing was accidental. I said well, since you are here, I am covered up, hello.

He wanted to talk to me about the incident of the creeper in here a month ago I spoke of on the VHF radio. He said he didn’t think the net controller handled it very well. He said he wanted to know more about who the person was. I shared what I knew, shared my suspicion it was my stalker “Jim” and gave him a description, but I was clear, I do not actually know.

The man said well, he knows for a fact that there is a man in this bay who is criminally up to no good and wondered if maybe it was the same guy? He never shared with me anything about who this mysterious criminal is and I did not push for details.

He told me that he has two daughters around my age and a wife he loves dearly and he would never want to see them being stalked either. He said that at the local bars, as he has been hanging around with the guys, there has been much foul talk about me, inappropriate talk that made him uncomfortable.  He said he knows this criminal guy he knows out here has been talking about me at the bar. He wanted to warn me to be careful.

We conclude our conversation after ten minutes, he apologizes again for his bad timing, and motors away.

Hmmm…. okay… I take in the information and just think about it for a while.

I know there is bad energy in this bay somewhere, I have been seeing a creeper several other unreported times before.  Other than telling my boat mom about all this… I just let it go.

 

The Prickly Bay Creeper

I know that I love to dance naked in the dark up on my bow.

I know that I am not secretive about this.

I know that local cruisers have found my blog and website.

I know that old men can be horney old perverts.

I get that maybe my naked dancing in the dark might be attracting negative attention out here.

Creepers and stalkers and peeping toms are all very good about being sneaky and secretive with their perverted habits. The cover of darkness is no coincidence. They do in the darkness that which they would not want revealed in the light of day.

 

 

Also understand that I have been out here for years…. I have anchored in hundreds of anchorages for thousands of nights. I understand what normal night time dinghy transit back to your boat looks like and feels like. I know that still, despite the constant pleading of the net controllers, still half of the dinghies out here do not use dinghy lights at night. Old men can be particularly stubborn and dumb about safety things.

Every night I sit up on deck in the dark and watch the bay around me, enjoy the stars. I do not always dance, that happens when the mood strikes me, but I always sit up on deck and watch for a few hours after sunset. I am very observant.

Sometimes I am dancing naked on the bow in the dark and a dinghy is in transit past me heading back to their yacht. I usually just keep dancing, cause fuck it. I watch as they keep going to their destination, maybe with a story to tell later.

BUT… in Prickly bay only…. there is a dinghy I sometimes see with no lights… always going slowly… never in a straight line… always around me in the shadows… often circling me. The slow zig zag often ends up getting behind me then closing the distance, getting closer from behind.

WildChild has a very distinct blue light at the mid mast and a distinct red and green nav light at the masthead in place of the anchor light. There is no mistaking WildChild in the dark for anyone else’s yacht. She is easy to find in the dark, my plan to never lose her myself. So there is no way anyone out there is wandering around lost mistaking WildChild for their own yacht. Also the music blaring out into the darkness would make it pretty clear this was not your boat either.

So a few nights ago, forgive me for such a poor sense of time, as I was again dancing naked on the bow in the dark I saw the creeper coming again. At first I have no reason to suspect it is not just an innocent dark slow transit of someone going home.

I keep dancing and watch the silhouette moving in the shadows. There is a zig zag way it is moving that begins to alert me. Normal is straight line lights on, sometimes lights off. The back and forth and circles are setting my alarm bells off.  I keep watching the approach of this dinghy as it gets closer and closer with each pass. Again it gets behind me then turns up towards my stern again to close the distance from my blind spot. 

DING DING DING…! it’s the creeper again. This time I am prepared. I run below and grab a flashlight and run up into my cockpit and shine the light on the creeper when they are less than 1 boat length behind me. I am surprised when I can tell it is not my stalker, this old man has a big white beard, my stalker does not, similar dinghy though.

You can CLICK HERE to see what happens next with all this drama. Decide for yourself if you believe this guy. I hunt the guy down like a relentless hound dog focused on its target. I am going to find him..!

 

 

BUT…. FUCK HIM…!  I am tired of this stupidity. I am not going to meekly be afraid of some creep and bow down to fear. FUCK you dude…! I am going to hunt you down now and expose you to the light.

Now everyone knows who you are. I bring him out into the light and expose him. He does not deny the incident only the interpretation of it. I am pretty sure this will have the desired effect of deterring his night time escapades, but that depends on how crazy he is inside. The guy is known here for being “off” mentally, he has history among the long timers here.

But Lexi…. maybe you should not be dancing naked on your deck at night… this blame the victim logic is not new to me, but I reject it wholly. I am alone in the dark in my own home. The decks are part of the living space of a yacht, they are very hot and small down below.

maybe… maybe I should let evil men steal my freedom and joy… maybe…

but this is not my style… I will not bow down to one dumb fucker acting like a dick. I am not afraid of him, I am sure I could kick his ass if he ever goes too far.

99.9% of all the cruisers out here are peace loving, freedom loving, good people. I will not surrender my freedom to tyranny or fear. I will fight to the death to protect my freedom.

 

Night Sky

One of the joys of living on a sailboat on the ocean is that the night sky is usually spectacular. I am a nerdy girl who likes astronomy and astrophysics stuff.  Sometimes I get the most breathtaking views of the glorious night sky out here, truly a privilege of yachting. I have seen some of the most spectacular shooting stars ever.

Last night topped the cake. After I had finished dancing I was sitting on deck listening to music and enjoying the view as usual. I was looking north over the marina and happened to be looking at the exact right spot in the sky at the exact right moment.

 

 

IT WAS A GREEN SHOOTING STAR…!   How rare is that..? It was big too… it appeared to be as big as the anchor lights in the background appear to me. The image above shows its path heading down and to the left. The actual green shooting star did not have this much trail on it… some fiery glowy trail but short. As it came down it broke up into pieces and burned up before impact.

I wonder… maybe a satellite could burn up green…?  with the different metals in it..?

What goes up… must come down right…?

I thought it was exciting.

 

I am Currently Mute

My boat parents invited me to be their guest at the budget dock restaurant on Thursday night. There was going to be an American Thanksgiving dinner and they wanted me to join them. Funny huh…. my first American Thanksgiving dinner and I celebrate it in Grenada, life is a funny thing.

 

The meal was delicious but… it was a very slow service. It took an hour and 20 minutes for the first course of soup to be served, amazing and delicious though. It took over two hours for the main course to be served, which was lovely, but could have been better if the gravy was served before we finished eating. It was also the kind of meal that you pay $100 for very fancy, but are still hungry when you are done looking for a snack.

I am unsure if this is a typical American Thanksgiving dinner or not?  In Canada we eat huge amounts of food smothered in gravy and eat until we are stuffed silly.

The evening was lovely and there were other cruisers there too. What hurt me, was the music. You have to understand that my voice is scratchy and weak on a good day. I do not have a loud or strong voice. In my videos I have to digitally enhance my voice so you can hear me. All the cruisers are old people and many of them are hard of hearing. Even on a normal day I have to be careful about trying to project my voice and speak clearly for my deaf old friends.

When the steel drum band began playing directly behind my boat dad, the deaf one, I had to yell at the top of my lungs for the rest of the evening just to be heard by him. This did my vocal chords in. I usually do not say a single word for a days at a time. Then being social lately, trivia and visiting people, I have been talking a lot this past week. I lost my voice over it, the loud music exasperated the situation.

I am now a mute

I was immensely happy to be spending time with my boat parents, they are leaving Grenada this week and this makes me very sad. I have a loyalty problem, once I attach to someone… I do not like letting go. It is part of why Peters death 8 months ago in March devastated me.

I am loyal to a fault.

 

Having Fun

I realize that upon reading my blogs you might be tempted to think my life is all drama. Really it is not, it is mostly boring, but boring never makes it into the news does it.

 

I had my friend ian over yesterday and he said he wanted to some fishing. I setup his rod with a hook and some sinkers and we started out with a piece of raw chicken as bait. As you know, when fishing with kids, the proper thing to do is to cut the barbs off their hooks and snip the tips off. Understand the kids are more likely to get the hook stuck in themselves or you versus a fish.

Almost right away a 2 foot needlefish came up and grabbed the bait. I had ian yank the rod to set the hook but it did not set. This got ian excited though. Out of chicken we needed new bait. Using perfect logic ian said… “… well… I like candy… you have lots of candy downstairs… the fish will like candy too…”. Ha ha ha… perfect 4 year old logic too. So we fished with candy as bait for another twenty minutes. I turned my back on him for 2 minutes and he got the line tangled all over the yacht everytime.

I smiled…   I have lots of patience.

 

Clothes

I get that I dress like a bum. I am anti-materialistic. I do not care much about objects or things. I have zero fashion sense and do not care about clothes at all. I wear clothes for the functional purpose of comfort and warmth. At home I shop in the goodwill store for used clothes because I do not want to waste money on stupid things like cloth.

Well… as you well know… the brutal heat down here has reduced me to being a nudist.

I say all the time…

I am a very modest Christian girl up to 30 deg C

Between 30-35 deg C my modesty begins to melt.

Above 36 deg C, I am a nudist trying to survive and all modesty is gone.

It is hotter than body temperature inside my boat every day. When I return to Canada I am sure I will return to being a modest Christian girl again. I dream about getting to wear clothes again and not sweating to death anymore. I cannot wait to get to wear clothes again.

 

 

It is funny but still makes me happy. Free is a sailors favorite price and these clothes all fit me. So you will probably see me sporting a new look in the videos. I like the outfit on the right because it is very thin breathable material.

Thin see thru clothes are good in the heat down here. On land I want to be as close to naked as modestly possible in this heat.

***

 

Well sailors… it appears I have given up all pretense of shortening my blogs huh. I can tell this one turned out longer than planned… but they all do.

I think I live a boring life…

Yet somehow every week I find lots to write about…

 

Cheers until next time…

 

Wild Captain Lexi

 

… the strong tough and ever hopeful girl …

… trapped out here forever …