Well… I have a new temporary crew named Kyndy with me for two weeks and she is a novice so I have been putting her thru Captain Lexi’s sailing school. This has kept me busy as WildChild sat out some stronger than usual winds down here in the Caribbean and a big north Atlantic swell was making itself felt way down here too. Yesterday we had Kyndy’s first sail onboard WildChild and sailed back to lovely Barbuda.
Snubber Problems
I think in the last blog posted I told you I was going to solo sail up from Falmouth to Jolly Harbour Antigua to meet up with my new crew I had flying in. I sailed up alone a few days early because some North Atlantic nasty was on its way down to the Caribbean. I wanted to make my run before it hit. This meant I sat out the nasty on the leeward side of the island in relative comfort. The winds were stronger than the characteristic trade winds and gusted between 20-30 knots for a few days. In itself no big deal.
I did however get some long dominant wave period swell in my anchorage. Although it was nothing uncomfortable the 2 foot swell peaks were 30 feet across and 200 feet apart. This caused WildChild to gently surge forward with the passing of each swell crest…. then slam back on the anchor chain as she slid down the backside of each crest. Not uncomfortable for me inside the yacht very much but… goodness did it ever slam the hell out of my anchor snubbers.
I know the bottom one in the picture was my oldest one and I knew for the last few months it was near the end of its life but I wanted to use it to death. Mission accomplished. The swell slamming literally ripped the anchor snubber apart the first day. So on the second day I added the backup anchor snubber to the chain and up closer to the bridle harness you see on the right… that ripped apart too. I added a third brand new snubber to the chain the next day and repaired the second one with my speedy sail stitch kit. With the two 2000lb test anchor snubbers properly positioned the best distance from the harness it then worked fine.
Ohh… to be helpful to any non sailors out there reading this… the anchor snubber is basically a giant elastic band designed to ease shock loads on the chain from either hammering the boat or yanking the anchor. A big stretchy expensive bungee cord.
I still have to cut away that bottom one I currently have hanging from my front bow clip. Better do that tomorrow. I am gonna go write that on the to-do list right now. hmmm…
New Crew
I have had ads out on various websites looking for crew for the last month or so and I think I have the problem solved for a while. There is a lovely American lady, named Kyndy, who has agreed to come crew for me for two weeks until Feb 14th. Then there is a Brit coming Feb 17th for a while.
Kyndy was a bit dicey for me. She does not check her WhatsApp very often and did not reply to me for like 5 days just before she was due to arrive. I was unsure if she was still coming or not. I sent her detailed pictures and information about where I will be waiting for her. She did eventually, the day before, reply so I knew she was coming and she knew where to meet me. Jolly Harbour is a lovely place and not that big.
I was dutifully waiting for her in the place of this picture as I had explained to her and showed her on the appointed day. Her plane landed at 3pm and I figured she should easily be able to catch a taxi to here within an hour. Well 4pm comes and goes still no word from her. Then 5pm comes and goes and still no response from her. I had heard nothing from her all day and there is a new declaration by the Antigua government (as of Jan 17th) that all people arriving to Antigua not staying at an approved (expensive) tourist resort will be subject to a mandatory Government quarantine at a government facility at their own expense for the first night for observation and to give the government time to assess how much they believe and trust your self quarantine plan upon your arrival in Antigua. Then if they don’t trust you they have GPS tracking bracelets they will put on you… OR hold you for 14 days at your expense before they release you.
With still no sign of Kyndy two hours after her arrival I assumed they nabbed her.
It seems…. Kyndy did not pay too much attention to the clear directions and pictures I sent her of where to meet me.
She was sitting on the other side of the same building for the last hour waiting for me.
Oh well… my friend Jarvis found her sitting there alone with bags and knew Lexi was around the other side waiting for a crew person… the local man kindly lead Kyndy to me.
Thank you for finding my lost puppy Jarvis. 🙂
I am a very good communicator… but I cannot make anyone else into a good listener.
Captain Lexi’s Sailing school
It seems part of Kyndy’s silence for the 10 days before she came to me was because she was crewing on a CAT down the ICW to Florida. Motoring of course as CAT’s seldom ever sail. Essentially though… Kyndy came to me with little to no sailing experience.
In my crew ads I post that I am okay with bringing onboard novice crew as I am perfectly capable of training them IF they are able to learn. Fresh new crew does not come with any bad habits.
Kyndy is a novice crew who is only here with me for two weeks.
So upon her arrival Monday (Feb 1st) I took responsibility for her training.
We began Captain Lexi’s sailing school. I am a wonderful sailing teacher and anybody wanting to learn to sail would consider themselves blessed to be able to come onboard WildChild and learn from me. What better training is there than one on one time with a professional instructor on a private yacht in the Caribbean right?
As I explained to Kyndy on the first day…
I will only feed you as fast as you want to eat
Like meaning I feel some urgency to hurry up and get her skill level up to be useful to me in the short time she has allotted to be here… but I will only teach her as fast and she is willing and able to learn. It would be silly to do otherwise.
This is kind of a thing with me
I am a sailing purist. Very few sailboats actually ever sail out here on the ocean. Its sickening. I have also learned that most of the “captains” on board most of these sailing yachts around me are also horrible at it. Like incompetence reigns out here. It amazes me.
Old baby boomers are the only ones who can afford these boats… so their wealthy status usually gets them out here… not their ability. Most of them never bother to learn anything about sailing even though they bought and live on their sailboats. It’s amazing.
Go around any anchorage and ask every single captain how they know if their CLE is balanced with their CLR (basic sailing info) and 80% of them would ask you what’s a CLE…?
Basic seamanship…. drop anchor properly… then bear down on it (drive backwards to set it in the bottom) watch how few boats ever do this… or even know to do this… it will shock you. Then they cannot figure out why their yacht drifted away while on anchor when the winds picked up.
Anyway… there is no way Captain Lexi is ever going to let any sailor enter this sailing world and remain so completely ignorant if they are her student. I am raising good proper real sailors out here. If we are going to do this thing then lets do a good job at it.
Sorry Tirade over
I am a very good teacher just as a human being in general. I am a very smart girl in general. I am a very good sailor. I decided to put all that together and make the effort to train my new baby sailors well.
I have spent hours and hours making up diagrams and slides and creating a training program designed to give new sailors a GREAT foundation to enter the sailing world with. If you are going to crew on my boat I’d like you to understand what we are doing and why. I would like to be able to eventually trust you to know how to take the helm and think clearly and make good decisions and keep me and my girl safe.
The more I give to my crew the more they can contribute.
Interestingly… I sometimes get crew fresh from an Atlantic crossing and it seems they still know nothing, even after sailing across the ocean…! All downwind they never have to move the sails the whole time.
Most skippers out here (and I will not dignify their boat ownership by automatically bestowing the title of Captain on them) get crew onboard for a few days or weeks and never bother to teach them anything at all. They never explain anything to them. Most crew out here are not much more than warm bodies or rail meat as we call them. Its a shame really…
Kyndy was privileged with three days of Captain Lexi sailing school which kept me busy investing time and energy in her. Every evening we would sit up on deck to enjoy a rum punch, watch the sunset, celebrate being alive… and look out at the other boats in the anchorage.
Now… all real sailors know a schedule is a terrible thing…. often necessary.
Kyndy chose when she would arrive… how long she would stay… and when she would leave.
This has forced me into her schedule.
Also… mother nature has ZERO respect for the plans of humans.
The ocean has been kind of rough for the last week.
Ideally after I fill Kyndy’s brain with cool sailing knowledge I want to take her out sailing on a nice calm day in the Caribbean and spend an afternoon day sailing with her in light conditions to give her the hands on practical application of all this stuff.
Mother nature currently does not agree to that plan.
Yesterday’s sail
So yesterday (Feb 5th 2021) I made an analysis on WildChild’s situation and circumstances and decided
Fuck it… we are going to sail back to Barbuda
This was a dicey less than perfect decision though. Mom is still in a mood and that north Atlantic swell is still rough out there. Kyndy is not ready for this yet at all and it is not an ideal first sail for a baby sailor.
I know that I can solo sail this if I have to. I will only be able to use Kyndy as a camera woman and a warm body (pull this rope move this thing), but Barbuda is so freaking lovely and wonderful we both wanted to go there in the short time Kyndy is here with me. I asked Kyndy how she would feel about sailing the next day in medium rough conditions. We will be taking a beating but not too bad.
Afterall… it is not right to risk other peoples lives and comfort without their consent, its just rude.
Kyndy agreed to the plan. She was kind of excited. She was highly motivated to get to see Barbuda and she understood she had limited time and wasn’t ready to make the sail yet. We also did not know if she would get seasick the whole time. She took Dramamine in the morning and was ready to go at 8am yesterday as I asked her to.
I viewed this mostly as a solo sail with a passenger so I took my time going thru my mental check list to prepare before we lifted the anchors.
I had my sentinel anchor down and that thing is extremely heavy and hard for me to raise alone. The big benefit of having strong men as crew, they can lift it much more easily than I can. Kyndy is much weaker than I am so she would be no help. I am proud to say I got my sentinel anchor raised and only passed out once from the effort.
When I came to Kyndy was standing over me with a concerned look in her eyes.
The next parts were all the usual things. Go downwind out of the anchorage…. turn to wind… raise mainsail… fall off… sail on. I do confess to making a big fuck up. I accidentally jibed WildChild.. hard…! Completely my bad… totally my screw up.
As we are sailing dead downwind out of Jolly Harbour anchorage I needed to plot a course around the shoals and get my girl set up for her course heading to get to Barbuda. Kyndy was sitting in the cockpit in front of me waiting for any instructions I might give. As I analyzed the data I concluded we needed to jibe the mainsail. I gave Kyndy instructions on what to do… she did great… and we jibed the boat perfectly.
About 30 second later as I was watching the chart plotter trying to determine if I needed to jibe again… the wind made a little gust and changed its angle 20 degrees, just briefly, as I was head down. It was just enough to cross behind the main and just as I looked up about to give Kyndy instructions to prepare to jibe again… WHAM…. the boom slammed across to the other side.
Yep… I committed sailor sin… I accidentally jibed the main.
Bad bad Lexi… (I hang my head in shame)
FUCK…. but no damage.
Sorry WildChild….
The sail itself went well enough. The wind forecast was for between 15-25 knots of wind. Sailors out there know there is an experiential difference between a lovely 15 knots of wind sailing and 25 knots of wind sailing. All weather forecasts are wrong somehow and I was hoping it would be wrong in our favour, lower winds not the higher winds.
What we got was in the middle. We had mostly 20 knots of sporty winds and only 3-6 foot waves. We sailed to Barbuda yesterday kinda tight into the wind though, between a close haul and a close reach, and the dominant wave period meant we were just slamming into those waves pretty good all afternoon.
The bow of WildChild spent a lot of time underwater and my decks got thoroughly washed again. We even got wet in the cockpit a few times. Kyndy was sitting right there on the high side when she got soaked by a slammy wave that hit WildChild hard on the beam and shot up ten feet into the air. I got soaked at the helm once so I sailed the rest of the day salty again with a wet bum.
grrr…. 🙁
Of course I was trailing a lure while sailing. As usual I caught another barracuda. Poor little guy, he was only about 20 inches long and he got the hook up into the roof of his mouth. He was hooked on pretty good and I broke two tines on the triple hook trying to get him off. My little pink and blue squid lure seems pretty effective.
We did have a big fish on an hour earlier, the line just whirred out of the spool… but then it got off just as suddenly. I have no idea what that first fish was as we never saw it.
What I am wondering though… is what the hell do TUNA like to eat…? What lures work on Mahi Mahi…? Why do I only ever catch Barracuda?
Sailors and fishermen alike assure me I am doing all the right things while fishing. Cedar plugs are supposed to be great for Mahi Mahi (I only ever catch Barracuda on them) and squid lures are supposed to be good for catching Tuna… (but I only ever catch Barracuda on them).
Somebody please tell me what to do differently to catch a fish I can eat please… 🙂
We arrived about 5 hours later to coco beach in Barbuda around 2pm in good daylight with good visibility and I sailed almost all of the way into the anchorage. Not showing off just reluctant to motor anymore than necessary. The sun was shining in all its glory and the gorgeous sand beaches stretched before us for miles and miles. There is a reason I just love this place.
I always make sure I anchor close enough to the beach it will be an easy swim for my crew. Kyndy is a good swimmer and was happy to swim to shore and go explore almost as soon as we got there and got settled.
There is a little beach bar down a ways run by this charming local guy named Enoch. I have spoken about him before. His out door beach bar is about the only place there is to visit here but it is charming open inviting and lovely. Enoch just loves cruisers and greets you like long lost family.
Kyndy swam off to shore again today. As I was writing this Kyndy texted me that she is at Enoch’s beach bar now and she is inviting me to a lobster dinner tomorrow. Enoch can hook you up with a lovely grilled lobster for $20usd… but you have to give him a days notice. You also have to bring your own sides and such.
I know most of you are trapped in winter and probably still Covid locked down. I feel bad for all of you… so I thought I would include lots of pictures of the sunshine and beaches here. I am hopeful remembering the sun in all its glory will help you thru your winter.
Cheers sailors
remain hopeful….
maybe someday things will get better…
just do not pay attention to the economy…
its all bad news coming there…
CAPTAIN LEXI