WildChild has been lounging around in Barbuda for more than two weeks now and I have had the pleasure of listening to local Barbuda radio and be anointed by the words of the amazing Honorable Trevor Walker, the Barbuda member of parliament. I have also had the pleasure of listening to the voice of the local people on the radio show…  fun stuff. All the while I have been converting my crew Brendan into a professional sailor bum. Brendan is an interesting character in his own right.

 

Barbuda Stories

As a writer I have a keen eye and appreciation for the value of stories, their importance in the cosmic play of humanity does not escape me. It is my pleasure to share the stories I find with you. Todays subject is exciting stuff.

 

So let me give you a little history first. WildChild is anchored off Coco beach on the southern tip of Barbuda and it is fast becoming my favorite spot in the Caribbean but every time I come here I am watching it slowly be destroyed. In five years sailors will lose this gem. It is not nature destroying the place but rich people, as they are always want to do.

About 4 years ago Barbuda was devastated by a hurricane with a storm surge so high, so extreme and so bad it washed over the entire flat island. In an effort to save the few thousand residents the Government moved everybody by mass forced evacuation to Antigua. Almost all human developments on the island, all homes and schools and resorts were destroyed or damaged. There was nothing to return “home” to for the locals and the government actively kept the Barbudans away from their island.

During this time, the government of Antigua, never one to squander an opportunity, started selling the land away to billionaires. The Antiguan government of course kept the money in these illegal land deals and has never been held accountable for it. Over the last few years as the indigenous people began coming “home” anyway to begin rebuilding they were shocked to discover how much land has been “sold” ( feel free to insert the proper term of STOLEN ) away to rich white men while they were kept away.

But what can they do…?   Not much…

The honorable Trevor voices the frustrations of the people on the radio and in parliament…

 

Now if you are a billionaire looking for a playground you are not going to “buy” the flat desolate scrub land in the first picture, you are going to buy the best land along all the beach front property and construct fences to keep the locals away. What I have learned in my time here is that apparently the American movie star Robert DiNero has bought 130 acres of land here and has a fancy exclusive high end restaurant further down the beach that the mega yachts come to visit. I do not know if or how he may or may not be involved in the rest of the developments here.

If you look on the map to the right here you can get an overview idea of the area I am talking about geographically. The beach front property now being developed is Coco Beach Barbuda and is also one of the best anchorages in the entire Caribbean.

What is interesting is listening to the local people on the radio talking about their thoughts and opinions on this. As they have all been locked down for “COVID” reasons the construction has not slowed down a bit. No Covid restrictions have been applied to the workers building the playground for the wealthy. No jobs for the locals to help build it. Rich people have an entitlement to their comfy resorts and they should not be delayed by anything as pesky as Covid. The rules do not apply to them.

 

WildChild has been anchored here several times over the last three months and I have been amazed at how quickly the sites are being developed. As we are all “curfew’ed” at 6pm the construction goes on well after sunset under work lights. I watch the unmasked workers going about their jobs. Everything else is shut down on both islands so it is amazing to watch the construction schedule not even pause.

 

 

The local people have been complaining about this on the radio. Their island has no doctors (that I know of) and no medical care available to them so they are very Covid fearful. There was recently an outbreak of Covid on their island and all 3 cases were traced back to the construction workers brought in from Antigua who do not have to stay home and do not have to follow any Covid protocols. The locals have been forced by the government to shut all their businesses down and stay home “for their safety” of course because of these recent infections though. As the 3 new Covid cases on the island sparked further lockdowns and restrictions for the locals, the job site does not slow down a lick despite being the source of the infections

 

 

 

I think I love the Honorable Trevor… the guy is just awesome to listen to. He is not very diplomatically filtered, not corrupted, but very open honest and genuine and has the facts and documents to back up his case. The guy is my hero, a champion of the little people and not afraid to speak up.

And so I watch as the development continues completely uninterrupted by Covid. I watch the rich people getting their toys as usual. Their money and power buys them special privilege and special rules just for them. Each time I come back the pace of development amazes me, it is impressive, well managed.

 

 

So I sit quietly on my yacht and watch the water wind and sky as these building grow in the background. I have walked around on the beaches and shore line and seen the plot partition markers and signs, clearly there are plans for many more buildings.

What I find tragic about this is how common the story is. Rich people steal and ruin everything, its in their DNA. There are many lovely Caribbean islands privately owned by rich foreigners where they hire security guards to keep the local riff raff and us sailors away from their “private” property beaches and waters and anchorages ( it is illegal to own anything below the high water marks privately but they don’t care ). Go down into the Grenadines to get “shoo’d” away from wealthy private island anchorages by thugs in power boats. I have spoken to sailors who have had this experience personally, I avoid these islands when I learn about them.

It seems inevitable that Coco beach Barbuda will follow the same pattern…  its a shame really… it is one of the best cruiser anchorages I have ever found. The real secret beauty of this anchorage is not the beach, it is a beautiful low harmonic theta ocean swell that ever so gently soothes your soul. Due to this places perfectly aligned geography the ocean swells have to wrap around the island and travel a long distance in shallow water to gently find the beach.  This produces a steady gentle swell of 2-3 feet but with peaks 100-200 feet apart. It is the most soothing motion on the ocean that can only be enjoyed on a small yacht. Even Brendan has commented that wow that motion is so soothing… like being a baby gently rocked in your mothers arms… it is so soothing.

Too bad the rich people will steal it from all of us.

 

Brendan / Zendan

 

The world is still a big mess and WildChild is still trapped in a Covid box just like everybody else. This means that my lovely new crew Brendan does not get to go sailing with me very much. The world has restricted our movements “for the greater good”.

So although I am a sailing Captain with a sailboat, who looked for and asked for sailor crew, there is not very much sailing going on. I knew this from the beginning though and was clear with my ads for crew that we would spend more time lounging around in paradise like professional sailor bums than doing much actual sailing.

Brendan is absolutely perfect for this lifestyle. 

 

I do not talk about my latest crew / roommate very much and you guys probably do not know much about him, so I have decided to introduce him to you.

Brendan is a big guy at around 6’3″ tall. He is in his mid 50’s and has spent the last 20 years wandering around the world travelling hither and yonder, in search of what, I do not know. He had ZERO sailing experience before he came to me and it seems he just decided “to give this sailing thing a whirl” as he says.

He is so big his head just brushes along the ceiling inside the yacht. Brendan is so wide at the shoulders he has to turn sideways when going forward thru the passageway up to the V-berth. He has to go sideways thru all the doors because his shoulders are so broad. He is the opposite of graceful with his body and I often worry about him falling off the side deck or when climbing in and out of the dinghy.

Captain Lexi has useful man muscles on the boat now though        🙂 

 

 

When you speak with Brendan he is a perfectly lovely human being. He is very calm and has a very gentle spirit, I feel safe around him, which is very important for me. If you want to engage Brendan in a conversation you can, and he can speak intelligently on almost any subject.

Do you guys remember me explaining to you before about the story of clay?

For me… personally… I seek to keep my mind open active and soft and flexible.

Brendan seeks the hardening of his clay and the emptying of it…?

He is very different than I am.

When you speak with Brendan, get to know him, he is very spiritual but not very interested in God, he does not seem to believe in a soul spirit or afterlife. He speaks about things like balancing his ying energy with his yang energy. He tells me that yang energy is the masculine energy and he can tell I am out of balance and I should be pursuing my ying (feminine) energy more. “Lexi you are such a dominant powerful conqueror” he tells me, you need to develop your Ying side more.

Yeah I’d love to I think to myself…  but not when I am the captain…

He tells me all the time about this Hindu stuff he picked up in his travels in India and Shri Lanka. Brendan explains to me about how, when he was younger, his GUNA energies were not in balance, but now, as he ages, his RAJS energy has settled down and his TAMIS energy is better,  he likes the way his SATTVIC energy is developing as he ages. He tells me that he likes this cruising thing as it is very good for developing his inner stillness. He explains that SATTVIC energy is the energy of stillness and this sailboat thing is just perfect for developing this part of himself.

Brendan recently had a friend text him and call him ZENDAN…  which suits him so perfectly I have adopted the nickname for him.

 

 

There is very little to tell about Zendan. He does not have any hobbies or interests. He does not read books or listen to podcasts or watch TV or movies. He does not watch YouTube or play on facebook. He has little intertest in anything. What you see in the pictures above is exactly what you get with Zendan…  he literally sits all day long, everyday, and just stares out into nothingness. He does not do anything.

ZENDAN just said to me an hour ago that he is doing very well becoming a beach bum. (I should mention he does sometimes swim to the beach and just sit there and stare out into nothingness too). He just swam off to sit on the beach for the next hour or two.

Of course I am a very nurture’ey kind of girl and I worry about him all the time. “Brendan you must be so bored, is there anything I can do for you? to help you? to make your life better?” and he always replies with…  “…yeah… my stillness bothers some people… they don’t understand it…” he tells me in an even and boring tone. I persist a little bit.. “Brendan I have books I can loan you…  I have movies I can give you… I have podcasts I would be happy to share with you…  I can dinghy you to shore if you’d like to go hiking…?”   All to no interest on his part at all. He seldom even wants to come snorkeling with me, he doesn’t care, he is perfectly happy to sit alone in stillness all day.

Brendan is very empty inside… by choice… he seeks to be more and more that way everyday. He wants his clay to harden.

There is no BRENDAN…!?!?!

?????????????????????????????

It is a bit weird.

Brendan is very ZEN….  he is all about emptiness and stillness…  nothingness….

 

So although he is perfectly suited to the current prison sentence the world has imposed on us all, he is not exactly a traveling companion. He is not someone I can really have a conversation with about very much or share things with. As crew, he is fantastic, as a roommate he is very easy to live with.

but…. he is crew…  he is not my companion in any sense…  I remain the loneliest girl on the ocean.

 

1 year ago

Here is a fun little story for you too. One year ago I was sailing up the Caribbean island chain in blissful ignorance of the plague the Chinese had unleashed upon the world. Living on a yacht I tend to get almost ZERO news from the outside world and, to be honest, I have about zero interest in the outside world. I had two German crew with me and we were having a lovely time.

 

When we go into shore to check into the country we notice the port workers are wearing gloves and masks. This was new, a very odd thing. We all had no idea what was happening in the outside world. I ask the port authority lady why is she wearing the mask and gloves…   She looks at me like I am an idiot and replies…   “FOR THE COVOID OBVIOUSLY…!“.

I look at my crew and they look at me and we all wonder what the hell a COVOID is?

Later that evening my crew goes to their cell phones which have been bombarded by messages from family worrying about them. My crew comes to me and says…  “Captain Lexi… there is something big going on in the world… they are closing all the world borders down right now… every country… you should probably pay attention…”  they tell me with somber excited voices.

This all seems so impossible to me… so improbable I am sure they must be wrong. I mean I love a good conspiracy theory, don’t get me wrong, but you do understand that never in the history of the world has the entire world closed its borders before…  not even during the world wars has this ever occurred. I get that I can be naive and gullible but even I am not gullible enough to believe it is possible for the whole world to close their borders… it must be complete crazy conspiracy shit they are feeding me.

As a good Captain though I go on the internet and type in these letters to investigate what the hell my crew are talking about…   C  O  V  I  D   ….

Imagine my surprise huh…  

Montserrat is a volcano island with no safe or protected anchorages and definitely not a place I wanted to get trapped for the next few months. I go on the chart plotter and look at the map for the nearest safe protected anchorage. I see Hermitage bay in Antigua and we leave right away to go there.

If you had told me then…  I would still be trapped here a YEAR…!   a fucking YEAR  later…  I would never have believed you. For sure you would have been crazy. Even the best conspiracy theorists would not have believed this was possible.

So you can see from the map to the right… this is WildChild’s Garmin satellite tracks for the last year….   WildChild is still stuck inside this box… these are the limits of my cage…. the boundaries of my Covid prison. Even a lovely prison is still a prison.

I feel like I would like to get out of this prison now please… I feel like a year is enough suffering…  enough of a sentence for a crime I never committed….  I would like to go keep exploring the Caribbean now please…

Don’t you feel a year in your prison has been sufficient punishment for China’s crime against us all?

Sigh….

 

Captain Lexi…

 

…. the bored and lonely still ….