I seem to tend to write a new blog about once a week. Sometimes this leaves me with so much stuff to share that the blog can get kind of long. Sorry about that. The funny thing for me is that I think my life is rather dull boring and uninteresting, yet somehow, I always find stuff to write about. So maybe my life is not so dull after all. Perhaps it is a matter of appreciating the garden you are standing in and not focusing on the neighbors garden so much huh.

Last week I was standing on the horns of making a difficult decision that I knew would be a mistake but it was to fit the “SCHEDULE“. Perhaps I should start today’s story there.

 

Brendan

It was a week ago today that Brendan arrived to join me on WildChild as my new crew. I was waiting at the old Casino building in Jolly Harbour on time and as per the schedule. Brendan’s flight arrived from the UK on schedule and he arrived in Jolly Harbour pretty much on time too. As I sat there alone and waiting this big guy (you see in the picture above) comes around the corner, looks up at me, and says “you must be Lexi..”  in his strong British accent.

Its funny, we have been texting for a few weeks and I knew he was from the UK, but somehow I didn’t think about him having an accent. I smiled thru my reply and we immediately got on with it. Brendan is a big guy, like 6’3″ tall and weighs in at like 240 pounds or something. WildChild has muscles at her Captain’s disposal now, strong guy.

Brendan is a world traveler kinda guy. He has spent most of the last 20 years as a professional vagabond or wanderer. He has been all over the world with a backpack,  traveling light and cheap. This whole sailing adventure is new for him though, he knows nothing about sailing. We exchange pleasantries and go over to the grocery store across the street to provision him with food for the next while.

One thing I am clear on with my crew, I am poor and running out of money fast. I do not charge the $7,000usd a week for this experience that charter yachts garner, but I also expect you not to be a financial burden on me. I do not charge you the $3,000usd that a sailing school would charge you for sailing lessons I am about to give you for free. You are here as crew, your job is to help me and make my life easier not harder.

Brendan chooses to make his own food and eat separately from me, which I am fine with, most crew seem to prefer this. We run thru the grocery store with a cart and Brendan buys whatever food he thinks he will want to eat for the next week. Next we hurry to the dinghy to return home to WildChild before the Curfew at 6pm and before the sunsets.

I bring my new Jedi student onboard WildChild and introduce him to my girl, I get him settled into his room, and we sit up on deck to celebrate the sunset together. The exciting news is… Brendan does not drink alcohol at all. That’s a first for me, usually men want to be drunk everyday onboard.

 

Wisdom

 

The next horrible thing on our schedule was the nasty hard sail down to Falmouth the next day which I spoke of last blog. My 90 day VISA for Antigua expired on Feb 1st and I had an appointment with the Custom and Immigration people down in Falmouth for Friday Feb 19th that I HAD to get to.  This was the schedule set by outside forces that I had constraining me.

 

I knew the sail would be horrible dangerous and, given that I was going to essentially solo sail it, very difficult, but it was possible, I have sailed thru worse.  Brendan had been forewarned of the difficult situation I would be in upon his arrival. He is a good chap and took it all in strike, “no worries Captain Lexi…  whatever you need to do…  if I vomit we will just get on with it..”  he tells me with that strong accent of his.

So Thursday morning we take about an hour to put the dinghy up on deck. I brief my new baby crew about the absolute minimum I need his help with, what to do, steer the boat with the motor on while I get the anchor up, then I will do everything else. Brendan is up for it and does his best. He understand the situation can get dangerous fast.

The wind is howling. Friends later told me they were recording wind speeds as high as 38 knots, winds sustained over 30 knots. I am anchored in the middle of the anchorage, there are other boats all around me, all about 100 meters apart. Once the anchor lifts the wind is going to send is flying to crash into the people behind us. I am strong and clear with Brendan about the rules… “don’t hit shit… don’t break shit…”  rules number one and two.

I just need a lull in the wind for ten minutes to get my anchor up. The wind is so strong I cannot pull the boat into the chain, Brendan does not have the advanced skills it will take to motor slow and steady into the wind. It is very hard to do. We try, and it just isn’t happening.

I cannot get the anchor up.

We wait an hour, hoping for a lull in the winds long enough to get the anchor up, it doesn’t happen. We wait another hour, still no lull.

By noon it is now too late for us to safely make the sail and arrive before dark. I stand up on the bow and just scream into the wind, dripping with frustration with mother. Such a bitch. She cannot even given me 10 minutes. Storm after storm rolls in over the mountains.

I have been honed by mother for years now out on the ocean. She always allows me to make bad decisions, she always consistently punishes me for them. Mom is trying to tell me that today is the wrong day to go sailing, schedule be dammed. I am unsure how to explain this to the Antiguan customs and immigration people. My other sailor friends are begging me not to go sailing today. I am strong powerful stubborn and fuckin determined not to fail. I am a conqueror not a quitter. Emotionally it hurts me to ever accept defeat.

BUT… A CAPTAIN HAS TO MAKE THE WISE DECISION EVEN WHEN IT IS THE HARD DECISION

My logic is struggling with my emotions.

Friends are texting me… just take a cab…  but the cab will cost more than the visa fees, over $100usd. I do not have money to waste on this.

I concede to mother. I bow my head in submission as tears of frustration roll down my cheeks. It is simply too dangerous and too difficult to sail today.

Mother wins… I lose.

I accept it.

Then the question is…  is there any way to move the schedule? Change my appointment again to be next week? I send off an email to immigration and beg them to understand my situation. It is simply too dangerous for me to sail down there now for my appointment tomorrow.

There is an hours wait while they deliberate on my request. The Antiguan government has small craft advisories out telling their own people not to go out on the ocean today. It seems mercy is to be had. My appointment was moved to Tuesday morning at 9am (yesterday for me now).

 

Sailing School

This does, however, give me time to begin training my new crew. He does deserve the best out of me. The faster he learns sailing stuff the sooner he can be useful to me. We begin Captain Lexi’s sailing school.

I have now done this so many times, usually always drawing diagrams by hand, that I decided a while ago to make better digital slides and training materials. As a sailing instructor I want to give my students the best of me, the best possible education. Brendan and I begin as teacher and student.

It does not go so well the first few days. For a while it is beginning to seem like this guy was a mistake. We sort of have a personality clash. This gets complicated but I want to try and give some background for you to try to understand. Brendan is a lovely person. I am a lovely (slightly weird wild and a bit crazy) person. I am a girl. Brendan is not. I have trouble dealing with masculine energy sometimes. Past crew will tell you that sometimes Captain Lexi spouts off a buncha man hatey crap when that gender pisses her off. Men often confuse me, make no sense to me, and can be so emotionally dim it makes them difficult for me to understand. Men and women see the world differently.

I am all pro girl power and female empowerment.

Brendan is a dominant alpha male and he is dominating me. I am a dominant alpha female, but I have a very soft sensitive female touch. The first few days the man pushes around the woman, and I let him… for a while. I am unsure as to how to handle him. I do not know how to respond to him. I keep conceding to him.

Brendan is clear with me… how he wants to learn, how I may teach him, and what I may teach him. He doesn’t like classroom work so we are going to skip it. He only wants hands on practical stuff. He doesn’t want to listen to me giving verbal training as he is not a verbal learner. He interrupts me all the time and directs the lectures. He wants to draw and diagram everything himself and not listen to words. He has weird boundary issues with his personal space. Not a good thing on a small tight sailboat. Brendan says… Brendan decides… Brandan wants…

Brendan decided he is just going to be a simple deckhand. He doesn’t want to learn how to sail, or why we do things on the boat, he wants to just know the minimum to be able to take simple orders. It is clear… I will never get a break from the helm with this guy.

This is not what I want or need. I do not need passengers getting a free ride.

I was reeling from the assault of masculine energy on my boat.

It took me two days to figure out what was going on and take control back. The man was marking his territory, the alpha dog was showing who is boss, men are such primitive animals with their behaviors. With female crew I never have to deal with this stupid crap.

But… I know what I have to do…   Time for the Captain to take back control of her ship, her home and her life.

I sit Brendan down on the deck one morning and have a talk with him.

LISTEN… I AM THE CAPTAIN… I DECIDE… YOU DO NOT DECIDE FOR ME… I AM THE TEACHER… I DECIDE THE CIRRICULUM NOT YOU…  I DECIDE WHAT YOU NEED TO LEARN, NOT YOU….   I DECIDE WHAT I NEED FROM MY CREW… NOT YOU…  IF YOU DONT LIKE IT… YOU CAN LEAVE…  EITHER GET WITH MY PROGRAM OR GO AWAY…  I am assertive clear calm and direct with him in an even tone of voice, not yelling.

 

Brendan later admits he does have personal issues dealing with alpha females in his life and that he knows he is a very dominant guy. He is not good with submitting to women, “…its gonna be tough for me… its going to be a challenge I know I have to deal with…” he tells me.

We talk nicely later and everything has been fine since then. He has been submitting to me and has stopped challenging me. He listens now. He is following. There is hope now.

I never in my whole life want to have to deal with such things, but I am the Captain and all authority and responsibility on a ship begins and ends with the captain…. want to plays no role in it. The universe does not care at all about what I want.

 

Sailing to Falmouth Sunday

So on Sunday Feb 21st mother was in a calmer mood. WildChild made the sail down and around the corner to Falmouth in much nicer conditions and now with crew that had a clue. The sail went rather well in medium conditions, 16-20 knots of wind and 1-2 meter waves. Brendan did great and did not vomit and he was helpful and listened well.

 

There is a phenomena on the ocean and with physics that the true scope size feel and magnitude of waves never show up right on camera, it is impossible to film it, you must experience it personally. The sail the other day was only in medium conditions, nothing concerning, six foot waves are not that big or uncommon out here, just normal stuff.

I decided to bring some camera’s up on the bow with me though to try and show you, try to capture some small sense for you of what the experience is actually like.

So understand that the free board on wildChild is 48 inches at the bow. That means a wave has to be 4 feet tall to wash the front deck of WildChild. Given however that the boat is floaty, and is going to rise up with the wave, it has to have a lot of energy in it to wash the bow.

 

This is what it is like on the bow of WildChild on a normal easy sail. It is a terrible place to be while sailing, it is a very wet place to be. My anchor locker takes a beating. My anchor up on the bow roller gets smashed so hard by the waves it often gets knocked right up and off the roller and tries to fall off the boat. This is such an issue I have anchor securing protocols when we sail.

The anchor is secured with a restraining line to the bow roller  AND  I wrap a rope around the rockna anchors roll bar and secure it up to the bow sprit  AND  I have to turn off the up/down switch for the windlass when sailing because the contents of the anchor locker are smashing up into the lid and they sometimes activate the windlass…. yes.. the heavy chain in the anchor locker hits the underside of the lid…!

It is very violent up on the bow.

I am riding 8 feet up in the air and then smashing down 8 feet as the bow lifts and falls between wave crests and peaks. Of course the ocean always looks calm whenever I am showing it to you on film in the videos. These are all images taken on a relatively easy calm sail in medium conditions, not even sporty conditions. It would be way too dangerous to try and get this footage for you in sporty conditions. If I had made that sail last Thursday these waves would have washed all the way up to the mast in actual rough conditions. I have had waves wash all the way up to the dodger, I have had waves cresting over top of the bimini before…!

I never allow crew up on the bow in anything but dead calm seas. Too dangerous.

 

Falmouth

The whole point of the sail though, was to get to my VISA extension appointment at Nelson’s dockyard in English Harbour for yesterday morning.

My friend Peter from SV Bershert came with me yesterday morning for the walk over and to show me where to go. The whole process was just fine. I did get my 90 day VISA extension.  YAY…  🙂

I admit I was very nervous dealing with all this and I was glad my friend Peter came along for moral support. Dealing with paperwork and governments is something I completely hate doing. I go on and on about it all the time and will save you from most of my diatribe on the subject. Suffice it to say that Wild Children do not like to submit to government controls and bureaucratic stupidity. It is very hard for me.

 

 

What is your address…?   I live on my boat… no no… our forms need a land mailing address… but I don’t have one…  no no… the form has a spot where you have to fill in your land address… yes that’s nice but I do not have an address…  stop being difficult you stupid girl or we, with all of our power and authority, will punish and hurt you, we could just kick you out… or even arrest you…!

I just made up some random shit for them and smiled a lot. It seemed to make them happy.

To their credit… Antigua is a very lovely place. The officials were extremely kind and very pleasant to deal with. They were very nice about the whole thing. It took about an hour for them to shuffle a lot of unnecessary papers they learned about from the British in the 1960’s. The papers seemed very important to them. I kept myself calm and smiling and just gave them lots of money when they asked for it. They have very kindly allowed me to stay here another 90 days. So that’s just wonderful.

Hey Lexi what will you do after that…?

Ohhh…   that’s way too far into the distant future to even begin speculating about.

 

The good life

I wanted to go snorkeling yesterday after my paperwork problem got all cleared up. There is a lovely reef at the entrance to Falmouth harbour, lovely to snorkel not so lovely for the boats that hit it. Last week some sailboat hit the reef coming into Falmouth harbour and the coast guard rescue had to tow their damaged and sinking boat over to the CAT marina for emergency haul out.

The thing is though…  Falmouth is like the Caribbean capital for dinghies running over swimmers. It is such a serious thing down here. People get killed this way all the time. Just two weeks ago a woman got run over by a dinghy in here. We all know that the rules do not ever apply to rich people and why should mega yachts ever show any respect to other people. They have dinghies with 300hp engines on them that can go very fast, and of course being rich they are always in a hurry. Those mega yacht tenders just go so fast in here without looking where they are going. The speed limit is 4knots in the bay but of course rich people are exempt.

 

so before I went swimming in here… I put something on my to-do list yesterday.

I am highly motivated to NOT get killed by stupid rich people.

 

 

I have been trying to find and buy some type of inflatable dive flag I could use for months now but can never find any. I was chatting with the guy in the local dive supply shop here and he suggested I should just make one.

Well… Captain Lexi is the kind of innovative brilliant girl who can fix or build almost anything so why not. My big goal was not to waste too much money on this and make sure it is effective. The ocean ruins everything you own in short order anyway so there is little chance of it lasting long.

I bought a $10 Styrofoam ball at the marine store, they did not have any dive flags though. Peter gave me a red racing penalty flag that I painted the white stripe on myself. With the help of a stick I found on the ground, the use of my wonderful tools, some extra rope in the rope locker, some extra chain in the anchor locker, add my big squishy brain and a little girl power know how and ta-da….   !

I happen to think it is mesmerizingly beautiful. It turned out well.

 

The brilliant plan is… now at least the idiots in the high speed dinghies will see my dinghy anchored nearby… see the diver in the water flag… pull their heads up out of their asses…  and hopefully slow down and go way out and around.

That’s the theory anyway.

This morning we went for a hike with some other cruisers over the middle ground trail.

maybe my life is not so boring…  maybe my life is actually rather lovely.

I was musing about this just the other day as Brendan and I sat up on deck celebrating the sunset again. He says to me…  “not a bad life you got going for yourself Lexi… not bad atoll..” with his thick British accent.

 

Cheers sailors…

 

I hope the rest of your worlds are not going too badly…  I hear China is trying to start a war in the south China seas. I hear the economy is going to crash soon but housing prices are still through the roof…  I hear the cost of living is more unaffordable than ever and wages lower than ever…  sorry about the mess you all have to deal with…

it’s sunny down here in the Caribbean…

 

🙂

 

Captain Lexi…