I decided to delay todays sail until tomorrow so I can upload a video for you this morning using the local wifi and write this blog. I think my life is boring yet my new crew laughs and says “Lexi you are a remarkable person who lives an exciting life… your life is anything but boring…“. Somehow I manage to find things to write about every week, so perhaps he is right.

Let’s get you caught up on the adventure….

 

 

Checking Out of St. Martin

I was a bit apprehensive about this last passage, I was rather uncertain about America’s response to my Canadian citizenship. Historically Canada and the US have always been friends with a long undefended open border, the insanity of late had changed that drastically. The best information I could gather was that our two countries were friends again and probably would allow a Canadian boat to enter their waters despite what the first screen in CPB ROAM has to say about it officially.  (see images below)

My American sailor friends assured me that my chances of entering America were good but it was important that I show up with a recent valid COVID rapid test, you cannot get in without one. Achieving this in a foreign land where I do not speak the local language worried me but the lovely chef at La Sous Marin assured us, just go down the street and find the pharmacy on the left, you cannot miss it.

This is that secret hidden culture stuff, for my Canadian friends, when I say pharmacy, conjure up an image in your mind…   what do you see…?  Yeah me too… a large Shoppers Drug mart building with a large parking lot around it and lots of commercial signs all over it. My cultural assumptions are rather incorrect in Europe. The chefs assumptions of what a pharmacy you “can’t miss” looks like were also not nearly as universal as he assumed.

Culture is a tricky thing

 

 

Eventually I figure out how to find this pharmacy with the wonderful help of my new crew, he is rather worldly and well travelled. We enter and wait patiently until a… hmm…  service attendant…?  pharmacy helper….?  employee…?  calls us forth and asks how they can help us in rapid french. I blink trying to process what they said when my crew just steps forth in english and asks, the person quickly switches to rather good english and confirms they do Covid testing here.

You can     CLICK HERE    to see the video to get a sense of this whole scene. It cost money time and effort but eventually we did get papers proving Negative Covid test results to please America in a few days.

 

 

I will not bore you with the details of how wonderful and easy the French system is to navigate but suffice it to say checking out was as simple as ever and a pleasure to submit to. There was a bit of a wait as several other cruisers were ahead of me waiting to use the computer in the back of the chandlery, but eventually, it took me 5 minutes to complete the process and we were good to go.

 

 

Mother nature was in a good mood and we had a weather window open to make the jump, the paperwork was all in order, it was time to sail. You can    CLICK HERE   to see the video of the 24 hour overnight sail to Culebra Puerto Rico. Conditions were good and we had a lovely sail. Goodness I love having Vinay as crew.

The sail was relatively easy and went rather well. We did see dolphins which is always lovely. The only issue that really bothered me was the radar failed. This is the reality of the sailing life and why Captain’s are obsessed with backup plans and spare parts. I live a very flexible dynamic life adapting constantly to the unexpected being thrown at me.

The radar was tested and working fine before we left. It worked fine for the first few hours. In the dead of night with no moon in pitch black conditions, when we needed it most, it lost spoke data and began only intermittently appearing on the data bus. Grrr…. it can be so frustrating….  I spend $5000 on the latest and greatest gear to keep me safe in exactly this moment and it fails. The ocean is really hard on everything I own.

 

Checking into America

The reason I sailed the extra miles to Culebra was because I have been here before, and I know there is an American CBP (Customs and Border Protection branch of homeland Security) office at the little airport here. I know from history and personal experience that despite their insistence that you can just use the app, they always end the call with me demanding I submit myself in person to the nearest CBP office at the airports anyway.

 

 

I figured, Culebra is lovely, the officer there 2 years ago was very kind, my safest course of action was just to show up there in person and ask if I can come in. It seemed like a good plan, I was well intended. Early the next morning we land the dinghy on the foreign shore, despite federal laws stating only the captain may go ashore to check in, I bring my American crew with me. If I get arrested I would like him to know about it.

This horrifying process made me

long for the simpler English Caribbean islands

America is always tricky, you could enter the same port 10 times and get 10 different officers and get 10 different versions of rules to follow. Consistency is not America’s thing, I have lots of first hand personal experience to this effect. They act super strict about their border security yet on the ground they are quite dysfunctional.

 

 

We arrive at the airport… only to discover… they closed the CBP office down to save money and all agents have been centralized to Fajardo…!   yep… super stupid. We could spend 6 months here and they would never know about it. I sit down to figure out what to do next. The sign on the door says just call us.

I do not have a working phone. My Digicell SIM card was being blocked by the American corporations from being allowed even roaming access to the T-mobile cellular network. How am I expected to call them..?  They say call us yet block my phone from having service.

My crew is American and is paying an American corporation for cellular phone access to the network, his phone is working. I ask to use his phone and begin phoning the numbers provided on the door. The first 3 numbers do not connect and seem to not be working. I am stymied, what do they expect me to do now?

The Airport guy sees me suffering to figure out the American check-in system and helpfully offers…  “… try the last number on the bottom… it’s local office… and do not dial a +1…“  it works…! I am almost in shock when a human being answers the phone, its a girl with a thick spanish accent, a little difficult to understand.

I explain my situation, her unhelpful reply was….  “… you have to use the CBP ROAM app to check in… there is no other way…” she is being patient with my stupidity. I explain…   “…. yes I hear you… but the second I open the app it says pleasure craft are not considered essential travel and cannot enter…  also my cell phone is being blocked from working… I have no internet access…”  I am trying hard to stay calm with the expected impossibility of reason I knew I would have to face today, I am prepared… ish…

 

 

She tells me that internet access is not her problem, it is my responsibility to figure it out. Go find internet access and use your phone to access the app to check in. I also ask her about getting my US cruising permit number for the year. She assures me, there is a check box in the app for that, just use the app it will do everything. I ask about the app clearly saying pleasure craft cannot enter, she says ignore the first command of the app and use the app…?  We end the call very politely and I need to sit for a few minutes to breathe and release the building stress.

 

 

OKAY….  I accept my reality… the gate to America is this stupid broken ineffective CBP ROAM app…. got it. I have dealt with this monster before, never successfully mind you. We spend the next 2 hours searching the small sleepy tourist town for either a SIM card I can buy or wifi access, we lose. Eventually I conclude that we must find a way for Vinay’s phone to hotspot my phone.

It takes me about 2 hours to submit our CBP ROAM app request for entry. The check box for applying for a cruising permit does not work and keeps refusing to allow me to submit my entry request, there are many many attempts with various boxes checked to try to convince the stupid app to just fuckin work already. Once I give up trying to get it to also do the cruising permit as the agent in the morning assured me to use, it finally submitted our request by mid afternoon.

We waited and waited… and nothing happened, it just kept saying   STATUS PENDING without anything more happening for an hour. I cannot stay on my crews wifi hotspot forever, he is roaming data. I give up and do not know what to do next.

To be completely honest, the American government scares the living crap out of me. I was always fine letting my rebel spirit stretch the rules in other islands but America has   FOR PROFIT PRISONS   which means the heavily armed government agents are highly motivated to throw people in prison for any slight offense, I know of many stories personally from americans who have been victimized by this stupid system.

I need to be friends with this insane government because logic and reason seldom restrains the bullies with guns.

Eventually I try calling that local number again and get another agent, they tell me we did not answer their phone call…?  They never called us, nothing ever rang, no missed calls. The agent digs around in the system and finds our request, she goes over it and says “…okay I will need to do a video call… I will hang up and video call you back…“. We end the call and they never call back a second time.

I try calling them back again 20 minutes later, they scold me for not answering their call… the one that never came. I sigh… stay calm Lexi and try not to cry. It seems they have no idea how their systems work, they do not know that despite me giving them Vinay’s phone number to call, their system is automatically trying to call my ROAM app with a very old invalid Canadian phone number attached to it that I cannot change. I was supposed to keep the ROAM app open and online to receive their call, they would not be calling Vinay’s American phone as they said they would, but they never told me this.

and clearly… from their perspective… I am the idiot for screwing this up.

Finally we make the video call and confirm our identities and passports. Next they tell me I need to go to DeeTops and pay to register my vessel into their country and get a sticker mailed to me with a vessel registration number on it to complete the check in process…? She say this like “DeeTops” is an obvious word and is obvious and easy to find and any idiot would know about it…!

I sigh… I have banged my head against this monster before. For whatever crazy bureaucratic reason America demands all boats that enter their country must be registered in their country every year. You need like a license plate sticker for your boat. They need you to go into their very complicated dysfunctional government websites and pay for and order a physical sticker which they will mail to your home in 3-8 weeks and you MUST stick onto your boat near the companionway clearly visible to government agents.

Once you have the sticker you can complete your entry request. You cannot enter without the sticker.

I am trying not to cry

I sit down at my computer hotspotting off my crews phone and begin google searching this strange word  “D-Tops” …  I get many hits from many different American government websites, the primary hit is a Puerto Rico Department of Transportation and public works…?

It takes me 2 hours to search thru dozens of options and find the correct DeeTops. There I need to make a super secure mega password triple protected commercial purchasing account like a business agent. Passwords so complex and strong there is no chance I will ever remember them again. It takes 2 hours to fill out the forms and pay for this stupid vessel registry sticker using my “land address” which I do not have. I live on a boat is not a mailing option.

Eventually I get a payment confirmation number for a sticker I just bought but will never see and then contact the agents back again to try to get permission to enter America. By 4pm I am ready to cry but I am making progress with the bureaucratic monster.

Nobody ever asks me about any Covid tests or testing results, it seems I wasted my money on that one.  Nobody ever tells me anything about needing to report my yachts movements when I change anchorages, like they used to demand of me. That seems done now too.

I ask about the cruising permit I know, from past experience, and many other sailors, that I need. Officer Ramirez now assures me, you do not need a cruising permit anymore. It sounds quite wrong to me and I am very reluctant to believe him, his words disagree with everything every other sailor and my own personal experience assures me. US Coast guard have boarded me before and the first question is “where is your cruising permit number…?“.

Officer Ramirez seem certain I now only need a US PBRS# now…????

I am uncertain how I will explain this to the men with guns who will eventually harass me. The rules seem to change with each officer, why does the app have a (not functioning) option for a cruising permit then?

America makes me miss Antigua and Grenada

but we are now legally in America…

so victory eventually…

$35 usd & 8 hours later

I needed a rum punch and to dance naked under the stars that night to vent out a lot of stress. Sometimes we need to feel our souls go free and be wild and reconnect to the energy of the universe.

 

 

The Detective Story

I was cut off from the internet for most of the last week, my French St. Martin SIM card, which works in the entire Caribbean EXCEPT America, was being blocked by the local T-mobile towers. I do not speak french and could not convince my french cell app to allow me roaming access on the expensive American networks no matter what I did, no credit card solution seems to work. T-mobile was demanding I enter my T-mobile access number to be allowed to connect to their towers…  I do not have a T-mobile access number.

This left me going over to the local restaurant called    The Dinghy Dock   to mooch off their wifi access point beside the water. I was there sitting in my dinghy trying to upload a youtube video for you guys a few days ago when I met Mike, the local fix everything guy. I just liked the guy immediately.

 

 

Mike is this rough character, smokes and swears way too much, will tell you to go fuck yourself in a second and is brimming with the rebel spirit. I like the rebel spirit. He is a free spirit like me and free thinking like me, he is a rebel to the core and can figure out how to fix or build anything like me. We might appear very different on the outside but we have the same spirit on the inside.

We make friends and hang out a few times over the last few days. Well 2 days ago Mike and I agree… hey… let’s do a media exchange… we can copy movies and TV shows from each other. Sailors do this all the time as we do not have the same unlimited high speed internet access you dirt dwellers take for granted. We cannot just stream Netflicks like you do.

 

 

I dinghy back to my yacht to get my spare hard drives from beside my nav desk and exchange media with Mike. I am shocked that they are not there. I cannot find them…?  That’s weird.

I keep a ziplock freezer bag in the cubby hole beside my nav desk with like 4 or 5 portable hard drives in it. One is a music drive that I also use for doing media exchanges with other people. One is my Camera video mirror drive. I always back up my YouTube camera videos onto both a backup drive and a mirror of the back up drive. I always keep these drives in this cubby. I am very good at not losing important stuff like this because I am very careful to always put them back in their place.

I used the mirror drive at the end of December and at the end of January to backup the months camera videos. I know for sure it was on the boat and for the last 4 years is always in this cubby, I am very habitual with this stuff. The sudden unexpected disappearance of these drives is very unusual. Something is very wrong. I get a bad feeling inside.

These drives are very valuable to me and rather expensive, probably like $500 dollars worth of digital hardware I cannot afford to replace. I have never lost them before and I ALWAYS keep them in this cubby. Only 3 human beings have been aboard my boat in the last 6 weeks, Me, Ivan, and Vinay. I never have company on board.

Where could they possibly be…?  

The detective in me rises to the surface and I begin the hunt as any of you would.

1st…

Maybe they got misplaced somewhere else…?  I check other possible places… Did I put them in the pilot berth maybe…? Did I put them in the nav desk…?   I begin searching everywhere.  I cannot find them

2nd…

I begin trying to retrace my memory… when was the last time I saw them…?  can I remember where I put them..?  maybe I put them somewhere else for some weird reason…?   I remember using them when my TV drive failed about 6 weeks ago, and remember using them 4 weeks ago at the end of January when I backed up my camera videos… I remember putting them back into this cubby as I always do….

3rd…

I explore other possible, improbable explanations,   Maybe my last crew moved them… ?   Maybe ivan put them somewhere else and didn’t tell me…?   Maybe he put them somewhere else and while sailing in rough conditions they fell or slipped behind something…?

I have begun tearing my yacht apart 2 and 3 times checking and rechecking every possible place they could be. This is not a big boat, there are simply not that many places to put such a thing. Over the last 2 days I can say with absolute certainty that these missing drives are NOT ON THE BOAT anymore… for sure, I have torn the place apart many times and searched really everywhere.

 

 

4th…

The search for explanations… what could possibly be the answer to this mystery…?

They walked themselves off the boat…? 

0.00000000001% odds of Probability

I took them off the boat for no reason and no have memory of doing so…? maybe in my sleep…?

0.0001% odds of Probability

Someone broke into my boat in my absence… stole only those drives and left no signs of ever having entered the boat…? They did not touch or take anything else

0.000001% odds of Probability

My current crew Vinay stole them..? Just to see me squirm and suffer…

0.00000000000000001% odds of Probability

***

There is only 1 person left who had access to them

My last crew ivan… the sociopath who was pissy with me for his last few days and angry…  who left on bad terms…  the man who had easy and constant access to the drives and knew about them….   and was seen many times sitting right beside them, who knew they were there and what they were…   got sneaky vengeance on me..? 

90% odds of Probability…    Oh my god….  I am in shock… how evil is that…?   That fucker stole from me…!    he had motive means and opportunity. It is mathematically and logically the most reasonable conclusion to draw. It is the only conclusion left. 

I am in total shock…  I cannot believe a crew I invited into my home actually stole from me. How horrible is that…?  What a dick thing to do. He could never claim he accidentally put them in his bag when he left 2 weeks ago. This was such a well planned and deliberate and carefully crafted sneaky hurtful attack at one of my most vulnerable spots…. all my personal videos and data stolen. Like the perfect crime.

But you know… A long time ago… I had a German crew Elena… who was also a narcissist… and she also planned sneaky evil attacks exactly like this. This sort of thing is very in character for a narcissist, part of their pathology, look it up.

He knows why I have no respect for him and why I believe he has no honour… so his word is no good with me. There is nothing he could ever say to convince me he didn’t steal them, his words have no value or meaning with me. In a few weeks or months when my personal archived videos or personal data gets leaked I will have all the proof I need of his guilt.

What police do you even contact for a crime like this…?  A Croatian was in St. Martin when he stole them off a Canadian yacht, flew to Croatia immediately, and I am currently in America. I really have no recourse for this crime. There is nothing I can do but suffer now…

his vengeance is complete

Soooo… Evil…. wow.

This super sucks for me…

but good job being super evil…

you got me good buttmunch

Trusting strangers in my home, being vulnerable to crew, the predators will always show their stripes eventually, they always do. It’s the passive aggressive sneaky ones that are the most dangerous though. I never suspected a thing until it was too late.

and this is my life…

are you sure you envy my life…?

it is hard… all the time…

but never boring huh…?

 

Future Intentions

I can never tell you of my future plans, because I seldom make plans out here. I can speak only of my future intentions.

I stayed here in Culebra an extra day to take advantage of the wifi internet access to upload this blog to you and this mornings video. I did eventually manage to get an American T-mobile SIM card but of course it is expensive and of very limited data. So I can check messages for the next 2 weeks here in Puerto Rico and check weather, which is super important to sailors.

 

 

Tomorrow, mother willing, I will sail 20 miles to Vieques. There is an amazing bioluminescent bay there and we are in a new moon phase right now, I thought my new crew Vinay might like to see this.

Eventually we will keep making our way ever westward along the Puerto Rican coast until we are ready to jump to the Dominican Republic in 2 weeks or so.

My current Crew Vinay is just delightful and lovely and so perfect, but he only agreed to give me about a month of his time. I have a British girl named Daisy who will come to crew for me next. Flights are booked for March 17th 2022 in Puerto Plata DR. WildChild now has a loose schedule to keep again. I will be back in Luperon in 3 weeks.

I have decided not to go visit Jamaica, south shore DR. It is 500 extra miles of sailing I do not have the heart for. I would have to sail thru pirate alley between Cuba and Haiti against the trade winds and against the currents. The cost benefit analysis of doing this simply does not pan out. Jamaica is not that exciting and besides… they still murder people for being gay, and I am rainbow family.

So now I am 550 miles closer to home with only 3800 Nautical miles left to go.

How hard can it be…?

 

I am rather depressed about my missing hard drives today, I am having a hard time sleeping I am so upset about it.

but… I will dance naked on deck again tonight under the stars and just let it all go…

 

I hope your life is easier than mine…

 

hugs from far away…

 

Wild Captain Lexi

 

the depressed…