Well the good news is I have made lots of new friends and I have been socializing with real people lately. Teddy is still my best friend but I have somehow magically connected with other people here and somehow managed to make new friends…  YAY. I was invited to a cruisers end of the season farewell to Antigua dinner on Friday, then last Sunday to a local ex-pat BBQ. I have had so many interesting conversations with interesting people recently I don’t even know where to begin. Then today, (Tuesday April 27th 2021) I solo sailed again, this time from Falmouth harbour to the windward side of Antigua to a place called Green island. I passed out solo sailing a lot this time though, it was rough.

 

 

Cruisers

I have made friends with some of the other sailors I meet out here, despite the age difference, there are some really wonderful people out here. I have mentioned my friends Mark and Lyn on SV Roxy, just amazing and wonderful American friends. Well it seems that Lyn is one of the organizers and powerhouses for the Salty dawgs organization. As hurricane season approaches soon the boomers with the money and the means will be storing their boats soon in boat yards here and flying home for the hurricane season, and brilliantly avoiding the coming tropical summer heat. So for many of the sailors down here around me their sailing “season” is coming to an end in the next few weeks.

To mark the occasion the Salty Dawgs organized a lovely social type dinner at a very fancy high end resort here called BOOM restaurant. It is a luxury spa type place with a wonderful pool and amazing views overlooking Nelson’s dockyard. As most of the mega yachts have now gone, and without any tourists around, the place seemed happy to host us sailors.

 

 

Personally as a professional sailor bum without any money or income for years now I never eat out at restaurants, and could never afford such a place. Way out of my league. Lyn graciously offered to invite me along for this social cruisers event as their guest, including me in the group. I did mention previously that they are just the nicest people. I was deeply honored by the invite and very happy to attend last Friday (April 23rd).

The event was so lovely, the meal amazing, like honestly the best I have eaten in months. The company was fantastic, I just love sailors as the thing we have in common eternally binds us to a common interest. I also got to meet a few other sailors who will be sailing south for hurricane season. Sailing down to Grenada is my hurricane plan too, hurricanes are very bad to witness from the deck of your boat, but as I am still solo and without crew, this idea scares the crap out of me. I am hoping to find crew before then, but so far its not going well. So the idea of maybe buddy boating sounds lovely to me.

 

 

After just a lovely evening among cruiser friends I eventually made my way home alone.

The exciting tangent to this story is…

Despite the Antigua curfew being raised to 11pm and restrictions very lifted at the moment, it was still very dark in the bay when I returned to my dinghy at the dinghy dock. I never like trying to find my WildChild in a dark anchorage ever…   but with the brilliant new lights mounted on my mast recently, my girl stood out in the crowd even from a distance she was easy to find in the dark…

so YAY YAY YAY   …   

and SUPER YAY ….   

 🙂

 

Local ex-pat Friends

 

The social event with the cruisers was last Friday.

Last Sunday (April 25th) I was invited to be the guest of Billy and Charlotta, the Carriacou sloop sailors I told you about before, to go with them and their friend Gary for a BBQ event at some friends place. I was rather excited to have two chances to socialize with people in one week, I think this has not happened to me for months and months, sadly I spend a lot of time alone. So for this social opportunity I jumped at the chance to meet people.

I dinghied to shore at the Antigua National sailing academy and tied up my dinghy and walked up to Billy and Charlotta’s house on the hill nearby at 9:30am. Gary was due to pick us up at 10am but he was a little bit late, island time, and arrived closer to 11am. I generally try to respect other people’s privacy and right to keep their personal stuff out of my blogs but I think Billy will forgive me if I sing his praises a little bit.

Billy and I were happy to sit together on his front deck waiting for Gary because conversations between us are always so stimulating. Billy and I get along well, understand each other, and both know about the world of darkness from our childhoods. Philosophically Billy is very curious and well read and educated. His mind loves to wrestle with the big questions of philosophy and he is the only person I can chat with about such things.

I drink in our conversations like a girl dying of thirst in the desert. Billy is so much fun for me to talk to. He challenges me and brings me new ideas and perspectives, he is probably the anchor currently holding me from going over the deep end, getting too eccentric to participate in society anymore. I fear becoming too well read and so intellectually complex that I move too far away from the concerns and interests of normal people to be able to relate to them anymore. Billy keeps me down to earth and keeps pushing me to explain things in easy to understand terms that normal people can understand, a skill I need for my writings.

We had a lovely time waiting for Gary to show up with the vehicle.

 

 

Once Gary arrived, he has been living in Antigua since he was a hippie in the 1970’s, he knows everyone and everywhere here, he also runs the only antique shop on the island, we all piled into his car. Gary wanted to treat us to a tour of the island off the beaten tracks. Really… although I have been trapped in Antigua over a year now, I seldom ever get more than walking distance from my anchorages. I have not seen very much of this lovely island and I was happy to get a personal tour. We found farm lands and rain forests and little towns nestled into valleys I would never see from the ocean.

We explored a hurricane damaged resort and walked secluded little beaches. It is awesome getting a personal tour from someone who knows the history of a place. It was a lovely morning and eventually around 2:30pm we arrived at the place for the BBQ, apparently a little late, everyone else was told noon. Well… maybe in island time 2:30 in the afternoon is close to noon right.

 

fun side story about Lexi the chicken

They drive on the British side of the road down here and the drivers seat is reversed from what I am used to. I was sitting in the front passenger seat for the tour and Billy and Charlotta were sitting in the back. Our driver had been liberally drinking his straight whiskey on the rocks for the last few hours and was already sloppy with his speech by the time we parked the car under a tree on some little secluded beach.

The beach is quite small, maybe 200 meters long and quite out-of-the-way as they say. It was also empty of people.

So it surprised me, when I looked in the mirror beside me before I opened the door (on the left side of the Jeep) before I opened it to step out, and see other vehicles pull in behind us on the sandy sideroad.

What looked like a local type “bus” meaning ten passenger van went past us and parked in front of us on the beach and another vehicle pulled up and parked behind us blocking us in.

I went into shock as I watched in the side mirror as men with machine guns got out and began approaching us from behind…!   I peaked in sudden terror. I could only see some men in black from the neck down in the mirror image as they began walking up behind us. In Canada you can go your whole life and never see a gun. For sure not see M16’s or whatever up close in public like this. I get that my American friends were completely undisturbed about this but I panicked. Like sudden rush of adrenaline and terror grips me as I quickly pull up my Covid mask, I know its a weird response but in these times you wouldn’t want to get shot because you are not wearing your face mask, and I began to cry. Just tears streaming down my cheeks my whole body shaking in terror waiting for the bullets to tear thru my body as I said a quick prayer to Jesus.

The other people in the car, didn’t see the guns until after the (soldiers..?  policeman..?  defense force guys…?   coast guard…?  drug squad guys…? )   walked past us and took control of the empty beach….?

My friends did hear me panicking though and quickly reassured me don’t worry they are not after us… its fine… as though it is normal for men with machine guns to walk up behind you on deserted beaches in Antigua. The comforting words from already drunk Gary were   ….  “don’t worry… if there was anything to worry about you would already be dead…“.

Although philosophically I accept my mortality and understand there is a fair chance mother will kill me out here…. I do nothing to hasten my death… and I think death by machine gun could not possibly be pleasant.

This is NOT CANADA is  it…?    🙁

Like a dozen armed men came out of the two vehicles and suddenly had military type control of a random deserted beach in Antigua on a Sunday…???    weird…. but whatever…   Just another day in my life I guess.

I didn’t have my camera out… sorry no pictures

 

———————-

 

We all walk across the road where the other friends have been waiting for us for the last few hours and I get introduced to a whole bunch of new people. These people didn’t have sailing as a common thread but rather a dislike of winter. It seems to be a theme sometimes down here, but it seems when old white people who have money… retire… they often want to escape the cold climates they are from and seek the sun down here in the Caribbean. To each their own, I miss snow and suffer heavily from the heat.

 

 

It is not my place to give away names or personal details here but I can safely say they were all nice, lovely, warm open and very interesting characters. I was welcomed into the social group right away and greeted like family. The food was amazing and the conversations were fun.

 

 

Solo Sail Today

 

I will start out this section with the reassurance that the weather window I picked today was lovely and the ocean was mostly rather calm for most of todays sail. I am not an idiot “who should have sailed on a better day” so please do not let such silly things enter your mind.

I would love to be able to keep my personal medical condition a private secret, but it would be unwise. If you have been following along you know I have a heart condition called Vaso Vagal Syncope. It basically means my brain does not regulate my heart rate or blood pressure very well. It has a delayed response. For me it means that at anytime my blood pressure can suddenly drop and I feint and meet the ground in a hurry. I live with it, mostly I know how to manage it, I can usually feel it coming. It gets me about 5 times a day so I cannot keep it secret. People around me need to know not to panic when I go down. I tell my friends that if I suddenly try to hug them please get your arms under mine and hold me up, I am trying not to hit the ground.

So although solo sailing on the ocean is a crazy idea, for some people on some boats it is less crazy. For medically delicate little me to be solo sailing on my big 40 foot race boat… it is admittedly a rather bad idea. Solo sailing for me is very difficult and rather dangerous.

Today though, in nice weather, I choose to leave Falmouth harbour and go sail around to the windward side of the island for some place called Green island. It is apparently rather lovely, protected by a ring of barrier reefs and rather secluded. I figured “why not..?“.

I have recently become filled with inspiration for another book I need to write and I think this place will be a perfect place to get some work done, no land access no distractions. The internet is also better here than in Falmouth.

I have been unable to find any crew for this sail so I figured “fuck it” I will just do it alone….  it will be very hard…    but I am badass tough.

I woke up early enough this morning and began lifting my anchor before the thermal winds kicked up. Exciting news the engine worked just fine and I did not bump into anyone after getting my anchor raised. I almost passed out after I got the anchor stowed and was scurrying back to the helm, but a short rest pause on the side deck, a deep breath and I was able to recover. I made it back to engage the engine and steer around the other anchored boats with lots of extra seconds to spare.

I did pass out just outside the harbour mouth raising the mainsail alone. It is just such a physically strenuous job it pumps up my heart rate and at some point my brain lets it go suddenly and I fall. The mainsail needs to be raised both from the mast and from inside the cockpit. I have worked out a way though to do the mast work, while the autopilot drives to windward, and then kinda of latch a loop in the halyard block to hold it from falling back down as I run back to the cockpit to haul in the slack line on deck and control it from the winch. It is sporty and hard but do-able.

I got the mainsail most of the way up from the mast then ran back and quickly hauled the rest up with the winch going as fast as possible, before the yacht hit the cliffs ahead.

I could hear my own heavy breathing and I knew the white lights were coming for me… I did get back to the helm but I don’t remember if I passed out before I was able to bear away from the cliffs or after. At any rate I did not hit the cliffs.

Once aimed offshore I was able to get my Genny out and tighten everything up for a nice close haul port tac to begin getting offshore. Weirdly the engine started to give an overheat alarm just as I was about to turn it off. I am not sure why… that has not happened in over a year.

The sea state was mostly rather calm, all things considered. I had only 1 meter ocean swell and half meter wind waves driven by the lovely 10 knots of wind out of the SSE. The peak to peak wave intervals though were about 1 boat length for WildChild. Not a good distance apart for me. I sailed along happily and immediately got my headphones on and playing podcasts to stave off boredom and loneliness, it is very lonely on the ocean.

The sail went along fine. I actually did a spectacular job tacking the yacht alone like a professional sailor captain…  ha ha…  The tac went really well and I switched over to a starboard tac close reach as I began to sail my way up the windward coast of Antigua.

Basically all good.

 

 

I did reach a point though, when you sail on and off the underwater cliffs, where the waves get sportier. So although I happened to be filming for you at this time and catch the image of my bow and bottom of my genny disappear underwater, it was not like this the whole time. It does go to show you though, that even a calm happy sail on a race boat is different than other big fat heavy yachts experience.

Fun stuff huh…   🙂

A few hours later I began making my approach to this place (Green island). I was almost running dead down wind as I began to come into the narrow entrance. It was amazing and a little scary to see the bottom crystal clear in 40 feet of water as I made my approach. It feels more shallow than it is and feels like you will hit something.

I had the option, which would be standard procedure really, to turn on the engine, swing around 180 degrees and go-to-wind to drop my mainsail. The thing was… once I came thru the narrow windy entrance to the big bay, I did not know how far away the anchorage was. I decided that conditions were rather light, winds behind at less than 10 knots, I dropped my mainsail while still sailing downwind…!   yeah… cause I’m awesome like that. It was a bit hard to drop it full of wind but I managed to physically haul it down anyway.

That way I could just keep the genny up and use it to sail downwind and wiggle back and forth thru the narrow squiggly channel. I would have plenty of maneuverability and power to get in and around the headland of the island to my starboard side as I rounded it.

 

 

I did a great job dropping my mainsail up alone on deck. I did get my heart rate up though and passed out once I got back behind the wheel. WildChild was sailing straight into a reef 200 meters ahead and I had to really fight my way back to consciousness to correct the steering before that went badly. I did though.

Then 2 minutes later, as I round the headland and start coming around to windward I suddenly see that I am already in the anchorage, still sailing under genny and had not started my motor yet.

WHOOPS… didn’t realize it was so close

I get the engine on, autopilot  steering towards the other anchored boats and I scramble to dump my genny and furl it in manually with the old Heave-Ho….   again I am a tough strong girl and I get my genny in but it takes all my strength and little extra I don’t have to get it in quickly.
I just sat down again behind the helm when my lights went out again. When I came to…  WildChild was slowly driving herself straight as ordered but only 100 meters from a collision with a nearby anchored boat.

My heart condition is unbelievably inconvenient sometimes.

 

 

I did return to consciousness on time to save everything and I did a great job solo anchoring near the tip of this little island. Its all good now and hopefully stays this way for the rest of my week here. I am fairly well protected by those outer reefs and my anchor did set well. IF the winds come from the west though…   I will hit the island I am anchored off. If a big storm comes up and I drag in the night there is a very big shallow reef 150 meters behind me. This could become a bad scene fast so I need to stay vigilant.

Lets all pray for good things huh…  be optimistic mom will stay calm for a week.

 

Future outlook

 

This should be a very peaceful week for me and let see how the next book turns out. I do not expect to finish in a week of course but it should start itself soon and we will see how the writing goes.

I have composed this little Captain failure medley for you to think about… i know images like this certainly stay with me, especially as I do dangerous things out here solo sailing alone on the ocean. Here is to hoping no future sailor gets a picture of WildChild suffering one of these nasty fates huh…?   🙁

bad things can and do happen out here…

 

Cheers sailors and sailor fans…

 

Captain Lexi…

 

… the mix of badass…. crazy…  brave…  weird…    and tough…!