The nice thing, for me, is that when I have female crew onboard, wearing clothes is so much less important. With male crew onboard I have to make effort to cover up all the time and forego the spiritual delights of being naked in paradise. Miss Daisy imposes no such restrictions on me.

The southern Bahamas is really the best of the entire Caribbean, if you like nature, crystal clear waters, deserted tropical islands all to yourself, escaping social controls, and just being free. As you can imagine, Captain Lexi just loves all these things. Being free is the best feeling in the universe and the girls of WildChild have been soaking up the feeling of freedom a lot for the last 2 weeks.

Naked in Paradise…

Read on to share the adventure…

 

 

Early April 2022

I apologize for not having written anything for over 2 weeks now, this leaves me a lot of ground to cover in this blog. Last we spoke we landed in Mathewtown after a long sail and got ourselves checked in. The anchorage there was, however, very rolly and uncomfortable. My crew miss Daisy remained seasick for the 2 days we spent there. So I decided to sail up 7 miles around the corner to Man-O-War bay to give my crew relief.

It is so difficult to describe the experience of going from the filthy waters of Luperon to the crystal clear blue waters of the Bahamas, just no comparison. We laughed out loud coming into the anchorage when we could see rocks on the bottom in 50 feet of water. It is a bit unnerving because the water clarity makes gauging the depth rather deceptive. It is simply amazing. How could we not strip down and go snorkeling in these fantastic waters?

 

 

After a few relaxing days there we found our weather window to make the 80 nautical mile (14-16 hour) jump to paradise. this is a difficult distance to cover in a 13 hours day and we arrived just as the last faint light of the sun faded away. We dropped our anchor in Jamaica bay Acklins island after a successful long day sail. I am pleased to say, Miss Daisy did not vomit that sail and kept her seasickness contained. She did not feel great, but did feel better.

So YAY  ….    🙂

I have history with Acklins island and remember it as being just perfect. I was not disappointed when we woke up the next morning. WildChild had been pushing the miles for the last month and now, it was finally time to slow down and enjoy this cruising life. We stayed for 6 days I think just enjoying our time in paradise.

 

Boat Projects

This does not mean we did not have to knock things off the eternal bane of the Captains existence, the to-do list. A working cruising yacht requires a lot of maintenance and upkeep. We had to run the water maker and fix things that had broken. I must say, for the first time ever…. I actually have a crew who is a helpful member of my team.

Most crew sort of view the to-do list as the owners problems not theirs. Miss Daisy does not see it that way at all, she completely sees herself as a member of the team and is always looking for ways to help. I am not sure if I mention this often enough but this girl is amazing and the best crew ever.

Miss daisy did smaller projects that I could designate to her, such as melting the fraying rope ends with the hot iron, cleaning things and assisting me everywhere she could. A very frustrating problem we had to face was that my insanely expensive poorly made thousand dollar B&G wind sensor had failed on us for the sail there. Knowing the wind is rather important for sailors, this project became high priority.

but…  did you know that the wind sensor is all the way at the top of the mast?   you know… 65 feet in the air on a rocking boat with the mast swinging back and forth. Clearly a project I did not want to have to tackle, especially with a novice baby crew who had never put anyone up the mast before. I am not afraid of heights but you really do have to trust the person winching you up the mast with your life.

 

 

Daisy is / was amazing as she always is. The girl has a diploma in outdoor pursuits from the UK which includes mountaineering and rock climbing experience. She was perfect on the ropes and at the winch putting me up and down the mast, I need not have worried about her lack of experience.

The repair however, which I did manage to pull off in a single mast lift, was not simple at all. To try to shorten the story, when I first bought all this insanely expensive B&G gear, the first wind sensor they sent me failed within 2 weeks, they shipped me a free replacement, which arrived damaged, and they shipped me a third one, which worked. This left me with 2 spares to salvage parts off.

This time the wind vane (wind direction indicator) had not failed, but the anemometer failed. Sometimes they stop working if they get all spider webbed up or can get gunked up, but this was not the case here. I took lots of spare parts up with me, and Daisy sent me up extra stuff to effectively replace the lower anemometer unit. I brought the old one below for repair as a future replacement spare and learned the inner bearings failed…!   Cheap mexican crap.

The only thing that matters is… that in the end…

Lexi wins…!    🙂

 

Pet Barracudas

If you can imagine, down here, the waters are crystal clear, and the bottom often just mostly empty sand for huge stretches. So for the larger predatory fish, like Barracudas, they seek out the shade beneath our yachts for relief from the sun. Almost every anchorage we eventually end up with a rather large barracuda taking up residence under our boat.

 

 

Daisy, being the silly girl she is, adopts everyone of them and gives them pet names. I think we have had 4 different pet Barracudas on the last 2 weeks and each one of them have a distinct personality for Daisy. If they didn’t have such large scary teeth and were not often as long as we are tall, I think miss Daisy might want to snuggle them like a poodle, she talks to them.   ha ha ha… 

 

 

These large predators scare me personally. They do sometimes nip at and bite people. Sometimes they can get territorial about their “turf” under your boat and sometimes might not like you swimming in their “turf”. I have an agreement with my crew… if she protects me from the Barracudas, enters the water first to chase them off before I enter…  she gets to ride me like a shark shield whenever a shark swims up to us.

 

 

You might say a good deal for her…   but the way I see it… is that we do swim with large barracudas almost every time we enter the water… what are the odds we will ever actually see a shark while swimming…?

 

Shark Encounter

Soo fun story…  one day about a week ago, WildChild was anchored in a place surrounded by reefs which we figured might make for some good snorkeling. We were in 20 feet of crystal clear water and were snorkeling the various reefs around our anchored yacht. We always swim together and hold hands for mutual protection. The way we figure it, two people together can visually scan more water around them and work together against any aggressive sharks, together we appear  larger to the predators.

 

 

We were snorkeling together holding hands and about 150 meters away from the safety of our yacht, 400 meters away from land. We found a bunch of nice reefs clustered together that were splendid to look at, full of life. Daisy is on my right hand, the spear is in my left hand, reef below us, open sand and water on our right side.

Suddenly Daisy is gripping my hand tightly and pulls me to face towards her and out to our right side. There in the water is our greatest mutual fear. There is a shark in the distance swimming straight for us. It takes me a second to figure out what I am looking at to confirm it. Daisy is already getting behind me and I am in front with the spear to face the shark head on. In all likely probability nothing to fear, probably the shark is only curious, probably not going to get aggressive or cause us problems…  probably…

But it does not feel fun to be in this position, it feels very small helpless and vulnerable. The perfect killing machine swimming at us is rather slim and sleek, probably only about as long as we are tall, so around 5 feet long or so. It is not agitated but is clearly still swimming straight at us, curious. I just hate this exact moment in time, I don’t care what anyone says… I NEVER want to actually swim in open water with sharks, I just don’t want to. We are both very afraid.

 

 

Behind me Daisy is already drawing out my diving knife strapped to my leg and I am holding the spear forward towards the shark. It swims to maybe within 20 feet of us… turns sideways, swims parallel to us for a few seconds, then just leaves as suddenly as it appeared. The shark was merely curious. The experience is awesome, in an intense way for us chickens, now that it has ended safely, but there was never any guarantee of safety at its start.

We both rise to the surface to talk, we both agree, well… that’s enough of that… fuck it… let’s get out of the water, let’s swim home and pray no other sharks lurk near us. It was a nervous tense swim home for us both.

I don’t care what anyone says. All of my snorkeling adventures end at the first sight of a shark, that’s my personal choice.

 

Naked and Not Alone in Paradise

There is no better way too dry off after a lovely afternoon of snorkeling in the perfect open aquarium of the clear bahamas waters than to sit naked up on the front deck in the breeze. How does life get any better than this? We rehydrate with water and eat snacks to replenish our energy. Sometimes we blast our favorite music out to the universe and sing to our hearts content. Life is good.

 

 

The funny thing for me, and Miss Daisy helps me to see other (Male) perspectives on this, is that I view being naked and talking about it as innocently as a child. It feels wonderful natural and free, it’s the only way I am not dripping in sweat most of the time and suffering the heat. It is never intended as a sexual thing, and with us two girls, we both know this. So it is difficult for me to grasp the twisted way most of you dirt dwellers will perceive the nudity so much of our last 2 weeks was full of.

 

 

I do however sensor appropriately to keep the horny idiots among you calm.

WildChild had slowed down in Paradise to not pass its perfection by unnoticed. I specifically chose to linger there. I am not very fond of society and I rather enjoy my wild and free existence. Although I am still lonely in the intimate way, my crew is like my new best friend and a wonderful traveling companion. She is easy and fun to talk to. We enjoy each others company.

I am unsure how much to share of this new friendship. Daisy and I are almost like twin sisters separated at birth. We are so alike in such fundamental ways its uncanny. We so perfectly and completely understand and get each other its amazing. We were once together at a bar and other sailors listened to Daisy and I having a quick short chat together and they were stunned. They commented “are you two always like this together..?”  with awe.

We looked at each other wondering what the heck the men were talking about. We had no idea that the high speed shorthand way we communicate with like lifetime friends was almost unintelligible to others. We finish each other’s sentences and can almost read each other’s minds. We think alike and perceive alike and react alike. I say the main difference is Daisy is the light twin and I am the dark one. She comes from a happy easy life and I come out of a dark past.

 

 

We are both SIGMA female curious adventurer wander’s. Both INFP personality types, both highly empathic and caring. Both highly spiritual and thoughtfully self aware. We are both mirrors who are currently comfortable with each others company because no mirroring is needed. We just automatically GET each other. Both powerful rare personality types highly competent and also very tuned into mother nature, both highly connected to the planet.

Simply instant best friends

I am gonna cry when she leaves, I can tell

We also both just love to read. How can the spiritual comfy life reading experience ever get any better than in a hammock off a yacht anchored off a deserted tropical island? It takes some effort to setup the spinnaker pole to hang the hammock from, but ohh goodness do we both ever enjoy taking turns lying in it to read.

 

 

I never want to sell you on this cruising life, if you have been following along for any length of time, you know full well, this life is often very hard and only for the tough and strong people. But… sometimes…. it is AMAZING..!   For me… with years of suffering to get here behind me, I needed and deserved the last two weeks of paradise. I earned my right to be here. I earned the right to enjoy these amazing experiences. and… honestly… isn’t it about time the universe and my spirit guides sent me an angel to help me enjoy it?

With Daisy on WildChild as Crew for Captain Lexi, this yacht is the strongest it has ever been. This is one powerful girl boat able and capable to handle whatever mother needs to bring.

 

Anchor Problems

Anchoring is such a huge part of a cruisers life. We do it so often, our life and safety depends on doing it well, and all experience gained has value. As a professional Captain with lots of experience I do make fun of the wealthy boomer idiots out here all the time who never even bother to try and bear down on their anchors.

But even us pro’s have problems sometimes

To help the dirt dweller reads among you better understand, to be safe, we want our anchor nicely buried into the sand or mud and a 7:1 scope paid out. We reverse on our anchors after we drop them to make sure they have dug in. Sometimes though, despite not being able to drag it backwards with the engine, we are still not set, not dug in, not safe.

 

 

When we first dropped anchor in Jamaica bay Acklins island, and beared down on the hook, it held. The next day when we dove it we found it only dug into 6 inches of sand over bedrock. This would not have held if the winds either shifted or intensified. Scary stuff to think about. So we moved over 300 meters and tried again, again it “set it” but it was in zero sand sitting on flat bedrock tip barely holding a tiny rock lip. Two failures in a row.

Next we sailed up to Crooked island, set a perfect hook (Left image above) in soft sand, perfect set.

The next morning we were facing WEST winds, and had no place to hide. This is where we anchored among the reefs we dove and had the shark encounter. When we dove the anchor though, we could see, that as the winds swung 180 degrees the night before our anchor chain wrapped itself around a bommie (big boulder). When we went to lift it, it was highly stressful and difficult to retrieve it. One of my top 10 worst anchor lifting experiences.

Surrounded by reefs and bommies littering the sandy bottom we had a sentinel anchor out and 200 feet of chain. The chain was U shaped on the bottom and wound around a buncha rocks. The anchor actually beside us as we were hanging off the bommie on 60 feet of chain. Getting the anchors up and unwrapped from various bommies was very technical stressful and difficult. But guess what… the all girl kick ass awesome team of girls on WildChild handled it like professionals and after a patient 30 minutes of working together we untangled and lifted everything perfectly.

No better team out here than Captain Lexi and Miss Daisy

 

 

Land Adventures

Although we have spent most of the last 2 weeks not even bothering to launch the dinghy or step foot on land, we did decide to have a land adventure a few days ago in Longrail Point settlement on the northern tip of Crooked island. Sometimes we just wanna go for a walk.

I need to caution you readers who have never been to the Bahamas how remote these places are, the word town refers to a cluster of more than 5 houses. At the northern tip of Crooked island there is a “town” called Longrail point. A few days ago we decided to have ourselves a little land adventure. We launched the dinghy and set out the half mile to the dugout creek the small boat marina was in, the closest thing to a dinghy dock we could find around here.

 

 

From here we began just wandering around and exploring. We found a few vehicles parked on sandy dirt roads and began walking the roads to explore and see where they led. A few houses here and there well spread out. We walked up the right fork to its end in someone’s yard, then backtracked to explore the left fork.

We roughly knew that there was a 3 mile dirt track to the “marina” resort at the point past the salt ponds. We thought that might make an interesting hike so we found that road and wandered along it in the hot tropical sun, Daisy is already well tanned from her new tropical life.

 

 

At some point as we wandered down the long road following the coast we stumbled across this perfect gazebo with chairs in it. How could we not stop and relax and just breathe in the magic of the moment together?

 

 

I am trying to convey to you, and doing a poor job of it, how wonderful and magical this place is. Imagine if you will, a life without “society” and all it’s stupid rules and controls always pressing down on you. No people means no rules means no controls means freedom. How did we ever devolve our societies into the mess we see them in today..?

Us two girls have been wandering around in some of the remotest places in the world and loving every minute of it. I am not trying to brag but our lives have been fuckin perfect and amazing lately.

 

More Sharks

After our mutual lovely land adventure visiting the marina 3 miles up the boring walk up the road after stopped for a drink in the empty fishing charter marina bar and played some cards together. We had a local beer and Miss Daisy introduced me to a drink called a Shandy and we played some cards together. After this we hitch hiked with some local boys for a ride back to the “town” and met up with other cruiser friends.

We found a local “convenience store” bought a few things and walked back down towards the shoreline with the other cruisers we met up with. Our friends from the YouTube channel Bareboat sailing noticed a local fisherman cleaning a fish at the fish cleaning station. Davey is a smart guy and knew immediately what that would mean. He bee-lined the group in that direction.

For me I was not sure about what made this interesting until I caught on that the fisherman was throwing the scraps into the ocean nearby. Bloody fish scrapes at a local unmoving fish cleaning station had to mean….

 

 

Sharks….!

Miss Daisy and our little adopted little cruiser sister Elise from another boat were absolutely mesmerized by the sharks feeding on the scraps. I was instantly mortified and backed away from the waters edge. Nothing truly scary when standing safely on land, a little 3 foot cute nurse shark and a 5 foot lemon shark, so sayeth the fisherman. Miss Daisy and Elise though were fascinated for like 45 minutes watching the scene.

 

 

That Lemon shark you do see is about as long as Daisy is tall. The little 3 foot Nurse shark you do not see in the picture bottom right slightly head under the nurse shark you so see…  is the kind I do swim with frequently without much concern. Sharks are wonderful to watch from safety, terrifying to watch swim around you without a cage though, even small ones can take a significant chunk out of your arm or leg. Once your blood enters the waters it rings the dinner bell for all his friends within a mile limit.

Sharks are truly fuckin terrifying in real life… 

 

Forward Looking

Although I will unabashedly admit that the last two weeks of my life have been nearly perfect, with my long lost twin sister, I will not tell you they were perfect or easy. Life always has ups and downs, cost benefit analysis to consider. WildChild has lingered as long as I dare down in the beautiful unspoiled wilderness of the deep southern Bahamas. I do still have, in the end, a mission to get Wild Captain Lexin and WildChild home to Canada by September 2022. Still 3000 miles to go, WildChild has to keep moving.

 

 

Three days ago these girls lifted our anchor and began jumping ever northward again. We just sailed two days in a row in medium rough conditions often bordering on sporty (+20 knots of wind) to get here yesterday to Santa Maria bay near the Christopher columbus’s 4th landing monument. The fabulous news is, that with pills, my crew has not gotten seasick, seems to be getting her sea legs finally. Sailing is so much more pleasant when you are not vomiting the whole time, ask Daisy.

I am proud of her. Tough brave amazing girl becoming the best crew I have ever had. But if she is almost a clone of me… does that still count…?

Soon we want to get into the cruiser mecca of Georgetown Exumas Bahamas, of course, after we finish exploring where we are now. It seems the world’s second deepest blue hole is only 30 miles from us and a friend is renting a car tomorrow to go there, we have been invited along. We want to explore the nearby monument to Christopher Columbus too.

Cheers sailors and sailing fans

This time…

really wish you were here with us…

it’s been amazing…

 

Wild Captain Lexi

 

hugs from far away