I must admit I do feel a little guilty about today’s post. I realize most of the rest of the planet is more Covid locked down than ever and for many of you its winter outside. Our you have been trapped in your home for months and looking outside at the cold snow and dreadful freezing winds and then I go and show you how wonderful my life has been the last few days. As a Canadian girl I do enjoy winter, I am well adapted to the cold, and winter can even be very pretty after a fresh snowfall.
It feels a little bit mean. But maybe for some of you living vicariously thru me this might cheer you up and lift your spirits knowing that someone out in the world had a wonderful week. Please accept I intend to no harm and no bragging in the following true story of my life lately.
As you guys last heard I found a temporary new crew for 10 days this lovely British guy named Joe. He has proven to be the best crew I have ever had and has been just wonderful company. Last blog we were in Jolly Harbour to provision and we had a little nighttime incident that has lead to the new rule onboard WildChild that all crew on shore MUST return to WildChild BEFORE Captain Lexi goes to bed, it’s just safer this way… 🙂
The next day we had a lovely easy sail back up to Barbuda. I had been forced to leave Barbuda last time I was there before I felt ready to, so I was rather happy to get the chance to return to that lovely piece of Tropical paradise. For Joe he was making the most out of his vacation. We got WildChild safely to anchor off the leeward shore in the protected bay with lots of room between us and the other boats around, no crowding.
Barbuda, for those of you who have never been there, has a very Bahamas feel to it. It is a very flat island mostly made out of sand. The pace of life for the locals is very mellow and very slow, relaxed, and easy going. There are very few people on the island and of course, given that Coco beach is so amazingly perfect, the rich people are buying it up and rapidly developing expensive private resorts for themselves. It is a shame but probably in about ten years or so they will kick all the yachties out and make it exclusively for the ultra rich. For now though, us regular people are free to enjoy the unspoiled paradise.
There are four things that sell this as a top spot in paradise.
1/ The island is flat, so therefore does not spoil the Atlantic trade winds, so it always has a lovely fresh wind perfect for kite surfing and kite boarding and all those other sports. There is much of it here for exactly this reason. Wind without the waves.
2/ Unspoiled sand beaches as far as the eye can see. Hey Lexi there is nothing there… yeah… that’s the point, few people or buildings or roads or “society” nothing urban about it.
3/ Perfect anchorage for yachts. With a smooth sandy bottom with good holding you can anchor almost anywhere, with steady wind in the hatches you get a lovely cooling breeze AND… you get almost unlimited sunshine. The island is flat so therefore does not lift up the clouds and make them condense into rain, the clouds just blow right on by most of the time.
4/ This is the big one that drew me back… REEFS… the place is just full of reefs to snorkel and explore. The clear waters 5-15 feet deep get a lot of sunshine into the water and the corals are growing healthy and happy. The point at the tip of Coco beach is just full of dozens of reefs in shallow clear water to dive.
Clearly… how could I resist this? How did I skip or miss it the last time I was here?
But this time, crew problems resolved I had crew happy to relax go swimming walk the beaches and come out snorkeling with me. Did I mention Joe is fantastic?
The thing about the cruising life is it is not a big party and all drunken orgies of glamour and hot chics in bikinis like YouTube told you it is. It is mellow peaceful quiet calm and sometimes scary and sometimes very hard. It is a balance of things but this was my week to enjoy the good parts.
Joe gets this. He crewed two months across the Atlantic from the UK to Antigua recently so he understands the limitations of boat life, he endures them happily without complaint. He had his kindle with him and was happy to lay on the deck for hours in the sun and just read. He would spend hours swimming or walking the perfect beaches without any complaints.
Life has been good this last week.
Life has been very good this last week.
Life has been perfect this last week.
I am a pasty white Irish Canadian girl who will burn in the sun so I spent most of my time in the shade but could relax and enjoy my life too. I admit to having a small TV addiction, I am currently hooked on the Grey’s Anatomy TV series I watch once a day. I have also been reading and everyday working on small boat projects, as yacht Captains tend to do.
I had crew willing to have conversations with me. Joe is interesting to talk to, very good listener and very good story teller. Every evening we would sit together up on deck, him drinking a rum punch and me drinking iced tea, and we would share stories watching the sunset every evening. Our conversations were always quite enjoyable for both of us.
Personally Joe has been rather helpful for me to get some perspective on the eternal question “who is Lexi?” He gently tells me a few days ago “Lexi … you are far too hard on yourself… you are not nearly as socially retarded as you present yourself as… you are very charming and easy to get along with… easy to talk to… easy to live with… you take on too much of the blame other people put on you…“. Hmmm…. food for thought. “Lexi you are really quite pleasant to be around and lovely person… let go of all that crap other people heap on you.. its time to let your history go… “. Joe is worldly in his perspective on things, very well read and very well educated. He is a banker who has been working with people for over a decade, and he judges himself as a good judge of character.
My friends tease me that Joe is a hottie… lucky Lexi.
I think Joe is a fabulous person inside… lucky Lexi. 🙂
Reef Diving
So again not to rub any of this in… but rather to bring you along for the experience… I’m gonna bring you guys reef diving with us.
Joe and I grab my snorkel gear and load it up into the dinghy each day around early afternoon. Visibility in the water is best at high sun.
The water is warm clear beautiful and very inviting. The anchorage is full of large sea turtles we are always on the look out to spot. They are wonderful creatures and a joy to see. It takes us about 30 minutes to get all the way around the corner of the point to dive the furthest reefs today and work our way back towards the yacht.
Joe is a swimmer and seems rather happy to be in the water. It takes him very little time to get my extra flippers on and grab my spare mask and snorkel and roll over backwards out of the dinghy once we get it anchored in a good location. He flips over… comes up… and says wow its amazing.
I am in no way making the claim these are the MOST beautiful reefs in the whole world, but rather, I am saying only that they are abundant, healthy and wonderful to explore.
I always dive wearing my marshmellow suit (wetsuit) as I do not want to sunburn my back anymore (a dozens times so far has been enough for me) and I like the skin protection when snorkeling directly over very shallow reef tops. Also… it is buoyant which make it effortless to float above the underwater scenes I find and just enjoy the nature shows.
Joe and I tended to just go our own way once underwater exploring which ever way we fancied to go. I am more of a slowly hover above and look around kinda girl and Joe is a bit more of a swim around and explore further kinda diver.
I did manage to find a lobster by spotting his little antennae sticking out from under a rock. Although he could easily have scampered away deeper into his hole he remained curious about me long enough for me to get my camera turned on and jam it towards him. What lobster doesn’t want to be famous as the one that got away… 🙂
Please nobody yell at me for not “getting” him. I had no heart for the killing. Male hunters out there stay calm.
I was also privileged to see two different rays swimming quite close to me. They are just magnificent creatures and watching them “fly” thru the water is amazing to watch, so graceful to see up close and personal.
I am sad to say that Joe did not spot any lobsters or rays during either day of our diving together. His higher speed approaches might be scaring them away, who knows. The good news is I was able to get the camera started and get pictures for you guys to enjoy.
After about 45 minutes of snorkeling the first buncha reefs we decided to take a break, climb back into the dinghy for a rest, and move closer to the southern tip of the point.
Although I do admit the wildlife is the definitely the magnificent highlight of the diving I also enjoy the different coral formations.
Again I confess to knowing very little about coral reefs and their life cycles and formations. What is fascinating is that it looks like the bottom is strewn with broken bits of logs all piled up and formed into wonderful caves webbing the bottom giving rise to the multitude of hiding places for the various small fish. These smaller fish are also very interesting to watch all on their own.
I did take a bit of underwater video for later YouTube videos and I found it nearly impossible to hold the camera still. The rhythm of life under the water ebbs and flows with the surging of the ever present currents. The little fish just adapt to it, go with it, go with the flow around them without fighting it. Perhaps there is some spiritual wisdom in there huh?
I found this area off the point where the water suddenly rose up from 20 feet deep into these “tree” like coral formations all developed with a backwards slant to them. It seemed their development is affected by the big waves and stronger currents wrapping around the point. Interesting to see and very pretty, I think anyway.
Generally the bottom is like a weird carpet of coral caves and fallen coral “branches” and you can swim over top of them for hours and not see the same place twice.
Sometimes though, often at the edges of drop offs, I would find these magnificent coral “trees” looming up like an Acacia tree looming up in the African deserts. They stood tall and branched out like a tree reaching for the sun. I have no idea if corals need/want to reach for the sun too?
The one in this picture is taller than I am, although its hard to show height perspective in an underwater picture.
Also if you come slowly floating above the shallow reefs and swim towards the drop offs sometimes you find/surprise the larger fish that hang out in the deeper water at the bottom of the cliffs. I am always cautious not to surprise a shark or barracuda though. I move slowly over the top of the cliff stealthily trying to see what I can find though, ever curious.
Eventually we both made our way back to the anchored dinghy and and headed for home to the safety and comfort of WildChild.
Each day Joe and I would return home, relax for awhile, take in a lovely tropical sunset, and took turns cooking dinner.
Life is good.
Sail Back to Antigua Yesterday
Alas the perfect life cannot last forever and my new temporary crew does has a schedule to keep. I knew Joe would only be with me for a about 7-10 days before he tries to get into America to visit family there. With Joes schedule pressing on him/ thus pressing on me too, Joe told me he wanted to return to Antigua yesterday Tuesday Jan 12th 2021 so he could begin booking flights for himself.
Us liveaboard cruisers know that sailing to a schedule is not a good idea, but sometimes a necessary evil. The weather window for the sail back yesterday was not ideal, but I know WildChild is a tough girl and she could easily handle it. We lifted the dinghy up onto the deck in the early morning and had the anchor lifted by 9am.
The thing about weather forecasts… is they are always wrong… somehow. Be it getting the magnitude of the winds wrong of the direction or the timing of increased or decreased winds there will always be some degree of error to any forecast. Understanding how to read between these lines is what separates the old salts from the pups. By now, I am a wise experienced old salt Captain.
The error in yesterdays forecast was wind magnitude. The winds were much stronger than forecast.
The waves were fine usually 1.5 – 2 meters as forecast, but for an hour or so in the middle of our crossing during the storms that blew through we did see 8-12 foot waves slamming WildChild around.
I started the sail out with a forecast of 17-23 knots of winds expected so I decided to just assume the first reef in the main the whole day. We had to motor about a mile away from coco beach to get enough water depth to not have to worry about hitting bottom while raising the main. Once raised I ran with reefed main only for about half an hour because we were broad reach in sustained 20+ knots of wind doing 7 knots anyway. I saw no need to throw up the genny.
Eventually we came out around from the wave protection of the island, brought the winds up a little closer to the beam and threw out about 50% genny for fun. WildChild loved stretching her legs and again Joe was surprised at just how fast she is. WildChild wants to go.
The official sailors decree is…
Sailing in 10-15 knots of steady wind is perfect sailing.
Sporty sailing begins at 20+ knots of wind
Hectic sailing begins at 30+ knots of wind
Bad idea is ever sailing in 40+ knots of wind
The wind forecast was for 18 knots of wind gusting only to 24 knots of wind. We had sustained 30 knots of wind for a good half hour on our crossing.
Eventually I decided to be cautious , as is my nature as a Captain, and reduce the genny from a tiny 50% out down to only 15% genny showing out front. WildChild was humming along happily over 8 knots most of the morning even with such reduced sails out. WildChild just goes and goes, she loves it.
We did take a few large 10 foot waves that suddenly got steep and slammed us so hard on the port beam that they broke up into the air and showered us in the cockpit in salt water. Joe was sitting in the opening to the screens both times and bravely, as a good crew should 🙂 sacrificed himself to save his captain, his back shielding me from the washing. Did I mention Joe is a great crew…. ha ha ha… he took two big waves for the team without any complaining he sat there dripping in salt water saying “oh well”.
Of course it is kind of a sin to NOT trail some type of lure out the back while sailing. Despite the sporty sometime hectic sailing conditions I had a lure trolling out the back.
We caught another barracuda. Again I seem to be great at catching the only fish out here you cannot eat. This time the catch, despite the rough sailing conditions we caught it in, was not nearly as drama inducing as the last time I sailed these waters back to Antigua. All calm and good I asked Joe to grab the camera and film me dealing with the fish. I managed to get it off the hook and safely back into the ocean in short order.
We sailed the 30 miles back yesterday in only like 3 and a half hours, we were moving along at a pretty good speed.
I am anchored again outside of Jolly Harbour where I will be stuck until I can find new crew to replace Joe and give me mobility again.
I have so many people replying to my crew ads but unfortunately Covid has most of them all locked down forbidden from traveling anywhere. Your world is getting worse not better out there. My life would be almost blissfully Covid unaware if it were not for its affects on my ability to travel and find crew. In my daily life there is no Covid and few Covid restrictions.
I seem to be having a hard time finding new crew.
Still… I keep trying to find someone chill and easy going to join me in this cruisers life.
I am not sure why its such a hard thing to sell someone?
Cheers sailors…
Captain Lexi…
…. the calm peaceful mellow solo sailor girl trapped out on the ocean alone again… 🙁