I have decided for this blog to write two tales, two different versions, of the same reality. I believe in here, the philosophy and wisdom I will share has not only applied to my own personal life these last few days, but… given the state of the world, also reflects a choice all of you need to make too. And I admit… that given my own proclivity for panic and pessimism, I need to heed my own advice.
What will be interesting, and complicated in the following writing is that both of these versions of reality are absolutely true. They are both my own personal reality for the last few days.
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Version 1 … the sky is falling…
WildChild was safely at anchor in the rolly Old Road Bay off the west coast of the tropical island of Montserrat about 5 days ago when word started to filter thru to me, thru text messages sent to my crew, that … “Hey Captain Lexi… you had better pay attention to the outside world… something bad is happening..“. So… as I shared in the last blog I stocked up on toilet paper, looked at the charts for the nearest safe harbour, and sailed over here. It was a gentle smooth day of sailing, despite our easting in our heading as the trade winds had just swirled around from the SE. It was a painfully slow sail and we struggled in the light winds to make it here before dark. For a while I thought we were gonna be screwed for a daylight landing, might have to throw spinnaker, and arrive in the dark into an unknown bay, but we got lucky in the later afternoon as the winds picked up again.
It seems the accepted primary place for best check-in for Antigua is in Jolly Harbor so we headed for there. As I checked out the charts though, it seemed very shallow, too shallow for big old WildChild and her enormous keel, and the AIS information that started coming in showed me it was also very crowded. It seemed like we were gonna be screwed for getting into this safe harbor for a while. Eventually though, after checking out Active Captain reviews I found that New Division Bay just to the north is also a nicely secluded safe anchorage. You cannot check in there however, but.. if you anchor just off the resort at Hermitage bay you can use their free open wifi in the bay… and… it is only a 45 minute walk across land to get to Jolly Harbor and check-in. So as we were still ten nautical miles offshore on our approach I set the sails for Hermitage Bay.
My crew and I did an excellent job in the light winds maintaining maximum efficiency, usually in the 80% efficiency range, in 5 knots of wind sailing along at 4.2 knots of boat speed (which is really good) and we arrived at our intended anchorage about half an hour before sunset, we set the anchor, and made dinner and settled down to watch an episode of Black Sails.
The next morning it was all bright blue skies and we knew it was going to get very hot today so I had planned our check-in walk over to Jolly harbor for as early in the morning as I could muster my sleepy crew. Best to make a long walk before the midday sun cooks us all. We had to make a beach landing, which are never very fun, always wet sandy sometimes dangerous affairs, but we hit land by around 9:30am Wednesday March 18th 2020.
By now, using the free wifi access in the bay the night before, my crew had provided me with very much information about the terrible state of affairs in the world. Also I have other sailor friends that have been texting me updates. Much as I had feared, despite how unthinkable and unprecedented this was, the world was closing its borders. More to the point the Caribbean islands were closing their borders, all the French islands by this time were in lock down and refusing entry. Officially we were not in any country yet. It was extremely important that morning, upon our beach landing, that we HAD to get checked into Antigua before they closed their borders. Also given the news that even stores back home in Canada and Germany were beginning to go bare, get empty shelves, and toilet paper was selling for $20 per roll, we thought this trip might also be our last chance to provision.
We made our landing, locked our dinghy to a tree near the beach and began the walk overland around the salt pond to try and find Jolly harbor. Although we were favored by some cloud cover for part of the walk, when the clouds finally gave way to direct hot sunshine the walk became hot sweaty and uncomfortable. We hiked for 30 minutes down the dusty road and finally came to entrance to fancy subdivision were we could turn right and walk along the waterfront to get to the marina and the customs and immigration buildings. The gate was closed, which we had been informed is never actually closed and don’t worry the security guard will let you in, your white.
Well… when we finally made it to the gate.. it was closed, locked and the guard was refusing everyone entry, none shall pass. We were screwed and I got really pissed off with this stupidity because this meant we would have to walk an extra 10 kilometers and go all the way around the entire city, and for what.. for what stupid reason must we suffer so much? There was no other roads paths or options. I admit I boiled with frustration… WE MUST CHECK IN TODAY and this is the only path to do this… and it is blocked by some security guard with no answers… no logic or reasoning for it… just the frustrating reply… I was told to close it.
Uh oh… this is a bad sign… what if the country just closed while we were walking here…?
So we were forced to walk all the way back from whence we came and return to WildChild, still under her Q flag. To dinghy out and around into Jolly harbor by water would be too much for our small outboard engine with the small fuel tank. I would have been happy to just sit at home in the bay and drink wine all day, but… with the world closing its borders… we HAVE to get checked in here first… TODAY…!
My new plan was to lift anchor and bring WildChild around the corner to anchor in the crowded shallow bay as close as we could to shore, thus cutting the dinghy ride down to something we could handle. My crew was also starting to stress out and get pissed off and worried and they were peppering me with question, for which I had no answers. How the hell am I supposed to know what to do… or what is happening… why are you all adding to my stress and making my life harder…?
Oh yeah… because I am still the freakin Captain and it is always my responsibility to fix these things. ……….Grrrrrr………………….
My crew was rather grumpy that I ordered them to prepare the boat and lift the anchor but they complied mostly in silence. Just as we are motoring away, the guy on the American boat anchored beside us starts hollering something at us that I cannot quite make out. We are motoring away and I start thinking… hmm… what would motivate this guy to go out of his way to try and shout something at us..? Hmmm… maybe it is important… I spun the wheel hard over and motored back over beside his still anchored yacht, ordered Elena to take the helm, and I ran up on deck to shout over to the other captain… “What did you say…?”
He replies…. “Jolly harbor is closed… all the ports in Antigua just closed… the only place you can check-in now is up north in St. Johns harbor…”
FUCK…. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck… the borders are fuckin closing as we speak and I am a few hours too late… we are going to get stranded in international waters unable to land anywhere…. fuck…! Panic rises in me… I am too late by only a few hours… shit. They cannot turn us back out to sea.. can they..?
So Wildchild motors very slowly directly into the wind and waves and slowly takes 2 hours to make her way 6 miles north, in a traffic jam of other faster yachts coming from all over the island. We are going to get there last, it is doubtful we will even find room in the anchorage.
As we are motoring into the huge bay I start making calls on the VFH radio… I need to know what is going on… where can we anchor… are we allowed to leave the boat to go to shore and check-in..? The first information I received by radio was that we are to anchor and we are not allowed to leave our boats… that they will come out to us to process us and give us instructions, we are quarantined to our boats.
Then I hear… that we are supposed to hail the port authority on VHF channel 14 and get instructions from them. I tried this for half an hour, no response. I tried calling all stations on VHF 16 and I got a response from the St. Johns’s yacht club. They contacted the Jolly harbor customs and got the information that we are supposed to call port authority on VHF 14… before we arrive… (and I am motoring 0.5 miles away almost there by now) and they will instruct us to wait in line at the heritage customs dock… nobody is to leave the vessel… they need to board our vessel for health inspection before they will allow customs to clear us in.
I put Elena on the helm and I run up on deck as we are now fast approaching the cruise ship docks, using the binoculars I scan the shoreline trying to find this line up of boats at the old wooden heritage customs dock… I see neither this dock of which they speak or any line up of boats waiting in a line, I order Elena to slow the boat to a crawl. I have no idea what to do or where to go… I am 0.2nm away from hitting the cruise ship piers. What do I do…?
I see some smaller sailing vessels like mine anchored off to the south side of the cruise ship piers in the restricted turning basin and many of them have their Q flags raised. I figure… fuck it… I have to do something… I have to go somewhere… Elena hard to Starboard and head for that CAT anchored over there. I take one last look and run back to take the helm while yelling orders to my crew… prepare to anchor. The place is crowded but I slowly make way way amongst the many yachts and find a small open patch where I command our anchor to be dropped, I get the yacht safely to anchor.
Now what…?
Mr. Kol is as anxious as a race horse at the starting gates, he is pressuring me to act fast, his family is telling him to come home right now… book a flight right now.. the German government has arranged special flights around the world to help German citizens return home before all the planes stop. Mr. Kol is going to abandon us and eject.. fly home… but he only seems to understand his own internal impatience driving him, he does not understand the bigger picture. He cannot fly out of a country he is not checked into, and we cannot check in. We are all trapped, despite how closely he sees land.
His impatience is only adding to my own stress. The pandemic panic has already begun and we are a day late to prepare for it.
With no response from the government on any VHF channel, and all we do know is full Quarantine procedures are in place, I figure we have to wait on board. Maybe there will be a patrol boat coming around? Maybe the government will eventually answer the VHF and give instructions?
…. maybe…
I push mr. Kol… calm down and breathe… I understand your personal situation but you have to concede to the bigger picture right now… please try to be patient. Elena is also thinking about abandoning me and flying home too. My stress level is thru the roof.
An hour later I hear a big multi-million dollar yacht entering the bay hail the port authority on VHF 16 and the port finally responds. The yacht does not hear the response so I break in and ask the port Authority what to do. I am instructed to dinghy in for health screening, they close at 4pm and it is already 3:20pm. I holler the command to my crew, drop everything, launch the dinghy immediately, we have to get there to check in before they close, we are so close, we might make it.
I also instruct my crew to come to shore with me. Mr. Kol wants to go home and therefore I have to get him off my crew list. I am unsure if I even need to book him in on my crew list. Also the port Authority guy said to report for health screening first, it seems logical they would want to screen the whole crew, check for fever. We drop the dinghy, mount the little outboard engine and motor under the cruise ship quay to find the dinghy dock.
We finally land on shore uncertain as to where to go now, or what we are expected to do. We walk towards the white building on the right and see this guy dressed in a fancy suit, he asks us what we are looking for, he says to go inside the chain link fence with the barb wire on top past the sign that says in big bold letter…. DO NOT ENTER. We enter the cage as instructed.
Next he tells us to enter the building thru those doors, they are locked without door knobs to open them. He says wait and goes around inside and orders the employees inside to unlock the doors, why are they locked? It really seems like they are disorganized and flying by the seat of their pants, they do not really know what they are doing. We begin to enter the building for our health screening, someone says only the captain, the crew must wait outside.
The health screening consists of a man behind a tinted glass wall that I cannot see pushing a paper form under the glass and telling me to go over there and fill it out, do not stand too close to the other guy filling out a form. I comply. I have to kneel on the floor at the side of a hastily unfolded card table. The health screening is pretty much a joke, completely ineffective at controlling anything. It is a self disclosure form, do you feel sick? is anyone on your boat sick? has the ships medical officer told anyone on your vessel to self quarantine? Are any of you under doctors orders to be kept in quarantine? Does anyone on board feel sick? Amazingly there are no nurses or medical people there at all, nobody to take people’s temperature to actually check for fever. If we tell them we feel fine that’s good enough for them, but at least the appearance of effort is there for them to politically look like they are doing something to protect their island. There is no hand sanitizer available inside.
We are now free to roam around the boardwalk and try to find the customs house on our own, its that way someone says as they point north. We wander over to the north where there are many other cruisers standing outside of a small building, I ask, is this the wait for customs? About 20 very tired people answer in the affirmative. They have all been standing here crowded together since the early morning waiting for the government to decide what to do. The line has not moved since 11am. I am impressed with the idea that at the health screening place I had to stand 6 feet away from the other guy filling out a form and now 20 of us all stand close together to share any possible virus any of them may have picked up in the last 20 days. Good thing my tolerance for government stupidity has been developing since I sailed away 2 years ago.
We all stand in line for hours together sharing germs and with the line not moving at all for the first hour. The agents inside are…? well I do not know… let us say they are waiting for leadership.
Eventually, after hours of waiting the line finally starts to move long after “closing time”. When I enter I am instructed to make an online account in some computer system called E-SeaClear. The stupid program asks me tons of stupid detailed silly questions to get me into the CIA’s database with a password that needs to be stronger than my banking password, 12 characters long with every possible type of character in it. I am getting frustrated with this stupid thing, I will never remember my password for their stupid database.
Ok great 20 minutes later E SeaClear done. I hit print to bring the form to the customs lady next. No no no she says do not hit print we do not use or need any of that information. Now come over here and fill out our paper forms with that same info again…!@#$%??!!!! oh fuck… I’m gonna blow.
Fine then… I now fill out a bunch of paper forms with much of the same information on it. Then I am instructed to go over there now and wait in the other line for the immigration agents. Customs hands me a piece of paper to bring with me to show immigration. Another hour waiting in this line in a hallway crowded with other captains.
I had Elena and Mr. Kol waiting outside, as Kolja needs to get off my crew list, but I am told I have to book him in on my crew list, no way around it. He has been waiting 4 hours for nothing.
Eventually the immigration supervisor arrives and starts organizing things, she kicks us all out of the air conditioned hallway and sends us all outside to wait in the sun again. Eventually it is my turn to go in and see the immigration officers. Simple enough process, give them the customs paper, fill out another form, surrender passports, answer a bunch of stupid questions and voila, they hand me back another piece of paper to go back and wait in line for the customs agents again. Sigh… oh fuck this is so stupid. Fine then… I surrender. Go back and eventually see customs again with a piece of paper…. and then… you guessed it… they give me another piece of paper to go back and give to immigration. Back and forth… back and forth… on and on the stupidity goes. Finally 4 hours later…. we are checked into the country with nobody asking for money, well that’s a nice change for once, not getting shaken down for cash.
WRONG again… as the sunsets I am told to go back over to the building where we first got health screened and go to pay port Authority for a cruising permit. We stand in line yet again, now after 8pm and wait to pay them for permission to be allowed to move our boats around their island, but they are not sure yet if we will be forbidden from moving our boats bay to bay tomorrow. Pay anyway though for good measure, we want your money. I am now very tired irritated and hungry. By the time I finally emerge from this horrible tedious silly and complicated process my crew is also not in good humor either. Honestly, even if you remove the long waiting times this is now the worst country to check into I have ever been to and that includes worse than the Dominican Republic, which used to hold the title.
We started this day simply wanting to check into the country and do some provisioning, twelve hours later we finally checked in, but we decided provisioning can wait until tomorrow. Back on the boat princess Elena took her frustrations out on me and proceeded to spend the evening ripping me to shreds, fun times.
The next day (Thursday March 19th) we went to shore early (at the crack of 9am) as Mr. Kol needed to go physically stand at an airport to try and book a ticket home and Elena and I needed provision. This Global pandemic panic about a freakin flu is now affecting us way out here in the Caribbean and the social reaction is spreading fast. We needed to get prepared for whatever stupidity is yet to come. I want WildChild fully stocked and good-to-go for at least 6 months off the grid.
Elena and I walked down the streets until we eventually found the big grocery store all the cruisers use near the harbour. The place looked a little dark and surprisingly few cars parked in the lot for such a large looking grocery store. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness I began to understand why nobody was here…
Uh oh… we are too late the panic has begun already, the shelves are already almost bare. How on earth are we going to provision now? I ask the cashier lounging around in the front, how long ago did the shelves start to go bare? She informs it started last week, de people gets crazy about de virus and dey buy up everything.
….OH CRAP….! we are screwed…
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Version 2… the sky is blue
Tuesday March 17th 2020 WildChild makes an easy gentle sail in good light winds and on very calm seas over to the lovely tropical vacation paradise called Antigua. The sailing was great, mr. Kol and Elena got to learn and practice light wind sail trim while I spent most of the afternoon down below working on a YouTube video for you guys. The boat was so calm in the light seas it almost felt as calm as an anchorage for most of the day, it was great.
We arrived before dark and anchored off a beautiful white sand tropical paradise beach just outside of a beautiful resort that was projecting free open access wifi into the bay. My crew could get free internet access while at anchor and communicate with their families back home.
Wednesday March 18th we went to shore to try and check in. We got some good exercise walking for about an hour and found out we had to go somewhere else to check in. It took a bit of time to figure out that the local government was just starting to implement measures to protect their island from this flu. As an understandable precaution they were centralizing all visiting boat check ins to the capital port of St. Johns where they would have better controls and resources to respond in a coherent way to this crisis.
After a bit of confusion for a while we arrived in the open port by mid afternoon and with the help of some nice people on the radio we discovered we could dingy to shore and still check in, we were not too late. The borders were still open, much to our relief.
When we first arrived at the dinghy dock it was pretty hard to climb up onto the board walk but by the next day government works had kindly installed ladders to assist us cruisers, very kind of them.
As we climbed up onto the boardwalk that first day we turned and walked towards the white building at the end of the cruise ship pier.
The very nice man in the business suit intervened and helped us to figure out where to go. After a short and simple process to fill out some health check forms we were directed down the boardwalk to the customs and immigration buildings. They were easy to find as they had a line up of white people outside who were just the friendliest bunch of people you ever did meet.
We kept each other entertained sharing stories and getting to know each other as though at a party gathering while the local officials did their best to implement their action plan as quickly as possible. We all patiently waited a while and eventually we all got cleared into the country after sunset, so we all had a safe place to sit out this pandemic that is closing all the borders for a short while. We are all safe in paradise.
The next day we went to shore to explore their beautiful and vibrant city. They all speak English here and the locals are all so very helpful and friendly. This places gives me the same nice feeling as I had in the Bahamas, and I love the Bahamas.
Although the first grocery store we went to was mostly empty, and we were told it was due to local panic buying, we heard a different story from the taxi driver who drove us back to the piers after we provisioned with what we could.
It seems that the store is empty, not due to pandemic fears as we were told inside, but rather it is a political mess. It seems the previous owner, who was friends with the previous government, was getting free shipping containers for the last 10 years which caused an unfair advantage. The newly elected government found out about it and is making the stores owner repay the last ten years of free shipping he stole from the people.
We were only after dry goods like cans and pasta and rice so we were still able to buy most of what we needed anyway, so it made little difference to us. We met Mr. Kol back at the dinghy, he was successful finding a flight home tomorrow, and he helped us bring the provisions back to WildChild. With the boat now cleared in and food stores replenished we are in good shape to wait this thing out.
Upon our second trip into town that day we found the local farmers market and bought some fresh vegetables which was good. While chatting with locals, as Captain Lexi was on the hunt for fresh refrigerated proper milk, we were told no worries, we could find everything we wanted at the big grocery store outside of town called Epicurean fine foods (really an IGA). So we made the 30 minute walk there and found mecca… I have not seen such a huge grocery store in over a year at least, they have everything imaginable.
Elena and I went a bit crazy with the budget here, I mean we had access to every food imaginable. We loved this place. We could stock up on rare foods like Indian butter chicken sauce and PEI yellow potatoes from home.
Now anybody that knows anything about Captain Lexi knows that I have a pretty severe chocolate milk addiction. I do not drink coffee, I do not drink tea or any other type of caffeine beverage. I do not drink pop or soda or any other carbonated drinks. I pretty much only drink water… and every morning I just love to start my day with a big glass of chocolate milk in place of a breakfast. This is the treat I so dearly love to start my day with.
However, out here in the Caribbean islands, fresh refrigerated milk can be very hard to come by. The french islands do not have real milk, and the poor islands do not either. They drink this UHT (Ultra High Temperature) pasturized box milk that does not need to be refrigerated, but also does not taste like milk at all. It tastes more like a soy or nut based white water than actual milk and is simply unacceptable for this spoiled captain.
Well looky here at what we found… Score one huge jackpot for the good girls. 🙂 Super yay for Captain Lexi.
I decided we might as well stock up on fuel too. You know how little fuel we really use in our engine because we really do motor so very little but it doesn’t hurt to have a full tank at this point in history. So we took 2 jerry cans of spare diesel we had up on deck and poured them into our main fuel tank. I have this great siphon hose with steel jiggle ball inside to make the process easier and back in Carricou I bought a new Racor fuel filter funnel to separate the water and eliminate any particles from possible bad fuel we might get down here in the islands. The new filter worked great.
The next day (yesterday Friday March 20th 2020) we dinghied into shore to drop mr. Kol off by 9am as he did manage to book himself a flight home. He did get to board the plane at 2pm and flew to Canada for his connecting flight to /Germany later. We learned this morning he is safely home with his family again. Good luck we miss you already Mr. Kol
Later in the afternoon Elena and I were able to get some of our empty Jerry cans to the gas station and fill them up with the new low fuel prices the world is currently benefiting from. Also while there we scored a great deal on a big 25 pounder propane tank for the cooking gas on the boat. We could buy the new filled fiberglass tank for $180e.c. ($70usd) and they even gave us a free regulator with hose attachment so we could change our boat to adapt to their European style tank nozzles. In the US or Canada this tank empty would cost like $300usd, plus another $80 for the regulator and another $50usd for the propane inside. Not only did we score a great deal from this opportunity we are now also stocked up for cooking fuel for the next year..!
We are good.. everything is great for us…
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So whats next…
Really Wildchild is completely prepared for anything now. We have 6 months worth of food on board, a years supply of cooking gas, a years supply of diesel and 6 months supply of dinghy gasoline. Unlimited free solar energy and wind energy, a water maker for unlimited free drinking water. Very little of what happens on shore will affect us very much out here in paradise.
I am actually hearing from friends back home they wish they were in my shoes during this global pandemic crisis. Lucky Captain Lexi gets to sit in a tropical paradise sipping wine working on her writing while the rest of the world suffers thru this mess. We are not in a bad position really if you think about it.
Although personally I have very little concern for getting this flu I do have very much concern for the coming economic collapse it must cause. For the rest of you this is gonna suck. I was surprised to learn today that the mortality rate for this flu is as high as 11%, that is very high, thus I am beginning to understand the cause for alarm.
For us personally it seems painfully apparent I will not be returning home this year.
Just some local personal stuff around me I have learned from other sailors recently…
All French islands down here… (Martinique, Guadaloupe, and St. Martin)
Borders closed a week ago no entry into these islands at all
Sailors already inside cannot move their yachts bay to bay cannot sail anywhere near their coasts.
Sailors on boats cannot leave their boats and go to shore… except.. only 1 person may leave the ship with the correct filled out forms and only to provision as needed. Anyone on a boat in a french island is stuck on their boat unable to move right now
Dominica has taken no action or measures and remains open as usual.
The other islands are all closing their borders now, although we can move about Antigua for now and change bays if we’d like.
Bahamas completely closed. Canadian and American borders closing this weekend. Europe already closed borders between countries a week ago.
All cruise ships have stopped running. Word is all airlines will shut down soon.
Elena and I are going to hang out here for as long as we must. We are now trying to decide where to spend this next hurricane season. Grenada is very lovely but more expensive, I kind of miss Luperon, that place grows on you. Luperon is still the safest place to be down here in hurricane season and I have a feeling last years very mild hurricane season will be balanced by a special nasty hurricane season this year.
So hmm…
Cheers Guys… I hope you enjoyed my two castings of the illusion of reality for you and understand the brilliance of what I was sharing… the words unspoken between the lines…
Captain Lexi…
. ………. the frustrated but safe…