OK, it’s high-time I step in with an update here. If you’ve been following our seemingly random track from Southeast Bahamas to who-in-hell-knows-where on the other side of the planet, you might have noticed a near 180 degree course change, somewhere north-east of Turks & Caicos. Two days into an Atlantic crossing, to be exact, with everything going as well as can be expected for a clapped out, Jerry rigged, spit-glue-and-duct-taped charter boat, we freaking give up!? Really!
Did the disposable, toy, strap-on autopilot fall apart? No! Did the 25-year-old rig fall apart? No! Did the weather turn to shite? No. Did the boat fall apart? No! What fell apart was Elena! Aye, crumbled like stale biscuits lost between sofa cushions. She’s been having a hard time lately.
What, with all the crap she gets dealt for being a dirty Russian: denied entry just about anywhere in the free-world; forced into ocean crossings to stay legal; denied a bank account. And it’s not like she is a Youth for Putin card-carrying Nazi, hell, she is to Russia what Jews were to the Third Reich.
But like Jews fleeing the German fascists, being persecuted by the Allied countries for being German, so too is Elena (a UN-HRC declared refugee from Russia) being persecuted for being Russian. It means we can’t really land anywhere, and facing 30 to 50 more days of hard, deep ocean sailing, her spirit simply broke.
She asked me what we would do when the weather turned for the worse, and shoved a forecast in my face. I just looked at it. I knew she was on the edge. Hell, I was on the edge dealing with her fear and depression and panic, while denying my own mental state. So, when she leaped to the helm and swung us around on a course back to SE Bahamas, I simply let her. Truth be told, I don’t know what to do.
I’ve been thinking we can stay in the Bahamas if we can get legal again. Fix the boat here. Make the crossing a little safer, blah, blah, blah. But who am I kidding? We need to clear into another country before we can legally clear back into the Bahamas. That’s what it’s going to take to be legal. Should be simple, right? Wrong.
Turks & Caicos won’t let dirty Russians land. The USA won’t let me land with Elena aboard. Canada won’t let Elena in. Puerto Rico, US and UK Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Canary Isles, Azores… forget about it – dirty Russian refugees can just fuck off and die, thank you very much for really sticking it to Putin, you kind-hearted, fair-minded, liberal West!
Fine, we’ll clear into Cuba! Personally, I’d rather just chop a hole in the hull and scuttle the ship before kissing, corrupt, Latin American ass for a freaking passport stamp ever again. Besides, it simply assures whatever country we approach next that they might not be stuck with a dirty Russian. Elena writes to a marina in Cuba while I throw up into my mouth. But good news! Not only will Cuba disallow our satellite gear (which is how we communicate, navigate, and survive) but they demand Covid papers! Yay, for us! We are not (nor will we ever be) Covid vaccinated. It’s brilliant for me: we don’t have to go there because we CAN’T go there! Whew, dodged that bullet.
What’s next? I don’t know. I’m thinking we’ll sit off a Bahamian island in the protection of a coral reef for a couple of days and then head back to the deep blue sea for somewhere in the former East Block. Elena’s on 20mg of Fluoxetine HCl with serotonin levels rising, and seeing the hopelessness of our situation, is ready to just ‘stow that shit, soldier on, and embrace the suck.’ In other words, just go on until we don’t.