Challenges, part 1
We both agreed, it had been a perfect day. The day before, we had been moored at the Exuma Land and Sea Park in an idyllic spot at Cambridge Cay, protected from the wind and with fun dinghy excursions all around us. We went snorkeling at an incredible reef they call the Aquarium, just packed with all kinds of coral and sea fans and a rainbow of incredible fish. We dived on a submerged sea plane, (with a shark lurking under one wing!).
We met the other people at the mooring field (and their dogs) on a sandbar for sunset cocktails. The next morning we decamped to the relative population center of Staniel Cay to do laundry and get groceries before heading south. We had cocktails on Cruisers Beach at Big Majors Spot, where we met people from another couple of boats, Dream Ketcher (a seasoned cruising couple from Vermont who have spent multiple winters in the Bahamas), and Samba (a young couple from Maryland taking a year off from their careers, first time in the Bahamas), and we shared stories and discussed the upcoming winds. It turned out we all were headed to Black Point to ride out the next blow, four days predicted at 30 knots. Those two boats were informally travelling together and would anchor right by the government dock, where we’d been before, and we planned to go a little farther to an anchorage at Little Bay. We’d heard that being there was farther from the town, but also farther than the cut from Exuma Sound and therefore less bumpy when the wind came.
One of the endangered iguanas on Bitter Guana cay.
The perfect day started with sailing off our anchor at Big Majors Spot. We rounded the end of Harvey Cay and headed to a cove off of Bitter Guana Cay, where the week before we’d taken a dinghy excursion to visit the local iguanas. We wanted to see if we could catch some lobsters. We found a couple, and used our tool, which we call the French Tickler, to roust them out of their hidey holes, but we weren’t quite bold enough to grab them. We saw all kinds of fish and coral, picked up a huge conch, and enjoyed the random ray elegantly flying past. An amazing underwater world full of color and surprises.
Tim and the French Tickler in search of a lobster.
Back aboard Billy we sailed off the anchor and headed to Little Bay. We showered off the salt and dinghied in to the beach to walk into town for happy hour. The walk turned out to be not insubstantial, and we traversed quite a bit of the island to get to the bar. There we re-encountered the people from the previous night, and in addition met the crew of Inca Cross, the female half of which, Katy, had been a dialysis nurse. We talked for a while about nursing and sailing and other odds and ends. Tim and I began the long walk home after a few rum punches and were both pleased and astonished when a Bahamian woman pulling out of her driveway saw us and ushered us into her car—she couldn’t believe we were going to walk all that way, and she drove us to our dinghy just out of kindness.
Waking up the next day, Friday, the winds had really started howling. Tim slept late. He felt hot to me. We were doing nothing but laying low anyway, because of the winds, so we spent the day in the cabin, listening to a book. I checked his temperature, got him beverages, fed him Advil. Other than the fever he didn’t have any symptoms, but he got pretty darn hot. By the night, he’d developed a small rash on one leg. The winds blew and blew and blew. By the next morning, Saturday, I insisted he reach out to Katy of Inca Cross, since she was a nurse, for any advice. By this point the rash was much worse, most of his leg was red. There is a clinic at Black Point Settlement, but it isn’t open on the weekends. We called out on the VHF radio to see if anyone had any antibiotics aboard. The people of Whisper did, and fortunately they were anchored nearby, so I set off on the lurching dinghy to retrieve them. The wind blew. Tim alternated between Advil and Tylenol PM (all we had) and his fever went up and down, and he took the gift antibiotics, and he had conversations with people that weren’t there (including a semi-malevolent cyclops) and I gave him Gatorade and wiped his head and the wind blew. By Monday morning the wind had eased off a touch. Since by land we were a very long walk from town, we decided to drive the boat over to the town side of the island and take Tim to the clinic. He’d had three days of fever, his leg was hot and angry red and very swollen. Inca Cross Katy said she’d call ahead and let them know Tim was coming.
When you learn to drive a car, you have to think to yourself “now I put on my turn signal by flicking this lever up because I’m turning left”, but after years of practice you just do it without even thinking about it, your hands just know what to do. In our division of labor on the boat, I can do a lot of things, but I know my limits, and usually let Tim take the helm when things get hairy. Tim has been sailing all his life, the way the boat moves is in his body. So I felt, as our friend Brian puts it, I was way out over my skis. I got the anchor up, not without its own challenges, the boat around the point through the limited deep water, and the boat anchored again. Tim was propped up enough to supervise. Then I got the dinghy down from its davits and the impaired Tim into it, took the dinghy into the dock and somehow got Tim up the ladder through force of will. He had a hard time putting any weight at all on his right leg. It was super hot in the sun, even despite the remaining wind, so I left Tim learning on a rock wall in the shade while I hurried ahead to the clinic. I was so relieved to get this far. When I arrived at the modest building, I turned the handle and…nothing. Door locked. No answer to my knock.
Between the clinic and the pile of Tim I’d left over on the rock was Lorraine’s Café. We’d been there before for grouper fingers and use of their wifi. I knew Lorraine knew everybody. She was inside with a group of hungry tourists, and I asked if I could speak to her privately. She was not expecting to confront the intensity of my anxiety level, but as soon as she encountered my emotional tsunami she sprang into action. She knew the name and location of the clinic nurse. She came to where Tim was slumped and helped him limp to her car to drive him up to the clinic. The clinic nurse examined Tim’s distorted leg and knew it was over HER skis. She booked us on the next plane to Nassau. Lorraine came and got Tim and put him in the air-conditioned café while I zoomed back out to the boat for toothbrushes, underwear, passports, and whatever else I could think to bring in 10 minutes. A kiss and a prayer for Billy Pilgrim to stay anchored while we were gone. The good people from Inca Cross and Dream Ketcher said they’d watch out for Billy. And off we went on a teeny tiny Flamingo Charters plane to take us to Nassau, and Doctors Hospital.
By the time we got to the hospital it was starting to get dark, and they eventually carted Tim off to the emergency room. They ran him through all kinds of tests to rule out blood clots or whatever, and we had all kinds of other hoops to jump through, what with having American insurance and all. After hours and hours, they admitted him, and I checked into a hotel and collapsed, but not before an absolutely celestial Cup o Noodles I bought in the hotel lobby.
