Cape Bougainville is the bit at the top of WA with all the fingers of land that stick out like the comb on the top of a chooks head
It was one of those days. So many things went wrong, getting progressively worse as the day went on. The plan for today was simple, get water early, visit another boat for morning tea and then move on around Cape Bougainville. By the end of the day, everything had changed.
Our efforts to collect water from the second creek was almost a disaster, as the access to the waterfall from where we catch the water in our drums requires a high tide to cross over a shallow rock bar. Maybe the tide was a little lower than forecast. Maybe we slept in a few minutes too long, but the tide was at the limit and falling fast. As I was filling the drums and carrying them over the slippery rocks back to the dinghy which already couldn’t reach the fresh water, Birgit was holding and maneuvering the dinghy to keep it afloat as its’ weight increased with the additional drums, while the ocean was rapidly disappearing down the ebb tide plug hole. But we completed the job with no injuries to person or boat.
Our efforts to sail out of the bay and head around the top of Cape Bougainville and on to new cruising grounds was frustrating as the shifting wind and the now flooding tide tried to hold us back. There was a deadline, as the tide runs hard around this prominent headland that catches all the ocean currents. We had to make it by slack water, before the next tide would run against us as fast as we could sail in these light conditions, which lead to me cutting some corners too tight.
Later, when the wind suddenly shifted by sixty degrees while running downwind, I quickly uncleated our genoa from the port side and ran it around the outside of our cutter rig’s inner forestay to get the big sail cleanly across, but before I could get it cleated off again on the starboard side, the breeze puffed hard enough for the sail to refill and lift me off my feet, and over the side of the deck. My legs were still resting on the rails, but my body was hanging off the now tight sheet attached to the corner of the sail. It ended quickly and painlessly as I was able to hoist myself back on deck with the sail holding me up.
With the winds dropping, there was not enough day left to head on south towards the Osborne Islands, so we headed in to the west arm of Parry Harbour, dragging half of the Timor Sea along with our barnacle encrusted hull, and anchored up in a nice location well offshore in calm conditions. It was then, while packing up at the end of the day, that Birgit tripped up on a rope the was lashing down our little nesting dinghy on the foredeck and ended up on her back on the deck at the base of the mast.
The problem here was the GPS antenna that sticks out from the mast at knee height, which caught her back on the way down, and the loud crack noise heard was not the GPS, as it is well protected by a metal frame, but was instead a number of ribs breaking. Even days later, Birgit was adamant that she had broken the GPS, because of the noise she heard. No, the GPS is still fine.
We are again so fortunate that our sailing buddy Loc was once a doctor who had healed a lot of people with thorax trauma. Without access to imaging, he was able to feel the ribs one by one, and in response to local pain, diagnose that there were at least two broken ribs that were broken in more than one place. This is a critical injury that can lead to organ damage or a collapsed lung, and we have no medical equipment. It was clear that he thought evacuation was the most prudent course of action, but Birgit was not keen.
We planned how we needed to be somewhere close to where a helicopter could land, while taking regular observations and noting that Birgit was not deteriorating, dosing her with heavy duty pain relief, giving her exercises to help keep her lungs fully inflated, with nothing but rest until the immediate danger passes. The immediate danger of internal organ damage passed after a few day, and then became one of concern for pneumonia developing in the damaged lung, but Birgit’s Viking spirit to fight on kept her exercising with the medicinal bong every few minutes, with regular moral boosting visits from Keira, until that danger has now passed too.
A week later now, and no helicopter is going to be necessary. Calling an end to this adventure and trip out to the Kimberley will not be necessary. We will be able to push on to new locations, even if Birgit has to watch from on board SeeBeeZee until she is strong enough to climb back into the dinghy again.
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