| The Joy's of Land
I have missed a few days of my diary as we headed to St.Maarten. X-rays
to Sergiy's finger showed that did sustain a fracture in the end. It will heal
well, but his movement on board the ship with the hand splint will now be
limited.
The joy's of land! It was wonderful to set foot on Terra Firma again.
Initially the land swayed under my feet, but it settled down after a few days.
We weighed everybody. All has lost a lot of weight. Andriy started drinking tea
today. He has completed his mission of crossing the Atlantic successfully. This
unscheduled stop would not interfere with Constantin and Goltis's plan for the
40 days as they will continue with water only. I don't know how they resisted
the tempting smell of the BBQ'd lobster and ribs (I couldn't). We all went our
different ways after the hospital visit and ended up celebrating our arrival to
land at an Argentinian grill later in the evening - enjoying the food, wine and
the music like it was the first time. We stayed a little later than our
scheduled pick up time from where the Garuda lay anchored. After waiting at the beach pick up point for a
few hours it was confirmed - we are going to spend the night on the beach. It
was getting quite cold and nobody was prepared for this unexpected bed of sand.
It was a long night. I knew the team would be suffering the most as they have
lost most of their body fat. Nothing there to isolate them and keep them warm.
I also lay the night shivering - at times almost drifting away to sleep when
the land suddenly swayed under me. In the end I gave in and moved my back to
Anatoli's for some body heat. Every now and then there were a few rain drops
from the sky as if to say: "Things can always get worse"... Constantin wandered
off later in the morning and we only found him again late in the afternoon. He
came back to the pick up point just after we left. He spent the most of the day
wandering around the island.
The morning broke and the Captain was on his way in the dingy. The next
day we spent mostly on board - recovering from the lack of sleep. We spent two
more reasonably uneventful days in town. Except a bad accident in the marina
when a lady fell from her dingy and her left lower leg was ripped up by the
propeller. Vitali was the first to help her from the water then I arrived. I
must say that I have seen many wounds in my life - none of them affecting me
more than this beautiful lady so badly injured. I met up with her later in the
day - I was very happy that she was all stitched up and smiling again.
Andriy enjoyed his tea diet and was regaining his strength quickly. He
said that he is feeling great. Constantin and Goltis's condition remained more
or less the same. Feeling fatigued at times but generally doing well. I
encountered my first expected: "That is impossible" response as I explained our
voyage to a doctor who was on holiday in one of the pubs in St. Maarten. He
turned away as if I was a beggar making up some story for pocket money. |
