"Skip Gundlach"
skipgundlach.sez.remove.this.and.the.dots.to.mail
wrote:

Hi, Rosalie, and group,

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
.. .
"Skip Gundlach"
skipgundlach.sez.remove.this.and.the.dots.to.mail
wrote:

Life is what happens when you're making other plans...

Most of you know that Lydia and I have bought our boat and expect to get
aboard and cut the cords. Target departure date is November 1, with a
variety of things to happen first, including getting a couple of houses
(emptied and) sold. Progress is happening at an acceptable pace, there,
but
just as Lydia was fixated on getting the boat bought, she's now fixated
on
getting aboard, *NOW!*. I, too, want to get aboard, but deal with
frustration a bit better than she :{))

clip...

My husband fell off/onto a ladder and broke his humerus at the
shoulder joint and his elbow (on the two runs of the ladder). He

OW!!!

drove himself to the hospital (because I was in KY and our son was on
14) and they said he might never have full use of his arm/shoulder or
ever be able to raise his arm above shoulder level again. However -
they took him up to Bethesda (USN ret) and put a cast on it and then
he had about a year of physical therapy and now he has full use of the
shoulder. He's still in touch with his physical therapist (who was a
Navy Corpsman at the time).

Cool. Good to have competent help. I believe I did *not* get that the
first time around - I was part of a public hospital system with mostly

Sounds like it to me too. I won't speak to public hospital systems -
most of my medical care while Bob was in the Navy (20 years) was
through the Navy clinics for which we paid nothing. Some folks did
not believe that this was as good as private care, but I never had any
complaints that I could point to the system about.

charity patients, and wasn't happy at the time with any of the experience.
I believe I had competent care and surgery - but I also believe the followup
should have caught this, and for that, I was very poorly served. In any
event, I've (now) got the best shoulder surgeon available, from all I can
discern, so I'm confident we're giving it our best shot at this time.
Unfortunately, that best shot is only a crapshoot, with a 50-50 likelihood
of success. Fortunately, it can't be made worse...

I think Lydia ought to chill and consider your health first.

Well, the health (with the possible exception of the mental part) will be
well taken care of. However, she's not the least bit interested in (well,
let me rephrase that: adamantly opposed to) any delay whatsoever. And,

Think about whether this is going to be a problem down the road - i.e.
is she going to be wanting you to do things that are unwise (enter a
harbor at night, stay at a place that is unsafe etc)? Are you going
to let her sway your decisions unwisely?

After Bob's heart attack, we went to Chub Cay on Sunday, the first
sail after we got back to the boat. We were planning to leave on
Thursday, but Bob was (as always) getting antsy to leave. This is
what I wrote about that.

At some point on Tuesday, I mentioned to Bob that perhaps we could leave Weds, and this was a great mistake. On Weds morning we were having squalls, so I thought we were safe, but about 9, he decided that the weather had improved and we could go after all. He'd walked out to the point, and seen that it didn't look to bad out there.

So we left about 9:30 am, and motored out of the channel. There was a great deal more wind and waves out in the channel than he saw from the point, but, it wasn't bad because it was an east wind, and we were going west. So we made it onto the banks and to the Northwest Channel shoal very quickly, and then turned north.

Here, we had a horrible sail. Winds 25 knots from the NE which meant we couldn't get in to the Great Harbor Cay Marina because it was directly into the wind, and the wind would blow us back almost faster than we could motor into it. Plus, it was going to take us hours, and hours to get there because we were going so slowly.

We kept going north. At about 4, I talked to Herb the weather guy, and he said basically what were we doing out there? In any case, we could not get to the east, so decided to just to go Lucaya, which was north.

The waves were more than we had experienced before. We actually got water over the lee rail into the aft cabin. Water over the side - rocking and rolling, and - it was dark and you couldn't see the waves coming. Plus it was only about a month since Bob's heart attack. I spent the night lying next to the mast on the cabin sole pretending that I was somewhere else.

But we made such good time, that we got to Lucaya about 3 am. Since we didn't want to enter at night,

and I did agree with Bob that I didn't want to do that.

we went downwind toward Freeport until 4:30 (we could see the lights on shore - Freeport is never dark) and then turned around and came back.

snip
The entrance to Lucaya has a kind of barrel with a bell and a little red light on it to mark the entrance. It is on the charts. Unfortunately, there are also big cruise ship moorings in the area that are NOT on the charts so it makes it hazardous to be in that area after dark.

I had put waypoints into the computer last year and using those, we found the entrance channel about sunrise. The entrance channel consists of two tiny markers with tiny lights, and the channel is not visible until you are right in front of it. The channel has breakwaters extending out from each side, and you don't want to run into them.

We went in as soon as it was light and tied up at the Lucaya Village fuel dock at 6:45, got about 33 gallons of fuel, and then went into a slip here. Bob skinned his knee on the concrete dock, and because of the blood thinners he's taking, I thought he would bleed to death. Blood all over everywhere - pants, sock, shoe etc. Could not keep a bandage on his knee. I finally was reduced to making a large pressure bandage out of paper towels, and strapping it on with silver electrical tape.

The topping lift frayed and one end got stuck in the windmill, but the windmill wasn't running, and it came right out. Everything on deck was soaked with salt water.

The CQR anchor came adrift and made a scar bouncing on the trailboards in the waves. Bob said he saw it reflected in the running light on the bow, but he wasn't going out on the deck to find out what it was. Then when it got light, we could see.

Everything loose in the cabin came adrift, including a speaker which was held in by velcro. But it was all easily taken care of.

Bob washed the boat, and did several loads of laundry (to wash the salt water our of the aft cabin rugs), and then I made him take a nap. Even though he had no sleep the previous night, he was surprised that he slept.

When we were taking the water taxi over to Port Lucaya to eat at a restaurant in the marketplace he said he was tired. He was suprised about that too. So we had dinner at the Fat Man's Nephew, and took the water taxi back to the boat where we both went right to sleep.

I insisted that we stay here a day to rest. Bob filled the water tanks, and we got the jitney bus in to the Winn-Dixie on Seahorse Rd (or anyway the one not all the way in Freeport). I also did the internet stuff in Port Lucaya and the internet cafe. I didn't think we would leave before Sunday or Monday. But Bob had other ideas and we left for
West End on Saturday.

I consider it is my 'job' to be the spoiler (so to speak) to make sure
that we don't get into situations like that. But in this case, I
allowed him to persuade me when I should have insisted that we stay.

aside from my ability to do, physically, more to get us out of town, now,
waiting will only make things later. We'll not be able to go on our
preferred schedule, as rehab won't be to the point where I could leave any
sooner than January or so, at best, if we go on the current schedule
(surgery 15Jun), as it is. So, I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet
and hire the help rather than do it myself. One way or the other, whenever
we are able, however, we'll get aboard. It will just have to be later and
more expensive (but then, what, in boating, isn't??).


grandma Rosalie