Day 5

The theme for today was physical frailty. The strong southerly that had been forecast was a long time in coming, and I was hoping that it wouldn't, but then it hit at 5 am, when it was still dark. The change came with rain too - I wished I had gotten the genoa in last night when it would have been easy. Getting out of bed I slipped and fell on an edge, which struck me in the chest, but a sail change was in order. After wrestling with that and getting the boat going again, at least not toward land, I returned to bed. I hadn't seen any ships during the night and was quite a bit farther out than before, so I could relax a lot more. It would be light soon, so I'll see to everything then. When I got up again, I first realized how much my chest hurt. It wasn't a stabbing pain, and didn't hurt to breath, so I figured it was just a bruised rib and not a cracked one. I wasn't going very on course, so I took out a reef to see if we pointed higher - we did, but my injury made it quite difficult to haul on ropes and grind winches. Not good.

I remember reading sailing stories where they crack ribs - David Lewis, in Ice Bird. I remember he takes antibiotics. There isn't much you can do for a cracked rib except rest and antibiotics. I don't think I had any antibiotics in the first aid kit. If it got worse, I could put into Napier, but that was still at least a days sail away. I did what research I could. I had a first aid manual, that mentioned fractured ribs, but obviously described much worse symptoms than I had, which was reassuring. And I found the section in Ice Bird, where he describes "stabbing pain". Feeling around my chest, it was just a single rib that hurt. Also, it only hurt when I pressed on the hurt bit. I figured that a crack would hurt at the crack, even when I pushed elsewhere on the rib... I was now pretty reassured that I hadn't cracked it. I just had to learn how to use my body so as not to put pressure on it... while inhabiting a small sail boat, bashing violently to windward.

But happily, we were on course, and safely far away from anything, so I spent most of the day in bed. I didn't have to do a sail change until the afternoon, and it was a lot less painful by then. The jib I repaired is back up, and am expecting a north easterly tonight, so I should have easier sailing tomorrow.