Vacation Stories - Part Nine

Retreat:

We made it to Henry’s and the bilge was still dry. I went and borrowed a pair of goggles for hubby to check the keel with. We really need to put them on our packing list for next time.

The keel seemed fine. The rudder needed a small fiberglass repair. Hubby went to do the repair job at a picnic table, Chuck was playing, and I took Buddy into the Vee berth in hopes that he’d have a nap.

Catastrophe:

Buddy was just drifting off to sleep, when I heard:

Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! (read this in the tone of voice of, ‘come look at this cool frog’ or whatever).

Then again

Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! (read this one in a slightly panicking tone)

And again

DADDY!! DADDY!! DADDY!!

At this point I popped up from the Vee berth, to see Chuck laying on the ground, with a lump growing about half way between her ankle & knee.

I ran up the side of the hill, gave the baby to some random stranger from another boat to hold (it’s a good thing he doesn’t make strange), and knelt down. I knew it was broken as soon as I saw it, but was in denial. We were very lucky that there was a nurse on one of the other boats, who did a great job of splinting and bandaging her up.

The ironic thing was, just the night before, Hubby had been complaining about how unadventurous she is, and that he's never had to take her to the emergency room.

The problem was that we were on an island at the time. The owner of the restaurant phone for an emergency water taxi, to take us in, and then had a land taxi meet us and take us to the Hospital.

We arrived at the hospital looking like a family of hobos.

We had not seen a shower in six days. We had Buddy, his car seat, his life jacket, two pillows that we'd used to keep Chuck comfy on the water taxi, a backpack that I'd thrown a bunch of stuff into since we didn't know how long we'd be, the laptop, etc....

There was this heap of stuff all around my chair in the waiting room.

Once the doctor had confirmed that, yes, it was indeed broken, and no, there was no way she could get back on the boat, I phone my parents:

Me:Hi Mom

Mom: Hi! How are you?

Me: I'm... fine

Mom: Just fine?

Me: Well... I'M fine

Mom: wha......

Me: Chuck-fell-and-broke-her-leg

Mom: Do you need help

Me: Oh yes. We need help. She can't get back on the boat. We're going to get a hotel tonight

Mom: We can be there tonight

Me: No, morning is fine. We need to get a hotel, she needs to rest, and we can't get back to the boat until tomorrow anyway.


We arrive at the hotel by taxi again, and again, looked like a family of Hobo's. Hubby had called ahead from the hospital, and they had reserved a room for us. They had in fact reserved the last room for us, the place was full. After settling Chuck into bed, I went up to the front to ask about where we could walk to to grab dinner & bring it back. So she gave me the run down McD's, Harvey, Tim's etc.

Then I asked about toothbrushes, etc.

"Do you have toothbrushes?"

"Yup"

"hairbrushes?"

"um.. we have combs..."

"good enough. How 'bout razors?"

"I'll just get you one of everything dear. There's four or you, right?"

I'd mentioned we hadn't seen a shower in a week, right??

Mom and Dad arrived the next morning, and offered to take Bud along with Chuck. We figured we could get back faster that way, and jumped at the chance.

Mom and Dad took the kids home, and then went out and outfitted them for a few days. I had enough diapers with me for a couple of days maybe. Buddy had one onesie, and one soiled romper. Chuck had an extra t-shirt. We had one sippy cup.

After leaving the kids with Grandma & Grandpa, hubby & I headed back to the boat, no kids.