Relaxing at home

We are having a weekend off. Instead of fixing and cleaning we went shopping at Bluewater. Not sure which is worse to be honest! Graham finally wore me down and I bought an iPhone today. I figured it would be good to be able to stay connected to the internet while we are away. It means I can update the blog on the move. Assuming we have a signal that is!
It is just 8 weeks until we leave - that's 56 days. In some ways it still feels a long way off, but it really isn't.

What a relief!

Since the accident, I've had pain in my back and lower spine. I had X-rays and an MRI scan in the hospital in Marseille, but that was just to see if anything was fractured. After that I saw my GP, he looked on the bruise on my back, and signed me off work for two weeks, and told me to buy pain killers if I was still in pain. So I've been at home wondering what was wrong? Whether I would get better? If I would have this back pain for the rest of my life? All the uncertainty and fear of what might be wrong, has been with me since the incident. But today I got a diagnosis.

I went to see Kirstie, an osteopath, who conveniently just lives and practises around the corner. A short, if slightly painful, walk away. After taking down my details, looking suitably shocked at why I happened to be sitting in front of her, and a thorough examination, there followed a time of being gently stretched and realigned. After which she was able to tell me that she thinks my sacroiliac joint has become locked, and the muscles around it and my lower back have gone into spasm. I know what your thinking, where is the sacroiliac joint?

Let me educate you. The pelvis isn't one bone, as I'd always thought, it has two joints on either side, these are the sacroiliac joints. They attach the bit of bone that our back is attached to, to the bits of pelvic bone our hip joints sit in. They are like shock absorbers for our back to stop the shock from our legs going into our spine. They aren't designed to stop boats or bits of boats, or even protect the back in the event of a fall, but this is what my left SI joint seems to have done.

The good news is it will get better, I might not be fully mobile for quite a few weeks yet, but I know I will improve, and hopefully there will be no lasting damage to my back. Today has been a good day.

Hard labour over?

Last weekend was very hard work. We antifouled, washed, rubbed down and polished. Those few words don't seem to do it justice! By the end of it all Pixie looked brilliant. The hard work was worth it in the end.

But it's not over yet. There are still a few more jobs to do. The windlass will hopefully be fitted next week, the mattress is due to be delivered soon and fingers crossed the new sails will be with us by the end of the month.

Now I'm just dying to get going!

A busy day all round

Ok, where do I start? This weekend Kirsty has antifouled Pixie, we've had Dave and Tess fit ultrasonic antifouling for a Yachting Monthly long term test. I've managed to extract the old echosounder and install the new through hull fitting to complete our Garmin NMEA 2000 electronics with a new log, echosounder and water temperature sensor. This Tri Sensor takes the place of two hull sensors and instead of two lots of wires, it's replaced by 1 cable that is simply connected to the NMEA 2000 backbone.

Moving around the boat with a sore back has been easier than I thought, mostly down to all of Pixie's grab rails, so I can take a lot of the weight off my back. It's still not easy, but it could be worse.

Coming to terms with what happened

I know this blog is supposed to be about Pixie and her adventure to Scotland, but after coming close to death in a boat crash, I thought you'd like to know what happened.

It's not been an easy week physically or mentally.

Physically my back, which the staff of Marseille Hospital thought was fractured until an MRI scan proved otherwise, is improving I'm glad to say. It's badly bruised, but I'm gaining mobility, walking is still a slow arduous process, as are many everyday things from getting into bed to sitting down. Thankfully Kirsty has been helping me as much as possible. The bumps on my head have gone down, taking with them the pain that was there, there is now just a dull throb, rather than a constant sharp pain.

Mentally, it's been tougher than I thought. Coming to terms with the idea that I could have so easily have died, and thinking during the incident that I had, has been very emotional. For a while my mind was in a constant loop re-living the experience, trying to work out what happened, seeing the hull of the boat, feeling the jolt, and feeling the impact to my back and head, they felt as real as they did at the time. The sound of the water slapping on the hull as the boat got closer, the noise of the collision, it all seemed very real, even in the front room of our home in London.

Sitting down and working out what actually happened and putting my thoughts into words has helped a lot. Seeing the photos I took before and after the collision have also helped me work things out in my head what actually happened while I was a passenger, with no control over events.

So what did happen? This is what I remember....

I saw the Monte Carlo was making a run towards us, so started shooting her, I wasn't controlling the shoot, someone on the flybridge was. I shot 7 frames in the space of 3 seconds, I noticed she was still heading straight for us. She was at full speed or near enough, and had been filling the height of the frame as I had been zooming out. When my lens reached it stops on the zoom with a bump, The Monte Carlo 42 was now bigger than the frame, heading straight for us. I realised something was wrong, I thought the driver, who wasn’t someone from Beneteau or IPC, had mis-judged the turn, and we were going to get a face full of water. Not great, but better than being hit by a boat, so I turned to protect my camera from the wake, as I was doing this, the photographer in the cockpit with me shouted “He’s going to hit us!”. The rush of water slapping under the hull was getting louder. As I glanced over my left shoulder, all I saw the bow of the boat. The white and blue-grey of the hull and two cockpit drains at eye level.

Before I could move or think there was a tremendous crunch. The cockpit jarred violently, something hard hit my head. I felt a sharp pain in my back. I shouted. I was in water. Everything went dark. “I’m dead” I thought “this is it”

But I was still thinking, dead people don’t think, or do they? “I don’t want to die” is the next thing I can remember thinking. I could hear and feel water around me, on my face, in my ears. Was I in the water? What happened to the boats? I didn’t know. After what felt like a second or two, the darkness faded, I was under water but could see white and azure blue with bubbles, small, tiny, fizzy bubbles in front of my eyes. I blinked and I could see the sky. I’m ALIVE! I was actually alive!

I was standing on the right hand side of this boat...roughly behind where is says "Fisher". The gash on the right is thought to have come from the bow of the Monte Carlo 42, the gash on the left is thought to come from one of it's propellers

The damage to the flybridge must have come from the guard rails of the Monte Carlo 42, (below top) and I got up from where the glass door was resting (below bottom) It was moved there after the crash to get inside the boat.

It's alarmingly easy to see that during the crash the Monte Carlo must have passed over at least part of me. That's what's really shaken me up. I walked away from it. How? I'll never know.

Kirsty, family, friends, colleagues current and ex, and even strangers on the internet forums have been a great support...Thanks everyone

There is a translated account of events from the boat that hit us here

Looking ahead to a weekend of hard labour

Graham is recovering slowly from his ordeal in France. It is frustrating and boring for him being stuck at home unable to move around, particularly as we seem to be having a nice spell of weather.
We are making plans for a weekend of work on Pixie. She was already booked in for a lift out at Port Solent. We have a long list of things to do, including having ultrasonic anti-fouling installed. That is the easy part (i.e. the part that someone else does). With Graham out of action it looks like I'll be washing the topsides, rubbing them down and polishing all by myself (for the second season running...). I was looking forward to splitting the hard labour but no such luck! But I am looking on the bright side - Graham's accident could have been a lot worse. It could have spoiled our planned trip completely, or worse.
If anyone is in the Portsmouth area and fancies lending a hand feel free to pop down!

An interesting few days

Well it's been an interesting few days for me. I was involved in an incident between two motor boats in the south of France. One motor boat, a brand new Beneteau Monte Carlo 42, smashed into and rode over the photo boat I was on. It's a long story that you can read about here:

http://www.motorboatsmonthly.co.uk/news/444994/mbm-photographer-s-lucky-escape-from-boat-crash

It's amazing that I'm still here, a bit battered and bruised, but with everything intact.

If you have a dream, do something about it now, you never know what the day will bring.