Southern Cross

Both photos were taken by Peter Lyons from Lyons Imaging (www.lyonsimaging.com)

Elise just got back from Hawaii, via San Diego but she is not quite ready for the Bay yet. She needs to have the protective coating for the road removed and the mast put back on...We also need a new forestay and to remove all the ocean gear to get back into bay racing mode.

In the meantime, it is a great opportunity to sail on other boats and learn from others. Nathan, Bob, Pat, Lance and I sailed with Brian on Red Sky, an Olson 34 on the Southern Cross ocean race.

Start was in front of the Golden Gate YC, the course was out of the gate, around the Southern Approach buoy, around the Lighship and back to GGYC. It was great to be back on the water after so much time putting together this new home...and dealing with some serious cat bites that deprived me of the use of my arm for several long days...It got very badly infected...My joint is still painful so I hope that there isn't any lasting damage...

After a couple of days, my elbow and forearm and hand were SO swollen that I couldn't bend or stretch out my arm, or could I bend my fingers. It was sore, hot and red...There were 5 bites total, eg 5 sets of two stab marks, too deep to be cleaned up properly with alcohol and antiseptic). 4 around the elbow and 2 on my wrist, not as deep as they hit the bone...The doctor who examined me a few days after the event said that some of the swell was probably from the bite themselves, eg scar tissue and some from an infection...
I couldn't remember the exact date of my last Tetanos boost so they gave me an extra one. The nurse said 'how about I do the shot on the same arm. It will be very sore for a couple of days and you might get a little fever. Sore for sore and fever for fever because of your infection, might as well concentrate all this in one place"

Irrefutable logic really...

Picture is with hot compresses to try to get some relief!!! Heavy Tylenol user for a few days until the doctor replaced it with stronger prescription pain meds. Took about 2 weeks to resolve. Amazing how much harm these little creatures can do!

I was actually retrieving one of my cats who had escaped inadvertently - (or so he meows)...he was so fast that all I could do was grab him by the tail. Don't do that.)

The pharmacist said that I needed 2 strong antibiotics because the first one wasn't sufficient to take care of all the bacteria in a cat's mouth. And that both of them will be very tough on my stomach...No kidding...I basically was feeling fine on the boat (I always take a patch when I go out to the ocean if I remember, just as a precaution) but the minute I put something into my mouth...I was able to feed the fish. Then fine again. I decided to eat small bites of stuff that was super easy to digest and I had a really nice dinner. No further problems afterwards. It didn't prevent me from having fun since I wasn't miserable at all, the whole thing lasted for less than a minute...Weird...

Anyway, light air out in the ocean, usual build up at the gate. According to the results, we beat our nearest rival by about 2 hrs and 30 mins. We beat the last boat by 8 hrs.

But then, there was a bunch of really good sailors on board...