kateandjohnsail.boats

Okay, this is when it gets real.

We had anchored for two nights in a little bay right next to the Sardinian port town of Palau, near the Maddelena Archepelago, a natural reserve where we intended to spend a week sailing and exploring inlets and rocky shores.

After we pulled up the anchor, I was having trouble setting up a pin that locks it into place, a task we had decided to spare John from doing since it is hard on his mending shoulder. It is 40+ feet from the anchor to the cockpit, so we were wearing bluetooth headsets so we could talk quietly about what to do. We decided to trade places so John could try to get the anchor fully secured. At some point in this process, working with a large anchor, heavy chain, and a powerful windlass, he put his hand where it should not be. He returned to the cockpit and to show me what happened. Let’s just say the sight was so disturbing that I asked him to lie down immediately, because it was important that I not lose consciousness. He grabbed a towel to hold onto the injury–his thumb–and to his credit he kept talking to me for the next hour as we sought help.

Blessedly, we were just around a point from the Palau. But we had not planned to enter this port, having learned it had a reputation for being unresponsive and unfriendly to passing boaters. I had not studied the charts and we had no docking lines ready, nor had we made any other preparations to dock. There was wind and other boat traffic, including a ferry coming in.

This is when I am thankful that my prayers are not desperate theoretical arrows thrown out to a Being who may or may not care. My prayers at this moment were urgent but not desperate, and not the least bit abstract, because the God who saw me in that moment has seen me every moment of my life and I am ever aware of his very real and powerful presence.

What happened next was full of that presence. I will not say I was unafraid, but John, lying next to me, reminded me that I could do this. I figured out the route, waited for the ferry to pass, negotiated boat traffic, monitored the wind, and motored inside the breakwater. I periodically called the harbor on the radio, identifying our boat and saying we needed an ambulance and didn’t know where to go, but there was no answer. John kept saying, “Go to the fuel dock.”

Finally I realized that the fuel dock was right ahead, and empty. No one was around, and no human had answered my radio call, but the dock was right there. Everything slowed down–the engine, my heart, my breathing–and I backed Quintessa into the wind. I left the wheel to put out fenders and prepare lines, then let the wind ease the boat in to the dock. There were dock lines to grab, and I secured the boat all by myself.

Minutes later, a woman appeared at the dock, grasped our situation, and called an ambulance. The paramedics came, and John was put in an ambulance to go to the hospital in Olbia, 45 minutes away.

I got to answer to the police and port authorities who showed up, and was able to produce the papers they needed to document the boat and my presence with it. We pulled Quintessa around the corner, to the side of the gas dock. To my surprise, the woman who had called the ambulance said to everyone, “She can keep the boat here.” Wait, what? This woman, Angelina, was in charge of the gas dock, and apparently had the authority to let me tie up the boat there. She was an angel to me for the next five days.

I rented a car, drove in twilight on windy roads though Sardinian countryside, and arrived at the hospital before John went to surgery to try to save his thumb. The hospital was bleak by American standards, and we struggled to understand all that was happening, but when do we ever have the luxury of feeling in control? I signed the consent papers and we prayed. I had sent texts to many who were praying in many places, then had to shut down my phone, having forgotten to bring an adaptor to use in the local outlet. John said that a longer surgery would be a better sign than short one, so, knitting alone in the fluorescent-lit hallway, I hoped that each door I heard opening did NOT herald the returning patient. After the two and half hour mark I began to feel some relief. At three hours, John was wheeled toward me, awake and lifting his hand with a bandaged thumb of normal length.

That was over a week ago. The intervening time has been an eternity and an instant. We got John to Portland, where the hand surgeon was mightily impressed by the work of his Sardinian counterpart. Bob and Sara Knapp flew in from Barcelona to help me move and winterize the boat. Our daughter Meg, in Europe finishing a business trip, came bearing moral support and priceless practical help. She and I left Sardinia together, spent a couple of days decompressing, and have returned to California and Oregon.

There is much more to the story, like how it happened from John’s perspective, what it will mean for us, and what comes next. We are resting and processing this with our family and loved ones, and will get back to this space with next steps. Meanwhile, the care and concern of the blog followers are among the many, many things for which we are so thankful.