Race 10 - Day 14
Crew Diary - Race 10 Day 14
10 April

Today is Day 14 on the crossing (I think) and it has happened. We were beating upwind for the past few days, which is always hard. One second of not thinking I went flying down the corridor. I landed badly on my foot. Immediately everyone was helping me out of my drysuit and boots and our two on board doctors were at my side. After a first examination, it was concluded that nothing was broken. My foot was braced, and I was given ibuprofen and ice packs. The rest of the day I recovered from the surprise and for the night the bunks were shuffled around so that I could have an entire night’s sleep. The next morning the doctor visited my bunk during his morning rounds and examined my foot again. The verdict was a very bad sprain with a not completely ruptured tendon which will probably keep me off deck for the larger part of the remaining journey. As you can imagine, this is making me quite sad.

I have to say that the moment I landed so badly on my foot, I thought I had definitely broken something, so I am super-duper grateful that a sprain is all that it is. But still, I am feeling very disappointed, frustrated, and mainly sad right now (the cry count for today, day 3 at 11:30, is currently 3). The below deck life is shit, up on deck is where the magic happens, and for the close future, I will have to miss out on the magic.

The day it happened, I did nothing but sit and look around but on the second day I have started trying to keep busy a little bit by looking at the GoPro footage of the past few days, there are some fun videos of great sailing days. On day three, all of that is done so I have started to learn how our navigational software works and how to look at the weather and do some routing. On day four, I was Mother, which was not very easy, but we were blessed with a flat boat, so I was able to help with the vegetable cutting, cooking, and bread making. Also, because it was such a flat boat and easy conditions, I finally made it on deck again, even if it was only for an hour. Right now is day 5, and I have been outside for most of the day, the sun is shining and the seastate is very calm. The step to get on board is rigged on the helming cage as a seat so I was able to helm for about two hours today and it was glorious! I still cannot really move my foot much or stand on it but at least I don’t have any pain. My fellow crew have been amazing, offering me kind words as well as chocolates. Let’s see how I get on the next few days.

Xx Eva

PS: Mom and dad, when you come over to Seattle, could you bring me some crutches so I can get around? Looking forward to seeing you soon!