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Part 3 of Our Transit: Cayman to Jamaica
Trouble ahead...out of nowhere
We departed Grand Cayman on a beautiful sunny morning, anxiously clearing past
Left: Polished Fuel; Right: Same Fuel as It Came Out Of The Hose In Roatan
the eastern end of the island and waiting to see if an unexpected northeast swell would devastate us, but all seemed tranquil with gentle 1-2 foot seas and clear skies. With the calm water, our fuel (having already been filtered through 10 of our filter cartridges) wasn’t sloshing badly, and our port engine was running smoothly. When it did require a filter change it was comfortable to drift forward for ten minutes while we changed filters.
The next day, as we bore further south, we started to take the wind just forward of
Holly Steering In Rough Seas
the beam. We shook out the sails, gaining another 2.5 knots to the port engine, but as we came within sight of the western tip of Jamaica, waves wrapping around the north AND south of Jamaica were building and converging on our position at 45-90 degrees to each other, and building fast. As night fell, we were well east along Jamaica but still 50 miles offshore, having worn south to use the wind longer. We turned east and pulled the sails down, securing the ship in anticipation of yet another nasty sea coming…and we were not disappointed.
Sky trying to keep her back together...
The seas came round close to the starboard beam, and the period shortened as we drove dead into the wind. Fuel started sloshing, and we soon found ourselves dead in the water as the port engine sucked up the sludge that was our fuel. Frantic filter changes continued, with increased urgency each time as we bore closer to the lee shore. We downloaded a weather report through our satphone (tough to hold the antennae southwest in that sea state) and realized that, once again, unexpected bad weather (11-12 foot seas and 35 mph winds) were coming to the windward passage, and we knew that we would be very, very lucky to make it around Jamaica’a eastern tip and pull into Port Antonio on the north side.
As day broke, Sky and I made the decision to divert to Kingston, which we might be able to reach before dark.
Getting stability and 2.5 knots extra from the sails...
As we approached, we were not able to raise any of the Jamaican officials. It was a public holiday. We raised a local boater on VHF who connected us with a retired Evinrude dealer, who lived up the mountains and monitored all marine radio traffic. We rendezvoused with the first boater at a small cay off Kingston. He lent me a chart and pointed out the unmarked location of the
Making An Electrical Repair When He Should Be Asleep...But Has No Choice
customs area, a small unmarked anchorage, and the Royal Jamaican Yacht Club anchorage, also unmarked and uncharted. Then, our new friend Tony Tame up on the mountain contacted the customs, immigration, health, and port officials, and we made our final, hair raising approach past Wreck Reef’s dangerous lee shore into Kingston’s main channel and the protection of its harbor…what a relief.
Talking To Ensley, Carib Maritime's Master Mechanic About Where To Find Parts
Within 2 hours we were cleared in and allowed to proceed to the yacht club, where we dropped anchor and collapsed asleep. We then spent 24 hours on reconnaissance; getting a Jamaican sim card and number for the blackberry, finding and calling stores that might carry the parts we needed, finding and arranging transport into town to search for what we need at stores we had already
Ed, source the fuel filters, assembly and additional parts...
contacted. The kind master mechanic and master engineer from the neighboring Carribbean Maritime Training Institute drove us all over town and helped us figure out where to find what we needed. Within 72 hours, we had obtained and installed all the parts that we needed to repair our engine systems (and incidentally, our alternator) and had polished the 400 gallons of diesel in our tanks…opening each of the three tanks’ access hatches, pumping out and filtering all the fuel, scrubbing and vacuuming the sludge from the bottom and then re-sealing the tanks. We finished at midnight, took on fuel the next day and then were invited by the yacht club to wait for weather at their dock.
Borrowing Luther's Fuel Polisher
What a relief! Tied to the dock, everything is easier, and anchor watches don’t need to be set. It will be hard enough in Haiti; it is great that everyone might get a chance to rest now. The weather is driving us crazy…there is a huge high pressure system over the east, sending howling winds down the Windward Passage, and a SE swell meeting it…it is nasty there, and we are heavily loaded with IV fluids.
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Note: This is Part 2 of the story of our voyage from Honduras to Haiti
Awesome!!
First, I will say that the first 48 hours of this crossing from Guanaja to Jamaica will remain with me forever as two of the greatest days I have ever spent on the water…so good that even at the end of the second day, we said to each other that we would surely pay dearly for the day we had. And pay we did…I wish we had pictures of the madness that ensued when things turned from paradise to misery, but by then we were working too hard to remedy our situation, and too sick, to pick up a camera.
Those first 2 days, however, we cruised at 7 knots over a glassy Caribbean sea, with clouds reflected in it, catching fish after fish—dorado, tuna, wahoo, longbill spearfish, blue marlin at sunset, barracuda, grouper (when we passed over the reefs of Swan Island on the morning of the second day) and Jacks. One of the most epic and beautiful days on the water ever—but it meant that when I was off-watch (I had the con from 12-4 AM/PM), dawn was just coming so two full days of catching fish almost hourly kept me awake all day, catching only an hour or two in the evening after dinner.
Sky Directing The Reef Passage
On the morning of the 3rd day, I went to bed around 4:30 AM after my watch, but since my bunk is in the forepeak I feel the seas pretty badly when we are pitching, and I woke to hell…a wild sea, and a cross sea with the wind out of the northeast and the swell from the southeast. We strapped everything down and bore down dead ahead, climbing up the faces of the swells and coming down hard; Southern Wind handles seas on the bow pretty well, but this Caribbean sea is like a bathtub! Every sailor I’ve talked to says it is choppy, unpredictable, subject to sudden changes in weather, and watching the 3rd day of this supposed 7-day weather window dawn to whitecaps and a short cross-swell makes me long for the long rolling groundswell of the Pacific.
Our journey probably would have been merely miserable but uneventful, but 60 miles south of Grand Cayman
Ed Calmy Maneuvering Through The Narrow Slots
and only a day and a half from Jamaica, bad fuel we took on in Honduras (the worst I have ever seen…might as well have put gutter water in our tanks) started sloshing in our tanks and our fuel filters soon became clogged…Ed and Larson spent hour after hour in the engine room shutting down one engine at a time, changing filter cartridges (good thing we stocked up in Roatan with enough to last—we thought—6 months), until one of the canister cartridges grew so hot the metal fatigued and broke, disabling the starboard engine (to run it unfiltered, as we then rigged it in case of emergency, would have seized all our injectors and the engine would have been much more damaged).
Noah Changing A Light Bulb
When the port engine fuel filter clogged again, as we struggled to change it in the heaving engine room and reprime the fuel system, we turned beam onto the seas and started to roll. I threw lawn chairs tied to heavy lines off our bow to act as a sea anchor and hold our bow to the weather, and Noah, Dr. Holly and Randy worked to bring the sails up as we turned north to try and make it to Cayman. Sky raised a nearby freighter on the VHF, whose radio operator relayed our position and situation to Cayman port authorities and USCG Miami, and the Jamaican Coast Guard. The freighter stood ready to divert and take us off if necessary, and Sky contacted USCG directly on Satphone to update them with our position and situation in case a major rescue should become necessary. It meant a great deal to us that the freighter was willing to divert and rescue us if our ship had been lost; when we were in Roatan we saw a captain on another ship be told by the owner NOT to divert to help a sailboat that had gone up on the rocks on a channel entrance; the captain was very shaken up by this as he felt it was very, very bad karma. The law of the sea is the ethos of Floating Doctors…always stop and help, since you never know when it might be you on the receiving end of assistance
However, because I have a ship that refuses to give up fighting and a crew that can tackle any challenge and
A Fresh Steel Pin Goes Into Place...
function even under horrible conditions (even if afterwards we all have a series of quiet heart attacks and have lost weight from vomiting), we refused to give up the battle and with the wind sustained at 25 knots on the beam, the sails stabilized us (I immediately felt it in the engine room) and for a while we made 4.5 knots under sail alone (so much for the skeptics! We may not have all the sail Southern Wind had before her mast was shortened, and she’ll never be a racer, but she was a champion that day).
Repairing A Broken Bolt On Our Spreaders From Being Shaken So Hard
One the sails were up and I saw that we were making headway safely (if slowly) toward Cayman, I don’t remember much more for the next few hours as I think someone made me go lie down. One of the last things I remember is that the port engine had just been restarted (had to be re-primed with fuel every time the filter clogged) I think, and I put my head down on it in the engine room to fall asleep. It was awesome to make the transit with other captains onboard…otherwise I would have had no choice but to remain awake and functional (the most dangerous scenario faced by solo long-distance sailors). I was pretty dehydrated (had had no water for almost 24 hours, had been vomiting, had not eaten for 2 days, and had been awake for almost 4 days…Ed and Larson (and all of us, really) had a similar experience, and we were crazed when we finally pulled in sight of Cayman.
Holly and I brought the boat the last leg to Cayman and Holly (what a trooper) took the helm and let me sleep a little as we stood offshore, waiting for daylight to make our final approach to dock and clear in at Grand Cayman. We knew a mooring was available free, but first we had to visit the customs dock to clear in before we could move to the mooring and finally relax and sleep. I must have looked wild-eyed in the Port Captain’s office but they must be used to it as we cleared in with no difficulty and got onto the mooring asap.
Nick With Bags Of Sludge-Soaked Diesel Filters and Rags
We spent two days in Cayman waiting for the weather to open (or so we and various government and commercial weather prediction services believed it was going to), made a few repairs and tried to recover from the mess and shock of our previous crossing. We didn’t see much of Cayman (saw a lot of the inside of our engine room!) but the water there was beautiful, and it was a shock to be somewhere with good services available. Our next departure, we thought, would see us arriving in Port Antonio, Jamaica to take on some fuel and fix our broken fuel filter and tie up to a dock one last time for a night before crossing the Windward Passage and beginning our mission in Haiti (where we will likely be anchored in poor holding ground of uncertain depth, and it is impossible to completely relax).
The starboard engine could be used in an emergency (though it would surely soon seize if it had to be run), and
Sunset In The Caymans
the port engine was functioning adequately to make it to Jamaica in good weather. Repairs were more practical in Jamaica, so at the next weather window we sailed for Jamaica on a calm, flat day…that was not destined to remain so for long.
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Note: A month ago we departed from Roatan for a ten-day transit to Haiti, with a stop in Isla Guanaja to clear out of Honduras and a stop in Port Antonio, Jamaica, for fuel and a night’s sleep before the final 36 hours to Petit-Goave, our first destination In Haiti.
That was the plan, anyway.
The next couple of updates, written here in Kingston, will tell the saga of what happened and catch us up from Roatan to here in Jamaica…I have written them all in one go, and will post one a day till we are caught up.
March 1, 2010–Isla Roatan to Isla Guanaja, Honduras
Ernest Shackleton's Recruiting Ad...
We knew it would be an up-wind, up-current battle the whole way to Haiti, so we made the 40-mile run from Roatan to Isla Guanaja to clear out, and wait for a weather window long enough to reach the protection of Jamaica. When we got to Guanaja through 6 foot, choppy seas coming from the east, there was no room in the only protected anchorage and we anchored outside in the channel, where it
Each Red Line Shows Our New Swing Line As We Dragged And Reset All Night
proceeded to blow hard from the E and SE for 9 days. We dragged anchor several times before finally putting out a second bow anchor, which seemed to hold, but we spent many hours at night watching our chartplotter and peering out at Dunbar Rock to see if it loomed any closer in the darkness than it had 5 minutes before as we bucked and swung on our anchors.
Ed Wiring A Cell Phone Charger To Our Generator To Make It Work
Our generator was not putting out full power; its regulator control board had finally failed (it had done well to survive the lightning strike at all) but Ed managed to coax it to produce some power by using an old cell phone charger, wired directly to the circuit board, plugged into a small dashboard inverter which he wired directly to our battery bank. Thus, we were able to excite the part of the generator circuitry that allowed the generator to produce power, but it would frequently get hot and fail and need to be reset.
It turned out that I had to fly back to Roatan on a puddlejumper with all of our passports to clear out of Honduras, and we also had several cases of vitamins, IV fluids, gauze, syringes, antibiotics, heart monitors, and other supplies to deliver to the health center on Guanaja. I went back to Roatan and got everybody cleared out of Honduras, and when I got back we connected with the director there and we arranged for me and Dr. Holly to help out in the clinic. Holly saw patients for general consults, and I did ultrasounds on some pregnant women and women with abdominal masses.
We also managed to revisit a patient we saw when we were there in October—the patient that we suspected had
A Good Omen For The Crossing??
elephantaiasis. With a tropical medicine specialist onboard, and armed with the opinions and advice of many clinicians (form as far away as Fiji!) who wrote to offer suggestions, we re-examined him and decided on a course of treatment that might at least stop forward progression of the symptoms by killing any active filarial worms, and Noah taught him a series of exercises and techniques to try and increase lymphatic drainage. The next time we visit Guanaja, I hope he will show improvement…at least no progression!
Our Path Through The Reef...The Asterisks And Pluses Are Exposed/Awash Rocks
We endured the wind and anxiety of anchor dragging for 8 days, finally moving to the backside of the island and negotiating a narrow, twisting reef passage to an anchorage with some protection. We still dragged, but only a little, so we managed to have a semi-restful last night and in the morning the sea and wind died down to nothing and we nosed out through the reef passage and headed NE towards Jamaica. Little did we know that the calm glassy waters of our departure would not last for long…
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Holly and I finally face the task of completely clearing out, organizing, and restocking our medical go-bags
This week saw the first heavy, 3 day long pouring rain for several weeks (of course, while we are trying to load the boat and finish our preparations for departure) and the tying off of many threads we have been following for months…we closed up our clinic in Oakridge, packing everything up and saying hasta luego a mi pacientes. Un momento muy difficile. Thank goodness we plan to return to open the clinic permanently as a satellite clinic, open every day with a doctor and staff on site even when Southern Wind is working elsewhere. Knowing we are coming back after this voyage, and knowing that with what we learned and the relationships we forged on Roatan, we can and will open that clinic, makes it much easier to say farewell. Instead, we say (we are going to Haiti, after all) aur revoir.
We finished off a lot of rainy day projects inside the boat (there are always, always more
Capt. Ed cutting a new gasket for our 671 GM engine pan...doin' it old school
projects), and got down to the business of prepping to load—that means taking every item out of its storage onboard, condensing everything, repacking all our medical go-bags (thank you Dr. Holly!), and most important: we took delivery of our 5 pallets of material left over in Miami from our last mission to Haiti (thank you Gary, Donna, and everyone at Roatan Rotary!), and our 40-foot container from Direct Relief International, packed with medicine and equipment for the clinics in the island and distributed the material to 5 clinics and the public hospital on the island.
And the unloading begins...
This is a crowning moment for Sky. To get this container in, it required over 1,000 emails between Sky, the shipping company, Direct Relief International, Joseph Natale from Fundacion Heart Ventures, the customs office, the customs broker, Roatan Rotary, a cross-country trucking company and a local trucking company in Miami and another in Roatan, the warehouse in Miami with our 5 leftover pallets, the Ministry of Health in Honduras, 6 different clinics on Roatan, and Cepudo (a Honduran NGO on the mainland).
Roatan Public Hospital emergency room with the floor up to fix the backed up sewer
The difficulty is not in sending down material—anyone can order a container and have it
Gary and Sky picking up the pallets Rotary helped us bring in
shipped down here…but not without enormous import fees. It is sending down material and getting it cleared through customs as donated material without $30,000 worth of customs duties applied that is difficult, not to mention that we wanted to create a conduit so that we could send containers on a regular basis. One time is easy…to set it up to be sustainable is way, way more difficult. It took more than anyone else will ever know to get it set up by Sky, but I will always know and always be impressed how much the people you already love and admire can still amaze you.
Holly checking the pile earmarked for the Pandytown Centro de Salud
In a few months I will begin contacting the clinics again, finding out their needs and getting another request for DRI and container number 2…
Our staging area for the distribution to the clinics--thank you Gary and Donna for letting us use the tents!!!! Lifesavers!
Our aid station at the triathlon finish line
In the midst of all this, we still see patients, provided the medical service for the Bay Islands Triathalon (including the kayaks monitoring the swimmers during the first leg), and Dr. Holly—whose training
heading out...some swimmers were really struggling, and a few got lost and started to swim to Guatemala, but thankfully no one went under and didn't come back up
includes major scene accident management—provided 2 days of training for the Fire Department, following up the training provided by our volunteer Sirin last year.
Maintaining head control as Johel comes out
Dr. Holly showed the firemen a particular extrication trick—when you have a patient with suspected spinal injury from a car accident, you can extract the patient through the back window by lowering the front seat, sliding the board in through the back window and taking the patient straight out. Since we have the use of Gary and Donna’s open jeep, we could simulate the extraction without having to smash a car’s back window. We are nothing if not adaptable.
The weather is looking good for this weekend (pouring rain now)…high pressure pushing down, maybe keeping the low centers at bay over our projected route. Loading the IV fluids tomorrow and the next day…Finish securing the boat for sea…provisioning….and a last good night’s sleep.
Then give me that horizon.
Photos of patients used with patients’ express permission.
Photos of unloading and interior boat construction (pretty much most of the nice-looking photos) courtesy of Dan Chomistek
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BE WARNED: THIS BLOG CONTAINS A REAL PATIENT HISTORY OFFERED FOR ADVICE AND SUGGESTIONS, WITH THE EXPRESS CONSENT OF THE PATIENT. THE DETAILS AND PICTURES OF THIS CASE, A PARASITE CASE, MAY BE GRUESOME.
How Does Sky Feel About Getting Our Stuff?
Today during a scorching sunny afternoon, Christmas came the Southern Wind–here’s how:
When we first left Miami for Haiti, we left behind 5 pallets of additional medication and supplies that we could not fit onboard. We planned to return to Miami and pick them up after finishing in Haiti, and then continuing on to Central America.
From Haiti, we connected with Clinica Esperanza and Barefoot Cay Marina in Roatan, so
Holly learning to work with composites during a hull repair
we came directly here instead of going back to Miami. We saved a lot of fuel and time but it meant we had to ship our pallets here to Roatan. Fortunately, Gary and Donna Evans arranged for Roatan Rotary Club to sponsor the shipping by providing part of Rotary’s yearly donated shipping allotment from Hyde Shipping here on the island. We also had to coordinate someone willing to drive a truck from the warehouse in Miami that was kind enough to hold our supplies to the Hyde Shipping warehouse in Miami…all the while seeing patients, planning our Haiti mission, fueling, securing the boat for sea, coordinating our 40-foot container from Direct Relief International for the island clinics and for Haiti. It has been BUSY.
Cots For The Moms In The Pediatric Ward Of The Hospital...They Sleep On The Tile Floor Next To Their Child's Crib
However, health care is always our primary mandate, and when we are in danger of being overwhelmed by everything we have to do, we ask for help. Especially any clinicians reading this, this patient has suffered significant symptoms for months and has given permission to post his case for review by any of our medical followers.
Please post comments or questions for more details about the case directly on this page where we can all see them and brainstorm together. All posts are visible only after review and approval by Floating Doctors to protect patient dignity and confidentiality.
Patient: 27 year-old Caucasian male; 6’2”, 180lbs
*No prior medical history of note, no medications, no allergies
*Basic Exam:
- Cardio : BP: 125/85, HR 74 (regular)
- Respiratory: Lungs clear, good air entry across both fields, no creps/wheezes
- GIT: Abdo soft and non-tender, non-distended
The patient had spent 7 months in Honduras working as a volunteer co-pilot on a non-profit emergency helicopter service, with frequent trips to the mainland while transporting patients.
If This Is A Worm, What Is It?
3 months ago, a few weeks before his return to the US, he had complained of occasional vague stomach cramps (sometimes acute) and diarrhea. The night before returning to the US, he took a single dose of albendazole and subsequently had what he referred to as an episode of extreme cramping and “explosive worm diarrhea.” The worms he described were 6-8 inches long and very mucous-like. He continued taking a daily dose of 400mg of albendazole for the next few days, but continued to pass similar worms. He went on a strict fruit diet, eliminated fats and although the symptoms seemed to lessen he still passed stringy worm-like strands, some longer than 12” (in the initial days of treatment). After several days, he went to his local doctor and subsequently sent this email:
“I went to the doc yesterday and got a scrip for Flagyl. I never saw the doctor but the nurse
One of the Worm-Like Strands The Patient Hsas Been Passing
talked to the doc and he prescribed it. I’ve been on it for, now, two days. I’m coughing up some terrible stuff. One time (within the last week), while in the shower I blew my nose in my hands. In the mucus there appeared to be a worm about 1/2 inch long. It was either a worm or the most congealed mucus I’ve ever seen. Figuring I was exhibiting symptoms of hypochondria, I chalked it up as my mind playing tricks on me. Today, about a week later, after taking the Flagyl for two days, I’m coughing up some horrible stuff, which looks similar, but not exactly the same, as the worms in my stool. It’s stringy, if stretched out about 6-8 inches long. From what I’ve ever seen, mucus isn’t generally this stringy with elastic properties. When running the sink full of water, swirling one around rinsing it off, and then picking it out of the water with my finger, it’ll run over my finger like a spaghetti noodle would. It doesn’t look like a spaghetti noodle, (much smaller in diameter) but acts in a similar fashion when running one over your finger.”
He augmented his treatment with Pyrantel Pamoate equine anthelmintic, taking the same dose as for a 250-lb pony (900mg) daily for three days off 4 days, then repeating, and was also prescribed mebendazole 100mg twice daily for three days, then 4 days off, then repeating the regimen for a month along with the flagyl (metronidazole). He also ate enormous amounts of fruit and had a colonic irrigation (though he saw no worms come out during the evacuation, only the next day), and is taking 15,000mg of garlic daily.
He has not had blood work or an ova and parasites study (stool sample). He has been advised to collect one of the worms and bring it to his hospital or GP for parasitology, and to have a full blood count with differential to look for raised eosinophils. Results will be posted as soon as available.
Dead And Partially Necrosed Worm? Mucous Strand? What?
The ‘worms’ pictured do not look at all typical. Could they be some kind of mucous shedding of the intestine post infection or from the treatments he has given himself…even the garlic? If so, what about the episodes of coughing and similar, smaller mucous strings from his nose? He has tried most of the heavy-hitters for parasites…even horse worming medication (not on my advice!).
Does anyone recognize these as worms or other pathology, or have suggestions for further treatment or investigations? The patient has no medical insurance so cost will be a factor in patient ability to comply with investigations. Taking the worm to a doctor so it can be sent to a specialist and analyzed if necessary is definitely the next step, but any advice or ideas would be appreciated.
Our 40-foot container from Direct Relief is supposed to be cleared through customs Thursday!
Waiting At The Customs House Desk
Then we can distribute everything, load the boat and depart at the first weather window to Jamaica for fuel and back to Haiti!
All Photos (Except The 3 Worm Pics) Courtesy of Dan Chomistek
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The Grinning Jaws Of The Cocodrilo
Yesterday we returned from our first vacation in almost two years…the first time we have been truly out of contact (although we did have Sky’s blackberry) and doing something that was just for us.
Sky, Noah, me, and Dan from ‘Satisfaction Plus’ (our neighbor and erstwhile Floating Doctors cameraman), took the ferry from Roatan to La Ceiba on the mainland. We planned to go to Copan, about 400km inland up in the mountains and site of the famous Mayan ruins.
Oh, man…I don’t even know what to say. If you grew up watching Indiana Jones, and ever fantasized about
A civilization swallowed by the jungle
exotic ruins from ancient civilizations hidden in the dense jungle, then Copan is exactly as advertised. Skulls, grinning jaws, imposing birds and leering faces carved everywhere…tunnels dug by archeologists showing the temples buried beneath the pyramids…dead kings looking down onto the stone altar where human sacrifice was carried out, and the court where slaves played deadly ball games in which the losers were sacrificed at the end. We sat in the king’s seat at the top of the pyramid and strolled through the ‘Mayan Discotheque’ where the royal family and nobles of the court celebrated.
It was everything you ever imagined…totally and completely AWESOME.
Noah Taking A Break During Our Evening Ramble
The town of Copan was a beautiful little mountain town set in the geologically tortured hills along the Honduran/Guatemalan border…cobbled streets, red tile roofs. It was cool, without mosquitoes, and REALLY inexpensive. We were only there for two full days, but I could’ve stayed for a couple of weeks. Everywhere you walk in the jungle, mounds of collapsed jungle-covered rubble betray the site of yet another Mayan ruin not yet investigated (they have only found 5 of the tombs of the 16 Mayan kings of Copan).
On our second day, we drove 30 km down a really bad road (torn to pieces after the rainy season, took us an
Oh Yeah...now THAT'S a Hot Spring!
hour and a half in a big pickup truck) through the narrow valleys of the mountains. We stopped at the Luna Jaguar thermal hot springs…I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go in another hot spring without sneering in contempt…the most amazing hot springs ever.
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings...Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
A dozen or so rock pools on a steep, jungle covered hillside along a narrow fault through the mountains…boiling, sulfurous water at 176 degrees pouring from the rocks and into the rock pools and sending clouds of steam up through the jungle canopy. We lingered among the pools for hours, until after nightfall when candles were set out, then finally we tore ourselves away and drove back through the jungle night to Copan; leaving in the morning for San Pedro Sula to pick up Holly at the airport.
Holly is our new volunteer and is a Tropical Medicine and Emergency Room Medicine specialist from Liverpool. Holly will be onboard three months, and her timing could not be better since we are headed to Haiti. We got back last night and worked on the boat all day today; Ed is coming back tomorrow, Captain Randy is just back, and we have TONS of preparations to make before leaving.
The cholera epidemic in Haiti continues to kill…we have several other doctors and nurses meeting us in Haiti, and others continue to contact us
Our Album Cover
to see about coming. This is turning into a big collaboration between us, Partners in Health, the Cap Haitian Health Network, SIFAT (water purification systems), Direct Relief International—I’m excited to go back.
Noah and Sky resting one last time before our voyage
When we left for Haiti the first time, the essential systems on the boat were done but we have continued to modify and rebuild ‘Southern Wind’ a little at a time ever since we first left the dock, and this time we will be even more well-equipped than our first trip. We will be working along an area of over thirty miles of coastline, so we will have to be mobile and adaptable…and that’s what we designed our project to do. This time we may well have our team split up and working in several locations at once, so this is going to be a real challenge.
Plus, we also have a lot of patients still to see here on Roatan while we prepare for Haiti…going to be a CRAZY couple of weeks, but the countdown to Haiti starts today!
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All Pics For This Blog Courtesy Of Dan Chomistek
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Roatan, Honduras
Downed Trees After Hurricane Richard
Wow, what a ride…a few days ago, Hurricane Richard passed almost directly over our position here on Roatan. For several days, we watched it approach, slowing down and gathering strength as it hesitated out in the Atlantic, almost as if it were undecided about whether to move northwest, as most hurricanes do, or to move directly west and sweep over the Isla de Bahia in Roatan. Naturally, we began to take elaborate pre-hurricane precautions, hoping that they would not be necessary.
We cleared all of our gear off the decks and lashed all the big stuff down tight, covered our bridge windows to protect them from flying debris, charged our batteries and filled our water, stocked up on food, added about a dozen dock lines and more fenders, and prepared to ride it out. These are the moments that are a true exercise in letting go; when you have taken all the precautions you can, and done everything you could–then whatever happens is beyond your control. The sea can be a very scary and intimidating place when you try to maintain the illusion of control on the water.
From the bridge, we waited, and tracked the storm on satellite imagery. As it came nearer to our position on the screen, the air felt heavier and heavier as the pressure dropped, and all of us–including Tweek and Giles, our ship’s dog and cat–started feeling restless and agitated…I guess it is true what they say, the waiting MAY not be the worst part, but it is surely no picnic!
First, the weather turned dead calm and still, the only change being the plummeting barometer…then came the rain, and then more rain, and then a LOT more rain…and then the wind. At first the wind wasn’t too bad, blowing at around 30-45 mph for the evening, but as 3:00 AM rolled around the wind began to pick up sharply, whipping the trees around us and surging the already full-moon high tide up over the concrete dock. Thank goodness we had had a chance to adjust and tune all our dock lines while the wind was still blowing only 30, since by the time the wind hit 79 mph it was difficult to move around safely outside.
The boat rocked and heaved amid the spiderweb of dock lines holding her out in the middle of the basin–one line snapped, but Captain Ed and Noah managed to get a replacement line around another cleat in time to keep us from being
Our Boat Is At The Middle Of A Cat's Cradle Of Docklines
pushed forward onto the seawall 8 feet dead ahead. As dawn brightened, the wind began to die down to gale force, and eventually petered out amidst a series of heavy showers into a preternatural stillness, and the first tiny patches of blue sky we had seen for days finally peeking out in the eastern sky.
Then all hands checked the lines one more time and turned in for some well-earned sleep–back at it in the clinics tomorrow! What did Graham Greene say about the sea.. “The ocean is an animal, passive and ominous in a cage, waiting to show what it can do.” The power of the Hurricane, this ‘little’ category one hurricane, gave us a brief glimpse at the forces that lie in wait under the deceptively calm waters and blue skies of the tropics.
The price of having even a chance of survival on the sea is eternal vigilance…when situations turn bad, they tend to do so quickly. Better to prepare thoroughly every single time than be caught out the ONE TIME you fail to take every possible precaution.
Live to sail another day!
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95 Degrees Training In Brush Gear With 95 Percent Humidity
“Superinfermera”
Here in Honduras, as it was in Haiti, on any given day my crew are usually spread out at several locations, and when I find out later the details of what they have been doing, I am always astonished. Today we recognize the awesomeness of the work done by nurse and instructor Sirin Petch. By the time we had been here about a week, we learned that the single fire station on Roatan had not been given much formal training, and Sirin agreed to work with Maddie to provide training in emergency response. Nearly every day for almost two months, Sirin worked with the firecrews to provide training in airway management, scene assessment, lifting and immobilization, choking, and other techniques necessary for EMS response. Some of them had joined the department when they were 14, but few had been able to get formal training. The firemen are paid very little (they have to buy oxygen for the ambulance out of their own money), and they work hard.
Sirin first asked the Firemen what they would be most interested in learning, and looked at the resources that were available and would be the most useful instruction for work here in Roatan, and then provided training. Maddie was instrumental in helping communication, plus she is a naturally gifted teacher, and later they were joined by Zach, one of the pilots on the emergency helicopter, and Yolanda, a paramedic from Montana volunteering for a couple of months on the helicopter.
Sirin and her team trained the fire crews, went on night calls with them, and even after Yolanda and Maddie had gone home, Sirin continued with the firemen. Near the end of Sirin’s time with us (for now?), an incident occurred that says a lot about the relationship Sirin created with the Bomberos. I got a phone call to transport a patient on the helicopter to the mainland, so I made my way to the landing field, prepped the gear in the helicopter and waited for the Fire Department ambulance to bring a patient with suspected barbituate overdose. The ambulance arrived, the doors were kicked open, and out jumps Sirin and the firemen, who hand off the patient to me on the helicopter.
On the way back to the station, Sirin and the firemen got a call for a woman in full arrest. Sirens blazing, they arrived at a house surrounded by wailing family members. A larger woman in her 40s had a full arrest, in a house at the top of a 30-foot embankment. Using the techniques Sirin had taught, they put her on an immobilization board, inserted an airway, maneuvered her down the hill to the ambulance and raced to the hospital. They worked hard to resuscitate the woman, both in the ambulance and the hospital, but eventually had to call time of death. Sirin helped arrange the body and deal with the distraught family thronging the hospital corridor, then she and the Bomberos headed back to the Fire Station, only to be diverted to a brush fire. They gave Sirin a brush jacket and sped off to a banana plantation, arriving as it burned itself out. Scrambling up the smoking, scorched earth, they made sure the fire was completely extinguished, then returned to base.
Beyond the skills and training that she made available to the firemen, I believe that Sirin gave them something much more valuable. They looked at what Sirin knew, and her professionalism, and saw its value. She earned their respect (not always easy for female professionals in Latin America) and their friendship, and helped inspire them and motivate them to want more training and to seek it out. They have asked Sirin to send EMS instruction books and have increased their physical training (Noah has worked with them in the gym and done lifting and transferring instruction with them, and a few days ago I boxed with another).I am very, very proud of the work at the Fire station, and very proud to have seen Sirin rise to such a challenge. Long after we are gone, I hope the knowledge and professional pride she left behind will continue to grow and help people.
