Friday, December 8, 2017

Vertigo


Friday 8th December 2017

Yesterday  (Thursday) was a difficult day as I woke up with horrible vertigo. Immediately I sat up everything started spinning in an uncontrolled and nauseating way.  I managed to stagger over to the bathrooms and then took a seasick tablet when I got back to the boat. After half an hour sitting in the cockpit, whilst I ran the engines and re-charged the batteries and cooled the freezer, I didn’t feel much better so I took a second Stugeron and went back to bed. I got up again at about 10 am feeling slightly better and cycled into Road Town to check moorings in the harbor and get some exercise. It went fine and I took the opportunity to stop by the frozen yoghurt shop for a “pick-me-up”! On the way back I decided to take a short detour in Sea Cow Bay and check out the horse-racing course, where I had heard that Irma blew down the stadium. I was shocked to see the twisted girders and debris. You can still just about clamber up onto some of the bleachers but even I started to wonder if this was a wise move. There were a few race horses out in the fields around the track, one in particular was close to the stadium, but looked in poor shape. I heard that many of the horses died during the storm.
When I got back to Nanny Cay Marina, I got a call to say that the new bolt for my inner forestay “high field lever” was ready. Randy (who appears in the photos of blog "Up the hill" ) did a great job machining a replacement for the one I lost. With the parts in hand it was an easy job to reassemble the inner forestay (see below) – which is good, because with the trade winds blowing we are going to need to use the stay sail a lot. I was also able to fit an additional cam cleat in the cockpit to help control the mainsail reefing lines.
After a lovely long chat with Gloria, I spent a quiet evening eating left over chili and fried potatoes. Only 5 days until Gloria arrives!



Horse racing stadium in Sea Cow Bay - destroyed by Irma


View of the stands 


The bleachers



Abstract bleachers


Sad and skinny looking horse, with actual track behind


Total devastation - a house down hill from the stadium (in background) - amongst other things a large tree collapsed on the buildings


The inner forestay - high field lever. The new machined bolt is top left.





2 comments:

  1. Did you take stugeron on the passage? It worked really well for Ron and I. We had calm seas but we didn’t have any sea sickness at all. Jackie however started by using bonine and she was extremely sea sick for two days.

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  2. I used scopolamine patches for the passage, augmented with Stugeron when the going got rough. I do think Stugeron is effective.

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