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Wednesday, November 08, 2000

Ouch

Hadn't been windsurfing in quite a while, so I took the opportunity to go yesterday even though the winds were marginal. I took my largest sail, and it cycled between just right and not enough. Sprecks was a wave field -- I've never seen it with so many waves. They were pretty tame inside, but outside they were well over head high. When the winds were cooperating, I got in some pretty good jumps. Landed them all but one where I made a huge arc through the sky and came straight down nose first. Must have looked pretty funny from shore. Also was having fun surfing the waves -- damn you go fast when you're sailing down hill.

Toward dusk, I was in the middle of the strike zone for the outer sets, trying to run like hell from a big one coming my way, but the winds just weren't cooperating. Next thing I know, I feel the lip of a wave hit high on my mast from behind, water raining down from above... Oh shit... An instant later I'm smacked flat against my board by a wall of water, and my foot's stuck in the strap! I thought for sure I was going to feel my leg snap in the next moment, but instead the rig and I tumbled as a unit a few times in the white water, me now sandwiched between the board and the sail, and finally floated to a rest as the wave moved on. I reoriented myself to an angle where I could extract my unhappy foot, and sat up on my board looking for the shoe that fell off the other one. I spotted it floating a few yards away and dove in after it.

I caught up with my rig after the next wave rolled by but when I tried sticking my foot in the back strap to water start it hurt like hell. No time to dally since more waves were coming, so I gingerly rode the deck back to shore sans straps, luckily avoiding any more waves or getting pitched.

My foot wasn't any better this morning so I took it to the doc for an X-Ray but the bones look fine. So I tried hobbling on it a few steps today and it's been getting rapidly worse ever since, swelling up and hurting like hell. The damage is right in the middle of my arch, an area I'd really like to keep happy and springy. Dangit, at least when bones heal they're generally healed -- I hope I don't have another one of these nebulous scrod ligaments that never quite gets better. I'm realizing now I'd much rather lose use of a thumb than a foot.

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