Jaw dropping experience

03 Mar. 12


I had the most surreal experience in my life, so far, two nights ago. Lola myself and a friend Ryan went for a swim after having a few drinks. Yes, I know, swimming after a few drinks, danger and warning signs everywhere. Well we were all splashing about having fun when suddenly my jaw dislocated itself and I turned into an instant spastic. I tried by all means to get it to go back but it just refused, and I couldn’t speak properly. Visions of eating jelly through a straw for the rest of my life flashed on and off in my head. Ryan went off, woke his father, and together we all rushed off to the hospital. The visit to casualties is but a vague memory in my mind with only little snippets of the event appearing when I try to replay it. But it goes on and off and I remember dislocating my jaw a few times. The doctor relocated it, then I dislocated it, then he relocated it, then I dislocated it. The nurse then relocated it, I dislocated it again and the nurse showed Lola how to relocate it. It seems that this became a game and every few minutes I would have another set of hands stuck in my mouth shifting my jaw bone around trying to relocate it. There are pieces that I of course can not recall but along comes Laurence, Ryan’s dad, to the rescue. He filmed most of the event on his cell phone and the whole next day showed it around the yacht club. So the joke in the club at the moment is “jaw dropping”.

We finally managed to get the crossbeam back up, reattaching the forestay and the furler. Now all that is left to refit is the trampoline mats and Yrumoar is officially ready to go on the trailer and back into the water. At the moment we are waiting for a storm to pass that is supposed to arrive on Monday and Tuesday and be gone by Wednesday. Then we will be lifted onto the trailer hopefully in the morning, staying on the trailer for the day and overnight to fix the damage on the underside of the keels. Next day, back onto the water, if all goes according to plan.

The forecast said that a tropical revolving storm is marching its way across the Mozambique Channel, heading straight for Maputo, about two or three hundred kilometres away from here. The result of that storm will bring excessive rain and predicted fifty knot winds down here. Some of the boats moved out of the channel in case the channel floods which apparently has happened before when one of these storms hit Maputo. We packed all our spares and things that we stored under the boat away to protect them from the rain and also because we had to clear under the boat in preparation for our trip back into the water. Now we are sitting inside watching the rain. There has been little wind up till now but the barometer has dropped considerably during the course of the day so we are expecting the wind to arrive soon. Its been a while since we had big wind but the memory of it is still fresh in my mind.

05 Mar. 12

We are still hiding out in the boat trying to stay dry, warm and out of the howling wind outside. The roar of that wind makes the hair on my neck stand up as it tears its way across the decks screeching and whistling as it passes through the rigging. We spent the whole night awake, not so much because of the wind but more because we knew that today the conditions would be the same. We decided to watch some movies, first with the boys, then with a friend, in an attempt to tire ourselves out and be able to spend the day in bed today. During the course of the evening we checking around the boat periodically to make sure nothing came loose and would be turned into a projectile that could smash our windows.

The boats rocks and shakes as the gusts come blasting through between the buildings and past the boat. This time however, wasn’t as bad as last time and the boat feels a lot more stable than it did before we repaired the bridge deck. The trees behind the boat didn’t look like they were going to rip out of the ground and get hurtled along into space like last time either so the wind didn’t reach the same climax as before. Lola only paced up and down a few times when the gusts really shook the boat. I think that the experience of the last storm made her a bit more confident so she was able to cope better this time.