Living with the sea
On the road to recovery following major injury during a starting line yacht race collision
Marsali Taylor sails an Offshore 8M, Karima S. She’s a dinghy instructor and author of The Shetland Sailing Mysteries starring liveaboard sleuth, Cass Lynch.
Three weeks of Indian summer greeted me when I got home at last from the hospital, with nearly-pain-free ribs (so long as my most affectionate cat didn’t curl up on them), permission to put both feet flat on the ground, and a zimmer frame, crutches and a wheelchair.
I couldn’t manage my daily walk–my best effort was from one side of the house to the other–so my husband, Philip, took me for a hurl round the village in the wheelchair instead.
It was wonderful to be outside. There was a warm, light southerly blowing, keeping the midgies off. The sea was still a summer blue, even though each day intensified the autumn colours: the leaves of the garden bushes becoming bronzered, the rugosa roses cadmium yellow with waxy red hips, and the rowan berries moving from green to red. On the hills, the heather was rust brown, and the green parks bordered by flax-gold long grasses.
I was very grateful for being alive at all, but I couldn’t help feeling wistful: it was the sort of day that anyone would use for taking the boat out for a nice long potter–up the voe and left to the Atlantic, or right to go round Linga. I might even have made my long-projected solo voyage to Papa Stour.
Ah well. We watched the water from the pier for a bit, blue and dancing with light. The summer seabirds had all gone, even the guillemot who usually overwinters in the marina; there was just a solitary shag flying over, and a young herring gull. After that we went to the slip, with lovely clear waves curling along the concrete. It was too steep for Philip to haul me back up from, so he vetoed my idea of going close enough to dabble my toes in.
The path alongside the marina is being resurfaced, so I could only get a view of my boat in her berth from behind; the port side was blocked by her larger neighbour. We had a look at the ramp downwards, and I could see Philip really was thinking about pushing me down to look at her properly, until he saw that there was a six-inch bump from the gangway to the pontoon.
Wheelchairs, we’ve discovered, won’t go over anything more than an inch. I suggested me using the parallel bars to walk down, and joining the chair on the main pontoon, but he wasn’t happy. I sighed, and conceded that even if he got me to her bow, I wouldn’t be able to get on board yet, and I wouldn’t be able
