Finally, after more than four years, my adventure was about to start. All the waiting was over and I was ready to join the race and sail to Cape Town and Australia. I was incredibly excited
I arrived in Montevideo in the morning of the 14th of October after a long flight from Madrid. I picked up my car (a pick-up truck, I have always wanted to drive one of those!) and drove to Punta del Este. Punta is a nice but weird place, a very posh city very different from the rest of the country, full of tall buildings, in a really beautiful environment but with no real historical center.
I left my stuff in our apartment and drove to the harbour. After saying hi to Jimena and Karin at the Yacht Club I went to the Punta yacht because I wanted to check some of the victualling inventory. This is when disaster struck.
I was walking in the boat and saw Alex at the bow. I wanted to say hi because I really like this guy, he is a beautiful person. So I was waving at him and was not really looking at the boat surface as I should have been doing. The forward hatch was open because they were going to put back the sails that had been taken out for deep clean. I did not see this and I just walked into the open hatch. It seems that there was a sail tie to stop you from doing precisely that but it seems I just stepped over it without noticing. So I just walked into the hole. Just like in the cartoons when a character falls down a manhole.
I don't remember exactly how I fell but given my injuries I believe that I first struck one of the side bunks with my knee and then I hit the floor with my back. I ended up sitting in one of the crossbars, with my feet on the bilges. I was soon assisted by Marc and Alex who checked that I was not badly hurt. Soon I was also assisted by a local doctor who happened to be nearby and who helped me lie down in the galley and did further checks on me.
Soon several people from Clipper (Dan, India, Dale) joined us and started calling for an ambulance. Then Nano arrived, you could see the worry in his face. He stayed with me the whole time until I went back to our apartment, I am really thankful for all his support and help.
The ambulance arrived and a paramedic did further checks on me and declared that I was OK and did not even need to go to hospital. But we all wanted to make sure that everything was fully OK so I insisted on being taken there.
They did some x-rays and an ultrasound and they did not see anything worrisome so they signed the release form saying that I was ready to continue my Clipper race. I was really happy about this because I did not really want this to be the end of my adventure.
Reflecting upon my fall I thought that I had been really lucky: I had not broken any bones and I had not hit my head at all. This could have been so much worse... Now I just needed to make sure I recovered and was well enough to continue the trip.
Monday was price giving and while I was happy for the team, I felt a little down myself. I still had some pain in my knee and back and was starting to consider if it would be wise to join leg 2. So I left the celebration early and went to bed to try to rest as much as possible.
Then on Tuesday we did the Asado which for me was the highlight of our stay in Punta del Este. Amazing food, great music, great talks with all my team mates and an incredible environment. I had so much fun! And I was feeling great, I even led the "trencito" (conga)!! My spirit was really high.
But then that night I realised that next day I needed to do my refresher training. And I realised that even though I had been telling myself that everything was going ok, the reality was that it wasn't going well. I still had pain in my back and my knee and I did not really see myself moving around in a bouncing boat. After a long night with almost no sleep I decided that I needed to withdraw from leg 2 in order to be fully ready for leg 3. Otherwise I would just spend some miserable weeks onboard, risking my security and my health and the security of my mates.
After speaking with my wife I called Nano and explained the decision. He was fully supportive and he told me that he thought it was a very brave and mature decision that a lot of people would have refused to make.
After making this decision I felt much relieved. I realised that I had been extremely anxious worrying about whether I would be able to continue the race or not. And I really felt I had made the right choice.
I notified Clipper about my decision and I started looking for flights to return to Spain after race start. I had a lot of support from all my crew mates who all tried to cheer me up and all said that they were really looking forward to see me in Cape Town.
I spent a couple of days helping with victualling activities and then finally it was race start day. It was a really emotional day, it felt so wrong that I could not sail away with the rest of my team. So I waved them goodbye, hoping to see them again soon in Cape Town. But in any case I really felt that I had made the right choice, I could tell that my body was not really ready to go sailing yet.
The day after race start I flew back to Madrid and then took a train to my home town of Pontevedra. I had arranged a visit to a traumatologist to take a new look at my injuries to see how they were progressing. That is when I received the most devastating news that I really did not expect to receive: he told me that I had two broken ligaments in my knee and that I would need surgery. That was the last thing I was expecting. I had some pain but I could walk and move around and did never suspect that I could have such a serious injury (which no one had detected in Uruguay). But soon a magnetic resonance confirmed the diagnostic.
So that was the end of my race, the end of my dream, the end of my adventure. It is so sad that I cannot even begin to describe what I am feeling. But right now my mind needs to be on getting my injury treated, the surgery done and to recover as best as possible.
That's all Folks!
That's all Folks!
