11 June 2011 On My Own

Today was not the happiest of days on Seguin Island, as it ended with me holding down the fort by myself.  The short story is Darcy Dog injured himself Friday morning in a way I assumed to be not serious, and by this morning he had proven me mistaken, as I was carrying him everywhere and if I let him go, he would slink under a scrub pine to hide.  Good thing I’m not a vet.

If the beast were not in what appeared to be serious pain there would be two comical elements to this.  First I have considered repeatedly the actions to take if a person gets hurt on island, I had never thought about Med-Evac for a dog (even now it feels silly to write).  Secondly my horrible barber skills, funny the day before, have joined forces with his injured leg to turn him into a truly wretched looking little animal. 

As luck would have it, Ethan had a charter out for fishing today, and I got in touch with Leeward on VHF, and convinced him to swing through in the afternoon to pick up Amy & Darcy.  The transfer from shore, to dinghy, to boat, was an interesting process in the way that Seguin makes processes interesting.  Unfortunately, again, we did not have a camera in attendance.

Dogs have trouble standing up in little rubber dinghies due to the curious ways they flex & move in the waves.  Knowing this, and knowing Darcy had only three of his legs at his command, it was obvious he would need to help getting out to Leeward.  Ah-ha!  What about a box?  I prepped half of a banana carton for Darcy to lie in on the transit foolishly thinking he would be compliant.  I hefted him up, tried to put him in the box, got scratched by flailing paws & yelped at loudly, and then got disgusted looks from the mutt as if he were saying “you really thought I’d go for that?  Your move big guy”

The easy way gone, the only other thing to do was to hold him as I rowed out to Leeward.  At this point we needed video more than a still camera.  I launched the dinghy into three foot surf, had Amy climb in, ran up the beach, got the dog, ran back down the beach, handed the squirming pooch to Amy, pushed the bow back into the surf, got one pull on the oars only to find the weight of Amy & Darcy with nothing in the bow had the stern in the sand, the next sea broached us right back on the beach, I hopped out again… Eventually we got underway for Leeward.

While the beach sounded like the hard part, it was not.  Amy could not climb from dinghy to boat holding Darcy Dog, so he was handed off to me to hold while Amy crossed decks.  The problem here being with me holding the dog, no one was holding the dinghy into the side of Leeward.  Anyone see where this is going?  Amy made the famous split as the two craft separated, Ethan was trying to grab her, and I could do nothing, as Darcy was spazzing in my arms due to the commotion.  Although Amy managed to board dry I will always treasure the image of Ethan holding onto her shoulders while the rest of her body formed a perfect concave shape trying to stay out of the water.

Fortunately, all’s well that ends well, and after I watched Amy & Darcy fade off into the mist I put the dinghy to bed, then walked up the hill to a shower & a long nap for myself while I warmed up.  As I hit the rack, the temp was in the low 50’s, with light SSE’ly airs, and passing showers.  Visibility was reduced in patchy fog, and I’m anticipating worse weather coming.