Mar. 11 – New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay

Donny’s Boat Rental & Marina

"Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans." –John Lennon

I have referred to "plans" throughout this blog and the way they seem to change the minute we post them. For most cruisers, and I guess travelers of any kind, plans are simply guidelines, something to aspire to so we keep moving forward towards our goals. It's nice to have plans, but it’s equally nice to be flexible with those plans because sometimes our greatest adventures happen when we allow ourselves the ability to "coast" so to speak. If you’re not accelerating…you’re coastin’.

Well I wouldn’t say we had a great adventure today, but our plans did change. Not because of choice or weather, but an accident. We have owned this boat for five years and this is the first time either of us have had an accident. Our morning started off lazy in Black Sound, we sucked up all the free wifi we could and then released the mooring ball…we were on our way to No Name Cay. There was still quite a bit of wind this morning and that can make anchoring a little more challenging. We had dropped the hook, but we’re having a little problem getting it to set…so Stan was on his way back down to the bow…moving quicker than he probably should have been. As he was moving past the mid ship hawse pipe cleat he caught his foot on one of the horns. It punched his foot between his third and fourth toes about 1/2”. At that moment our plans changed! We quickly wrapped his foot and moved to deeper water, then got it bandaged up a little better. We could tell he needed stitches, so our only option was to return to New Plymouth.

We had a map of the town and knew where the clinic was, so we anchored off the city dock and dinghied into town, the clinic was only a few blocks away. It was clean and well equipped and Nurse Allen took very good care of Stan. The whole process took less than an hour. After such a stressful morning we treated ourselves to lunch at Harvey’s and enjoyed the view overlooking Settlement Creek, while we made new plans for our afternoon.

We decided we’d return to the mooring in Black Sound where we could relax, use the free wifi and decide what our new plans are going to be. That sounded like an easy plan…we only had to move the boat about 1/2 a mile, but unlike before when our anchor wouldn’t hold, we were stuck. No matter what we did we couldn’t get it loose. We had to take the dinghy down and take a look at the anchor with our look bucket. It was stuck on some sort of metal structure, so I had to dive down and tie another line to the roll bar. Once we did that the boat pulled it loose. Ten minutes later we picked up the same mooring we left this morning…some days it doesn’t pay to leave the dock.

The Green Turtle Cay Community Health Clinic

The emergency room

Not the tightest stitches, but our "personal doctor" thinks it looks good and should be ok

The culprit that changed our plans. It's really not sharp, so Stan must have hit it hard for it to jam into his foot.

Our view for lunch...we could also see The Pearl anchored in the harbor

Looking back at Harvey's from their picnic tables on the water.