An Early End to the Season

I've been battling knee pain for the past month.  Initially it was a "pinched plica" (a membrane of sorts) and I tried the anti inflammatory, etc.  I found a brace or two that helped a bit (see photo in the previous post), but on a recent business trip, it got worse and worse as I walked around.

So once I returned, I went to get an MRI and then to the Orthopedic Doc and had it drained.  Upon reading the MRI he realized it was a "stress fracture of the upper tibia" (a sort of deep bone bruise, he said).  I didn't get a copy of the MRI, etc., but the photo below looks almost the same.

Photo Credit.  www.radiologyassistant.nl

On mine, there is no hairline crack in the X-ray (why it was diagnosed as the pinched plica) and the white area on the MRI is closer to the joint.  The basic facts are I have to baby it until a brace comes next week to unload the joint and then wear that for 3 to 6 months to give the bone a chance to heal.

There's no way to boat with a cane this weekend, and once I have the brace... well there's some bad family history where (before I was born) an uncle drowned when he fell in the water wearing a cast.  As I said relating to alcohol, I really don't want "stupid boater" listed as my cause of death, so given the fast approaching end of the season, it's time to have Seas The Day hauled.


It's a tad disappointing... we were hopeful for a few more days on the water (perhaps even a week-long break).  Vicky returns to China mid-month, so we're really only loosing a couple of weekends together (weather dependent of course), and maybe a weekend or two of solo sailing (if I had pushed it to the end of the season).  Still, we had 20 days on Seas The Day this season which was four more than last year (when I switched jobs and we moved).

I never did get to try out the new single-handing rig for the spinnaker... something for next year!

Full Moon Friday

We decided to take a Friday off and go sailing.  This is the mid-Autumn festival (a Chinese national holiday), and with the full moon, it seemed a great time to go.  So mid-morning, we headed up the Turnpike and after lunch boarded Seas The Day.

The weather report had it nice with 10 knot winds, which was true for Keyport.  But halfway across the bay, they picked up to a steady 15 to 17... a bit high for my taste.  We had almost all the sail out, and since the bay had a fair bit of "roll" to it (a longer periodic wave), it was pleasant, but you needed to keep on your toes.

We made it across and back a few times, but had trouble pointing into the East wind.  

When we had enough, we pulled in the sails and then motored around to charge the battery.  Eventually heading back into Keyport.

As we made our way up the Keyport channel, the birds were out in full force.  I was able to capture a small number of them as we passed their current feeding area.

We decided to rest a bit and wait for sunset.  It proved to be a good decision, despite the lack of clouds, the sunset (and corresponding moonrise on this full-moon night), was nice.

(A side note... after nine months of trying to sell, we just ended up renting our condo, center below.)

After the moon rose, we called for the launch and I tried to capture some moonlight over Keyport photos.

Thank God for leaf shutters!  These were hand held on a moving boat!