Hopefully, Clumsiness Comes in Threes

Originally posted on November 13, 2014, by cruisingrunner

I’ve been especially clumsy lately, but hopefully my clumsiness can become your entertainment.

#1: It was wicked humid here for a few days. The kind of humid where all the surfaces of the interior of the boat seem to have a continual layer of dampness on them. It would rain off and on, so we had to keep playing the close the hatches/open the hatches game after each rainfall would come and go. And with the hatches closed it seemed the heat and humidity inside would get even that much more worse. I warned the boys more than once about how wet the floor was and that they needed to be careful going down the stairs. Yeah, unfortunately that was foreshadowing. One morning, before anyone else was up, the rain started abruptly and I rushed around the boat closing all the hatches. I stepped a little too quickly down the companionway to mine and Tim’s cabin and I took a rough tumble hard into the companionway door, breaking the plastic rollers that keep it on its track. Luckily the door was closed or my spill down the stairs could have been much more disastrous. It was a noisy affair and Tim was jolted awake by the clatter. Bless him though, he only started grumbling about us always breaking stuff for him to fix AFTER he made sure I was OK.

#2: On one of my runs about Nuku’alofa there was a very short stretch where I was running on the asphalt between a parking lot and the street, which were separated only by a shallow concrete gutter. A car started to make a turn from the road into a parking spot right in front of me (pedestrians most certainly do NOT have the right of way in Tonga, but that could be a blog post all its own…) So, I made a quick move to my left in order to run around the car as it turned. This quick move brought my left foot right onto the slope of the gutter, which was surprisingly smooth, and my foot went right out from under me. I hit the ground with a thud and a splash of water as my water bottle cushioned my hand from the impact. I laid there a bit stunned for probably not more than 5-10 seconds then I stood up slowly and was able to run on. I’ve got a bit of road rash on my left hip, but other than that I came through it unscathed. No, there was no concern displayed by the driver.

#3: Yesterday afternoon, Tim was out spear fishing, the boys were playing on shore, and I was waiting to get picked up by a friend to go to shore for the potluck. I grabbed my flip-flops out of the basket and carelessly tossed them onto the back deck. One of them tottered on the edge for a bit before rolling down the steps into the water. My initial reaction was to look around for one of my heroes, because protocol on board Exodus is that if something goes into the water, even if *I’m* the one who dropped it, I am *not* the one who has to retrieve it. But, oh crap, this time I’m on my own. The paddle board is already in the water, and the flip-flop is floating rather than sinking, so I figure I can just jump on the board and go retrieve it. But it was still fairly near the boat and if I just lean out and can reach it with my toe… and maybe if I lean out just a bit more… *SPLASH* I was already showered and dressed and now I was wet and salty. And yes, two glasses of rum may been part of the root cause of this one.

I really hope clumsiness comes in threes and only threes.

-D.