The Years

April 29, 2010.  Royal Hobart Hospital. 

April 29, 2011. Half Moon Bay, California.

April 29, 2012.  Hobart, Tasmania.

April 29, 2013.  Hicks Bay, New Zealand.

April 29, 2014. Urquharts Bay, New Zealand.

 Yes, that is a sword cake above, and below.  Alisa solicits requests for birthday cake themes.  And swords are very much on the collective boyhood mind of Galactic.

Hiatus

Just a quick note to say that, yes, Alisa did (does) have shingles, centered around her eye.  She has been a total trouper - BUT! it has been a bit of a slog.

We had just left the fleshpots of Whangarei behind when the disease declared itself, and so were inconveniently far from medical care.  As we tried to figure out the logistics on the Saturday afternoon of a holiday weekend when it first became apparent that she would need to see a doc, I got the feeling that I've had before when we've had medical issues on board - your cozy little anchorage in a country where you don't know the system and don't know many people can suddenly seem a bit lonely.

Luckily, Alvah and Diana Simon, whom we knew hardly at all, came through like the lifelong travelers that they are.  Their house is just over the hill from the spot where we were anchored, and they lent us a car four times for doctor and pharmacy runs.  "We're in this with you," Alvah said to me.

It turns out that shingles around the eye can be tricky, so we got in family visits to the after-hours clinic in Whangarei, the community clinic at Parua Bay, and the emergency department at Whangarei Hospital.  Yesterday we got finally moved back up the river, and Alisa dinghied into Whangarei for one final GP visit, which gave her and the eye the all-clear.

 Today is the last day that we'll ever have a three-year-old in the family.

Needless to say, everything else on board Galactic has come to a halt - all of our frantic prep for the two big-as passages that will, inshallah, get us from New Zealand to Chile, dropped in the face of a more urgent need.

We'll move back down to Urquharts Bay, at the mouth of the river and near the Simons' house, for Eric's birthday tomorrow.  And after that, we'll see if Alisa is ready to catch the next southerly wind up to Opua, where we plan to check out of the country.

Urquharts Bay might be far from the doctor, but it was a very easy 

place to entertain the boys ashore while Alisa was ill...

Fair Wind / Spanner In The Works

The lifting bridge at Whangarei closing behind us for the last time. 

Now that we're out of the great vortex of Whangarei, the game is all about building momentum.  We must attain that elevated state when motion is as unconscious as breathing, when another hundred miles under the keel, or another thousand, is all the same to us.

We aim to head north.  So my attention was caught by the forecast for a southerly wind today and tomorrow, to be followed by a week of light or contrary winds.

Clearly the thing to do was to kick the boat into sailing shape today, and to sail north tomorrow, when the winds were favorable.

But, then, a twist - Alisa went down.

I'll spare you the list of symptoms.  But the Iron Lady of Brecksville, the Indomitable Will that All Our Hopes and Dreams Rest On, spent the day in bed.

I spent the day walking ashore with the boys (very pleasurable) or being short-tempered with them while they were fishing and I was trying to get the deck organized (less so).

The boat remained un-kicked.

Late today we borrowed a car from Alvah and Di Simon (Alvah wrote North to the Night, which you really owe it to yourself to read) and drove A. into the clinic in Whangarei.

The doctor she saw conceded that she might be having a reaction to the cleaning agent she spilled on her face while scrubbing the overhead the other day - and this possibility was enough to get her complaint categorized as an accident, which in this country means the treatment is 100% on the house.  Love it.

But he also suggested the possibility of shingles.  (Will Alisa, now sleeping soundly beside me, mind that I am being crass enough to "blog" about her possible diagnosis?  Morning will tell.)

So we'll stay non-mobile until she is feeling better.  The poor thing had a pretty rotten day of it.

More soon.

~~~

Dyeing easter eggs.  Now that's childish enthusiasm.

Alvah helping Eric throw a dart.

A family "mountain climb" before Alisa went down.  Eric rode up the mountain on my back.