It's a strange phenomenon to depend on somebody else to recount your life to you, to borrow memory. Or rather, to have somebody tell you without even asking them. That's about how it happened to me back in March when I had folks filling me in on the events of the previous two weeks of my life. Which, outside of being born, turned out to be the two most epic and precarious weeks of my existence on this earth.....more on that later.
Let me back up, while I can, and tell you how I got to that point. For years I have loved to sail. I'll tell the story of how I started sailing later, but for now I'll just say that the wind and the water, experienced from a sailing vessel has a grip on my soul that just wont let go.
Mix that with the grip of being a therapist, experiencing first hand the stories, drama, tragedy, and wonder of "the other" and I have a recipie for the events of this year. A couple years ago my dear friend Doug Shirley and I decided to combine our interests in experiential, relationally based counseling weekends and offer mens sailing weekends on Augusta, Dan Blanchard's beautiful 4o' yacht. The wild success of these weekends led me to start dreaming about getting a boat of my own (something I've always wanted anyway) to offer these experiences to people.
In November of 2004 Dan tipped me off to an opportuinty to acquire a 55' beauty (Tin Tin) for the cost of trucking it up to Seattle. We flew down to San Diego in December to have a look at this delapitated beauty. It turned out that she wasn't really delapitated, just taken apart and needing to be put back together. Having Dan, who's been around boats forever and could forget more than I'll ever know about boats, to look at her was so important. Needless to say, when I looked at it, I said, "I wouldn't have the slightest idea where to begin".
Well, after perhaps one of the most tumultuous decision making processes of my life, I decided to go for it and follow the dream. To get this boat and restore her back to her glory so I could take people out and provide potentially live changing experiences was the dream.
On February 18th of 2005, the boat showed up after a 4 day journey up the coast. She stood about 15' on the trailer so the route the trucking company had to take was rather circuitous and required pilot cars the whole way. Dan, Clinton and I went to meet her in Everett and share the excitement of Tin Tin's arrival and the begining of the project.
February 19th, 2005 - a date that will never be forgotten for many. Clinton, Eric and I met to build a rain cover for the boat to keep her dry during the winter. Luckily, it was a beautiful day so we could get lots done. After a trip to Lowes and lunch at a little Mexican restaurant, we climbed up on the boat to get to work. This is where my memory stops and doesn't start until around March 4th.
While inspecting the deck on the port side near the bow, I apparently bent down and began to yank on a stanchion that had been bent down for delivery. I must have been pulling quite hard because the steel broke (it was weakened by the crimp from bending it) and I launched forward, which was outboard, over the side. With an "oh shit!!!" I fell 16' down to the hard gravel yard on to my head. The detailed account of the month I spent in the hospital can be found at www.fogblog.net .
The summary is that I was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center where they performed an emergency Crainiectomy to remove nearly half of the right side of my skull to allow for my injured brain to swell without killing me and to minimize the permanent brain damage - usually a forgone conclusion in cases like this.
My skull was stored in a freezer for three months while I recovered and I got put back together on May 2oth. Now I have my head back together and am as close to 100% as I can tell. Needless to say the recovery has been nothing short of a miracle. see the above mentioned blog to read more....
So here I am, alive and well and working on the boat that nearly cost me my life to restore her and my dream to glory. This blog is dedicated to chronicling that journey.
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