So, last week I was told "Stay off your leg"

Right.

Try telling that to a sailor.And besides, the Vicodin was making me feel invincible anyway....

Last weekend my friend Joe came down to talk some business, and while he was here we went to visit Jimmy and Kay aboard Bueno Bye.

Kay, Joe and I had many years ago traveled extensively in Mexico when we were undergrads, but Joe hadn't seen them in many years....

I didn't let on, just told him that I had some friends who I wanted him to meet, I told him they were pretty nices folks.

When we got over to Bueno Bye and I hailed Jimmy and Kay, the look on Joes face was priceless. He and Kay visited below, and Jimmy and I sat in the cockpit drinking coffee, catching up on things....

"Hey...you wanna crew that offshore race?" Jimmy asked

I had decided earlier in the week, after I was told that I had a hairline fracture in the tibia that no, I really didn't feel like getting beaten up for 24 hours in seas that had been 7-9 feet all week.

"That Cape Dory alongside is shorthanded".

"Nahhh, doesn't sound too interesting" I quipped and went back to my coffee and  nautical lies.

We watched as they finished provisioning, the woman coming over and borrowing a coffeepot from Bueno Bye so that they could "boil water"....

Pretty ambitious I thought. Ever hear of thermoses?

Anyway, a little while later the Cape Dory fired up, and the skipper asked Jimmy if he could handle the dock lines. Since the wind was blowing about 25 knots I volunteered as well. I mean, it was only a few steps away......

Jimmy exited the boat and walked down the narrow dock (about 18" wide) over to the Cape Dory, and I followed right behind him.

Only when I did, my foot slipped on the slick boards, and WHAM! down I went on exactly the same leg, smashing exactly the same spot, at almost exactly the same time exactly two weeks later.....

Now I know what yer thinkin punk...did he fire six shots or only five? And no....I had not taken any Vicodin since earlier in the week. So don't blame it on that. The dock was polished. And slick....SLICK!

And to top it off, my perscription sunglasses popped off of my writhing-in-pain face, and I watched helplessly as they spiraled into the murky depth to the thankless mud below.

I made it to my feet, noticing a major strawberry on the aft part of my starboard thigh, and a nasty scrape/swelling beginning to show up on the port leg.

Feigning a causual air despite grindiing pain, we got the Cape Dory untied, and visited a bit more before Joe had to leave. I stood like a crane on one leg trying to look unconcerned.

Joe gave me a ride over to 'Div and I waited for D to show up. When she did,  I took a well deserved earfull from her as she immediately sent the twins upstairs at Anchor to get a bag of ice from Jean. I iced the leg for about an hour in the V-berth before hobbling to my feet again. By now the leg had developed a personality of its own, swelling hugely.

In the afternoon we went to the post office on SPI where we ran into Jerry Schere, a retired doctor. He took one look at the leg and decreed that I should go to the emergency room and have it x-rayed again, to determine if the fracture had gotten worse.

Off we went to the new Harlingen Medical Center, where they took a whole new set of photos, and I waited till about 2100 before the ER doctor came in and said:

"Well....I can't find any evidence of further bone damage"...."But.....we want you to continue staying off of it".

Duh.

"We'll give you something for the pain". "Do you want a shot or a pill?"

A shot....a shot, by all means a shot.

So I got a tail full of morphine, another perscription for Vicodin and the admonition to "stay off of my feet".

Once out of the hospital and in the parking lot, the phone rang and it was Jeff, owner of Jupiter. Besides being a teacher over at UTB, he's also an emergency room respiratory therapist.

"Hey" he said. "Don't you know there's a lot easier ways to get morphine?"

I probably shouldn't be allowed around any type of boat right now, but yesterday afternoon, I ran Olivia's engine, cleaned a few things in the house and spent some quality hours aboard.

And I was real careful when I stepped back off, onto the dock.