3 Jan 2013
Sailing from North America to the South Pacific involves some long distances without seeing land. While the longest distance and duration will be as we travel to the Marquesas Islands in 22 to 30 days, there will be other crossings that will last from a couple of days to a week.
While one cannot foresee every single necessity, we have spent time learning a variety of skills that may come in handy or that may at one time save our lives. As the father and captain of our ship I think sometimes that I see so many more things that we can learn but I have to remind myself that there are many sailors that never leave on their dream voyage because they never feel fully prepared. My wife reminds me a sailor she met in Mexico twenty years ago that had been there for years, preparing for their big voyage yet never with enough courage to leave the safety of the harbour. There is an old quote by William G.T. Shedd that says, “Ships are safe in harbour, but that’s not what ships are for.” With us we have set a basic time-line on when we want to be ready by and then plan to set sail. Between the 9 of us I certainly hope we can figure it all out.
This week with the help of my brother-in-law who is a doctor we learned the art of stitching up wounds. It was quite an interesting experience as we gathered a few cousins and the 5 boys in my family. I was instructed to bring some pig’s feet which I found at a butcher shop for our lesson on suturing cuts and other wounds. In the process of an hour we learned (without the blood component) how one would stitch up a cut in a pig’s foot. Apparently although the skin is a bit tougher than human skin, it is about the closest one can get to the real thing.
Our class started out with quite a crowd of spectators ready to learn the intricacies of numbing the area with a needle and freezing just under the skin. Eli, my 9 year old was just as interested as my 16 year old Jaeden. Orin on the other hand was a little disgusted and apprehensive with the entire process and was quick to advise me that if anyone gets a cut or gash, that he did not want to be the one to stitch them up.
We first had to make an incision in the pig’s foot about 2 inches long. With that the demonstration of pushing the needle in the one half of the cut and lining it up with marks in the skin on the other half began. It was quite interesting to note that each stitch is best done one side at a time, brought up through the middle of the cut and then reinserted on the other half with the needle. The pig’s skin was rather tough and did cause some of the needles to bend as everyone took their turn in front of the pig. Some of the kids practiced on gauze doing the surgeon’s stitch while others worked on each of the two pig’s feet. The younger kids lost interest after the initial demonstration and left quickly but they all had an opportunity one at a time to do their own stitching on the animal leg.
In the end I don’t think that any one of us will be stellar surgeons but we do have yet one more skill that we can use in case of a long out to sea emergency. Who knows, maybe we will even be able to use this skill one day when not out to sea. After all, most emergency preparation we are doing is a great skill to have weather in the middle of the Pacific Ocean or not.