Captain's Log: Distal Digital Deliberations

Tied up in Washington, NC with my purple friend

This is just a short entry to thank everyone who has shown such compassion and concern for us in recent weeks. For those who don't follow our travels on Facebook, I suffered a freak accident on Sunday, April 26. During a docking in Morehead City, NC, the distal tip of my right middle finger was rather violently removed by a rapidly accelerating pilothouse door due to a poor design decision that I have since cured in a fit of pique. I managed to finish bringing the boat alongside the dock and find my missing appendage before passing out, and Stacey did well to keep her wits about her and get the boat safely tied up while marina staff attended to me. I was then brought to a nearby emergency room where the tip of the finger was stitched back on.

This injury was just the last half inch or so of the finger, but it did involve a tuft fracture—the very tip of the finger bone. The last seven weeks have been a lesson in human anatomy that I wish I didn't need. The fingertip is growing back. It will likely be ever so slightly shorter than it was, and its appearance will almost certainly not be the same afterward. All of the re-attached tissue has turned into a natural bandage that will ultimately slough off after the healing is complete, and I'm assured that what is happening under that zombie flesh is nothing short of miraculous. Here's hoping, because even seven weeks on, it still looks a bit like something out of a horror flick to this finger owner. Mind you, while it may lack the ultimate length of its former self by a millimeter or three, I'm assured that I will adjust to it in due course and will be back using it as I did before. Here's hoping they're right.

Tuft fracture on display

We left Morehead City after two nights and made the two-day trip to Washington, NC, where we have been since. This gave me access to medical follow-up with a local hand surgeon and gave us a place to slow our roll for a couple of months to let the finger heal. Being down a major digit on a dominant hand is more than an inconvenience on a boat. If something breaks and I can't fix it because my hand can't do the work, we have a big problem, so sitting still here has been the right decision. We shall remain here another couple of weeks before dropping lines, but I do find myself being more and more capable.

We did have visitors a few weeks ago. Sean and Louise of MY Vector joined us for a few days, and Sean helped me deal with a bad diesel vent line and also helped me commission/purge a fuel line (the tank has been out of service for decades, so I wanted contamination cleared directly rather than relying on filters downstream), neither of which I could've done at the time. The vent line turned into another job that I have subsequently done—the vent fitting on the top of the tank needed its threads re-sealed. 

Since then, I had to carefully remove all the insulation from the outside of the tank in the area because it had slowly been saturated with diesel fuel. Not a lot, but enough to really stink up our stateroom. It had to go. I have a package of new insulation board ready to go back on soon.

I am typing—nine-finger style—which is to say, I have adjusted, and the pain has subsided enough to allow that. It's taken me seven weeks to get up the energy to type this. I don't want to type a lot, and this installment's length will likely bear that out, but at least the fingers can do some work.

I'm starting to take on some wiring on the boat that needed doing. High on the list is replacing the windlass solenoid so we can raise the anchor. I started that job yesterday, and I'm now waiting for parts to finish it. I'm also working on the boat's electronics. I have put in a helm computer and will soon be adding a satellite compass and new radar unit.

Needless to say, I'm moving slow, but I'm moving, and I'm finally past the point that I need to sit still to avoid bonking my hand. It is fairly resilient at this point, just not very capable, which logically leads me to end this chapter here, counting my blessings and my fingers.