August 2009 Archive

All hands on deck! All hands on deck!: an antimalarial dream

Friday, August 21st, 2009

 

 

ALL HANDS ON DECK! ALL HANDS ON DECK! Skipper Eero says we have to raise the main because the keel is going to fall off! These antimalarial dreams nearly had me in my sea boots at 0300.

• After my  Part B training, I took a side trip to Nairobi to  visit friends. It was a wonderful trip, but the side effects from the antimalarials were nutty. I kept waking up at night by the window, reaching for a halyard that wasn’t there or trying to put my kit on in a sleep walking state.  I couldn’t stop dreaming about sailing. It was all I did - other than seemingly trying to act it all out!One night, I dreamt that skipper Eero (from Part B) was shouting “All hands on deck! all hands on deck! The keel is falling off so we need to raise the main!”
• OK so that doesn’t make sense, but I jumped to action, leaping out of bed with my eyes wide open.  I need to get on deck!  My voice but not my voice: Oh but wait, Bagley, you are at home, in your own bed, enough with these crazy dreams”  My voice: “No! no one is going, I must go help Eero.  The keel is falling off, didn’t you hear?” My voice but not my voice:”You are in your own bed, go back to sleep, you have to get up in a few hours. How the hell are you going to get to the boat from here?”  Eero’s voice: “if you just put your sea boots on, you will be transported to the deck and can fix the problem.”  I literally stewed about this for 20 minutes or so, half getting out of bed to put on my sea boots- which were in sight of the bed.
•  I finally fell back asleep only to be awaked by Eero again “Please pick up the raisins (we all know how wrong that is as he would have said  sultanas) off the cabin sole  and secure them in tupperware so that we don’t capsize”.  Of course, I was nearly to the kitchen to complete the task at hand before I realise I was not back on the boat yet!
• I took those dreaded malarial pills for as long as I could stand it.
• My vision quest dreams turned into sleep depriving labyrinths. I ended them a week early and Bob finally took all of the guns and big knives out of hiding.  BTW,  if you have to take antimalarials, don’t even bother reading about the side effects - they are pretty scary compared to actually contracting malaria.  

 

SUPER DAVE NGUYEN: My newest and most generous sponsor!

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Wow! What a surprise! This morning, I was at the end of what I thought was my last early morning training session with Super Dave at 24Hour Fitness.  I was wondering how I was going to stay motivated through the end of August and rid myself of the return of my beer gut (blame it on discovering that not drinking for 2 months before training was not really helpful during Parts A and B, splurging at Crew Allocation, and a back injury).  And Super Dave tells me he wants to sponsor me to the Race start - that he would keep training me at his expense.  I couldn’t believe it and I wanted to cry — but you just don’t cry at the gym.  Talk about generous and talk about motivation!  I have no excuses now!!!!  Thanks Super Dave!