After bringing Billy Ruff’n from Puerto Rico to Jamestown, RI, we had some boat issues to deal with before the highly anticipated Corinthian Yacht Club/Cruising Club of America (CYC/CCA) summer cruise. Roel H. helped Andrew move the boat to New England Boatworks (NEB), while I brought my car over from Jamestown. We spent the next few weeks patiently and pleasantly hounding service providers to get work done. The engine issues on the trip up from PR turned out to be related to a crack on the fuel exhaust mixing elbow and dirty filters. NEB re-welded, cleaned, installed & re-wrapped the elbow and replaced filters. We re-provisioned our filter spares, delivered the MOM, life raft and fire extinguishers for inspection and returned the non-working auto pilot remote to Cay Electronics for testing.
On 7/16 we went to a Bacon Brothers concert at the Greenwich Odeum in East Greenwich, RI. It is an old theatre in a small historic town and a perfect venue for the enthusiastic crowd escaping quarantine through the upbeat vibe of original tunes. The band always delivers and this evening was no exception! The next night we kicked off the summer cruise with a fabulous party at Dick & Cathy’s new home in Newport. The following day, a dozen boats from the CYC and CCA headed off to Cuttyhunk, a bucolic island in Massachusetts, located between Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound. Billy Ruff’n picked up a mooring in the outer harbor as the rest of the crews arrived. For dinner that evening, we had a lavish lobster feast complete with clam chowder, oysters, shrimp, corn, potatoes and sausage.
Back on the boat after dinner, Andrew commented that he had a dry cough and a tickle in his throat and was going to bed. A few hours later when I went to bed, he reported that he couldn’t swallow and might need to go to the hospital. We called 911 which connected us to the New Bedford police dept. Upon providing our location (in a boat off Cuttyhunk island), they transferred us to the Cuttyhunk Fire Dept. The fireman on duty said that there was a doctor on the island that could look at Andrew but he didn’t have any tools or medications to treat him. We decided that we needed a consult to determine whether we should go to the hospital so we hopped in the dinghy and blindly putt-putted back to the docks in the middle of the night. The doctor and fireman met us on the dock and after a short examination, said we needed to go to the hospital. The fireman, who was also the oysterman who served us lobster that evening, was also the licensed captain that sped us across the bay (sitting on a cooler with the doctor holding on for dear life) to Padanaram and then in his car to St. Luke’s hospital in New Bedford. The doctor had checked us in before we arrived and Andrew was in the ER within an hour of leaving the dock.
The hospital doctors suspected a shell fish allergy or bacterial infection until Andrew mentioned one of his meds; Lisinopril. Independently, three different doctors, having heard that he was using this drug, shook their heads knowingly. Apparently, a ‘side effect’ of this drug is that it can randomly cause swelling of the throat that can close your airway!! If you know anyone using this blood pressure medicine, please make them aware of the risks and informed of the symptoms (dry cough, tickle and/or swelling in throat) of a reaction. The great news is that after a few days of intravenous steroids and antihistamines, Andrew is as good as new. Thank God!
Although we missed a few days of the cruise, we took the 9am ferry back to Cuttyhunk to get the boat and catch up with the gang in Hadley Harbor, an enchanting anchorage near Woods Hole. I finally got my stand-up paddle board out for a spin after a few months in the bag and a half dozen boats or so enjoyed a raft up in the outer harbor.
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