Boat Trip --- The First 5 Days

2012 Summer Boat Trip

June 3rd - June 8th

If you've been following my blogs you know I like to keep things as up to date as possible.  However, we started our boat trip in a very scary way which required a bit of discretion prior to making news of the incident public.  I did confirm with Barbara that sharing the story to possibly prevent others from the same fate was a good idea.  So, with that in mind, here goes:

7 AM Sunday morning came quickly.  Katie and I, along with a group of friends, were at the Kenny Chesney concert in Tampa Saturday night.  We got home a LOT later than expected, about 2 AM.  I shut the alarm off and dragged my tired butt in to the shower.  An hour later we were out the door and on our way to get the kids.  We picked the kids up and arrived at the airport at 8:30 AM, departure time.

The flight over to Grand Bahama was uneventful.  We cleared customs and hopped in a taxi for the short ride to the marina.  Our driver was kind and courteous but he darn near knocked me on the ground when he asked for $50 for the ride over.  This is definitely pirate nation.  The van he drove us over in was hardly worth $50.  Anyway, I paid him is fee and were officially on vacation.

We all boarded the boat, said Hi to the crew and unpacked our items.  We decided it would be a great idea to take the dingy and jet skies out for an exploring trip around the island.  We change in to our suits and headed out.  We spent a few hours going through canals that wind their way around and across Grand Bahama.  After that we headed out to the ocean and found a shallow area to do some swimming.  About three hours in to our trip it was time to head back to the mother ship and get something to eat.

Disaster Strikes

On the way back to the boat, I was driving the dingy with Katie and all the kids,,, Todd was on one jet ski and Barbara was on the other.  I've owned and/or been around jet skies my entire life. I've seen experts ride them and I've seen people who should just stick to laying on the beach ride them.  Barbara is an expert.  The whole day she was in complete control, using forward, neutral and reverse to maneuver the jet ski, dock it, tie up along the boat, etc.  She is as good a jet skier as I've seen.

As we were coming in from the ocean to the inlet we rounded the outer-maker and turned right, in to the channel.  I was first with Todd and Barbara just behind me.  I heard a loud "bang" but didn't think much of it.  A boat that was coming towards me started waving their hands wildly to get my attention.  I quickly slowed down and they said "one of your jet skies just had an accident."  The instant I turned around I knew we were in trouble,,, I knew what the "bang" was.

I looked back and saw the jet ski up on the rock jetties and Barbara laying in the water.  I saw Todd dive off his jet ski and swim to Barbara's side.  My first reaction was to call for help.  I didn't know what we were dealing with but I knew it was bad.  I went to the boat that had slowed me down and found out they were already on the phone with emergency services (lesson 1: know what the number for EMS is,,, it's different in each country).  After that I slowly boated back to Todd and tried to assess the situation from the dingy.  At that point John (her son) jumped in to the water.  John was visibly and verbally upset but I knew it didn't help to have more people, especially kids, in the water.  I quickly instructed John to get back on the boat and we pulled him.

Katie was confident she could handle the dingy (she had been driving it like an expert all day) so I gave her the controls and I jumped in to help Todd with Barbara.  I don't think it's appropriate to describe the detail I saw but it was bad enough that Todd couldn't look at it.  If it were Katie or the kids, I wouldn't have been able to either.  I instructed Todd on how to hold his hands to best keep things together while I figured out what to do next.  At that point (or just before that point) an angel fell from the sky.  A Bahamian man ran down the rock jetties to help us out.  He was a strong black man wearing nothing but boxers.  He ran across the rocks barefoot.  I couldn't believe it, watching him was amazing.  The rocks were volcanic looking,,, extremely sharp and ragged.  It turns out this man runs the rocks daily and has the feet to do it.

He and I agreed it would be best to get Barbara to the sand about 30 yards away.  He picked her up and walked her over to the sandy shallow water.  Our goal was to stop the bleeding and keep Barbara conscience while we waited for help.  About 15 minutes in to the ordeal we heard the sirens but the EMS was on the other side of the canal.  It took them about another 10 minutes to commandeer a boat and get to us.  The EMT along with two police officers took off their boots and jumped in the water to get Barbara secured on a board with her neck immobilized.  We lifted her up and put her on the boat and off they went.  Todd rode with Barbara to the hospital while Katie and I returned to the boat with the dingy, the working jet ski and the kids.

During the wait Barbara kept saying she felt fishing line across her face and she had the cut lip to prove it.  A Bahamian on a jet ski came up to us and we explained she felt a fishing line across her face.  He explained that kids climb the marker all the time, tie fishing line to it and then come back later to check for fish.  He jet skied out to the poll, looked around and then came back with a big bunch of fishing line with meat still on the hook.  It turns out that Barbara got caught by the line and as she was being pulled off the ski she grabbed the throttle, lost control and went straight up on the rocks.  The pictures look bad but it's actually worse because at the time the tide was another 1.5 feet lower.  (Lesson 2: Don't jet ski or boat fast around anything that could hold fishing line, including under bridges.)

Back at the ship I instructed Katie and Jessica to get the kids' minds on to something else while the rest of the crew came with me on the dingy to get the jet ski off the rocks.  It took about 10 minutes to get to the inlet where the jet ski was.  We beached the dingy outside of the jetty and walked up on the rocks and made our way out to the jet ski.  The police showed up just after we got there and instructed us not to touch anything until the police photographer got there.  We waited about an hour for them to get there and finish taking pictures before we "heaved" and "hoed" the jet ski off the rocks.  Surprisingly there wasn't a ton of damage and Bubby, our first mate, rode the jet ski back to the boat.

Back at the boat Katie and I got ourselves ready to go visit the hospital to see how Barbara was doing.  We decided it would be best to take John with us.  Katie also came up with the great idea to bring them dry clothes.  We took a taxi to the hospital and waited just a few minutes before Todd got the message we were there.  He quickly came out to see us.  He was wearing his bathing suit and some see-thru hospital shirt.  He was in good spirits and happy to have a dry shirt to put on.  He explained that Barbara was being prepped for stitches but that she was doing great.  They had already had a CT scan with good results,,,, no internal bleeding.  We waited around the hospital about an hour and half so that John could see his Mom but it never ended up happening.  The hospital, although nice on the outside, is like an old school army hospital with only one room for everyone.  It turned out there was a man in the same room who wasn't going to make it so they weren't letting any guests in the room,,,, even Todd.

Katie and I decided to head back to the boat with John so that Todd could be Barbara (none of us knew that he wouldn't be allowed back in).  Later that evening I was up working when Todd came back, about 11:30 PM.  He explained that he had waited outside the room, standing up, but was told to leave around 11.

The next day Todd was off the boat early and back at the hospital.  Katie and I chartered a local fishing boat to take the kids fishing.  We had a fun day on the water catching tiny snappers.  When we got back we were happy to hear that Barbara was back on the boat.  A few minutes later she appeared and she was looking great.  Most of her wounds around her body were light in nature and only took a few bandages.  Her leg is banged up and well covered but there were no broken bones.  She took a bunch of stitches to her head but the second CT scan confirmed there was no internal bleeding.  We're still not sure if the fishing line cut her head or if she hit it on the rocks but either way she is all back together.

The next day Barbara had a few doctor appointments so we took the kids out fishing again, this time on the dingy.  Katie caught a 20" snapper but I failed at landing it in the boat.  After three hits with the gaff the fish got away.  Next, John was reeling up something big.  About half way up the fight got a lot easier. He ended up pulling up half of what was probably a 22" grunt.  A few minutes later we saw the 4-6 foot shark that enjoyed 1/2 of John's fish.

Back at the boat Barbara had the "all clear" so we packed up and pulled out that night (Tuesday night) for the West End.  We arrived three hours later and secured ourselves for the night.  We were trying to get tonTreasure Cay but we had to stay on Grand Bahama because we found a guy who was able to repair the jet ski enough so that we could safely keep it on the boat.  The next day we spent some time snorkeling off the beach and hanging around the island.  At one point Todd and I did a little unplanned drift dive that ended with him walking back on the rocks and me swimming my tail off back to the beach.  There isn't a whole lot going on at the "West End" (as it's called) so we were excited to leave.  At 4 PM (Wednesday night) the guy delivered the jet ski.  We loaded it up and headed off on the 15 hour trek to Treasure Cay.

We boated in to the evening.  It ended up being a very rough ride but everyone seemed to get some good sleep in.  We woke up just outside of Treasure Cay with only about 1.5 hours to go.  At Treasure Cay we did some exploring, ate lunch off the boat and then took the dingy over to Green Turtle for some more exploring.  We did some snorkeling at Whales Cay on the way back to the boat.

Back at the marina we hung out at the pool for a while.  The pool was freezing so we went back to the boat and jumped in the hot tub.  The marina has a "speciality" night every night.  This night (Thursday night) it was "pizza" so we had some pizzas delivered to the boat for the kids and us adults went to eat our pizza there.  We hung out for a couple hours but after the rough night on the boat we (at least Todd and I) were ready for some sleep.  The girls stayed up and talked while Todd and I passed out in their laps.  I'm told there are pictures of this but I haven't seen them yet.

Friday AM we had to wait for high-tide,,, about 9:30 AM, and we set out for Harbour Island.  We're excited to get there and show our guests around.  Harbour Island is one of our most favorite places to be.  Stay tuned,,,, I'll do better to keep everyone up to date.

Here is the link to the first batch of pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/113169248147362226921/20120603_BoatTripWeek1?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLjQh77-o5GtGQ&feat=directlink

Below is the email Katie sent our family shortly after the incident:

Friends & Family,

We arrived on the boat all very excited, myself, Jesse, Abby, Hailey,

& Todd, Barbara, and John Stainbrook. We got settled in and then took

the dingy and 2 jet skis out for some fun. We took turns driving the

different vessels but mostly it was Todd and John on one jet ski &

Barbara on the other (Jesse and Abby took a spin on one too while

Barbara rode in the dingy with my captioning skills.)

The bad news: We were heading back to Entrepreneur coming into an

inlet  making a turn around the post in the water... The dingy (with

all the kids) and Todd's ski were all together when we heard the

crash. Barbara got caught on a fishing line that was tied onto the

post, some kids had tied line to the post with bait and a weight (to

catch a fish) and the current took it out which is when she went

through it. She was sitting at the bottom of the rocks and the jet ski

was about 10 ft up on the rocks.  Jesse jumped out of the dingy and

Todd was already with Barbara. She got cut really bad on her head. It

took about 15 minutes for the boat ambulance to get there. The guys

moved her from the rocky area to a spot that was a bit smoother. She

was talking, moving her legs, arms, and even telling John (who was in

the boat with me) to stay in the boat, she was ok. Jesse was asking

her math problems and she was getting them all right. Todd had a tight

grip on her head because that's where the line had sliced her. Caught

on her lip and sliced behind her head. They tied my sarong (soaked in

salt water) around her wound. There was a lot of blood. And since I

was with all the kids I didn't want to ask any questions I didn't know

the answer too.

The kids and I went up and down the inlet waiting for the ambulance

while Jesse and Todd and a very helpful bohemian man tended to Barb.

The medics wrapped her up and put her very carefully on the stretcher

into the boat. Todd went with her and we all headed back to

entrepreneur. Jesse got the crew and the went back to the crash site,

the police were there taking pictures and statements from people that

were there at the time of the crash. I took the kids for a walk and

John bought his mom a beautiful candle in a half coconut.  I had John

take a shower so when Jesse returned we could go see his mom at the

hospital. Jess and I showered up and I grabbed clothes for both Todd &

Barbara. Abby and hailey stayed at the boat with Jessica. We arrived

at the hospital and waited about 10 mins before Todd came out and gave

us the good news. She was doing good. They (luckily) had a CT scan at

the hospital and she had no internal bleeding. John went back with

Todd but unfortunately wasn't able to see his mom b/c she was being

prepped for the stitches (and he had to be 14? He's 10.)  Todd was

grateful to put on a shirt and get out of the hospital gown. I was so

relived to see a smile on his face! He said Barb was giving the Dr's a

hard time b/c she wanted to hurry up and get back to the boat for a

margarita. :).

However, they kept her overnight with an iv for the pain and

observation. She was finished with her 39 stitches at about 10pm. They

didnt let Todd stay the night with her but he left early this morning

to go be with her. They want to do another CT scan today to make sure

there isnt any slow internal bleeding. She's going to be okay!!!!!!!!

Phew!

This was a VERY scary freak accident. We said many prayers yesterday

and have continued today. Please can you guys all pray for a fast

recovery, for her to be in the least amount of pain possible, pray for

the hands that are working on her, pray for John as he was a nervous

wreck (so was I) but doing much better, and thank God that it will

just be a scar. It could have been much worse.

I want to tell you all I love you so much. Accidents like this really

get your mind going. We are so blessed & grateful. She should be back

on the boat tonight. She wants to stay for the remainder of the trip

but we will see how she is today & after the scan to determine if they

will fly home.

Keep strong in Faith. Jesse and I both have our email working. We are

in Grand Bahama right now, we are at the least, staying another night.

Please don't share this story just yet, I don't know who Todd has

communicated with and I don't want to get people freaked out.

We love you all,

Katie

Katie Biter