14/7/18 : Chagford, UK

Back in early March we visited Mustique, a beautiful and exclusive island in the Grenadines but renowned within the sailing community as being a very rolly anchorage. That was the case this year when a large swell surged into the bay rocking all the boats and making it difficult to go ashore, not that we let that stop us! Unfortunately when we returned to the dinghy tied up to the dock, the swell had forced it underneath the jetty and it was well and truly trapped. Not good at all. In his attempts to free it Paul pushed down with his feet, simultaneously pushing up against a cleat on the dock with his arms. Whilst doing this he heard/felt something in his shoulder give.

Over the months since his shoulder has gradually got worse to the point where he can't raise his arm above his head, reach round behind his back and is in quite a lot of discomfort, waking him up if he rolls onto it when he's sleeping. Something needed to be done so this week he finally got appointments to see an orthopaedic surgeon and also have an ultrasound scan to find out what the problem was. It was a big relief to discover that nothing was torn and so surgery wasn't necessary. Instead he had a steroid injection into the shoulder and was advised it would be another 6 months before it's back to full strength.

This has rather put our plans to join the OCC rally from Bonaire in mid-November up in the air but shouldn't impact the World ARC which doesn't depart St Lucia until mid-January. No final decision yet ... watch this space.