Anatomy of these Sea Legs

Let us start at the top and work our way down.

It is actually for your benefit that the upper bits of my thighs are not shown in this picture. You would most likely be blinded by the pasty whiteness and not be able to read the rest of this post.

I roll up my shorts occasionally when I’m in the cockpit for long stretches but usually the pastiness is well hidden. No bikini uniform for me.

The mid-portion of my thigh is what we used to call in middle school “Ashy” The skin is dry and scaly. On the passage down I burnt myself royally after a winter devoid of exposure and so this tough old layer of skin is actually new old skin. But it too is being burnt to a crispy reddish brown with freckles dotting its reptilian surface.

So why don’t I use lotion you ask? Well, if you must know I was told that I stink. I was told that the lotion I was wearing was truly dreadful and that I needed to jump in the water and wash it off. Now.

Harumph. I never.

Since this was the owner speaking, I was in a quandary. Obviously in any other circumstance I would most likely try to mitigate my “What the f did you just say to me?” look and tell the person that it is so very unfortunate that their sniffer doesn’t appreciate my coconutty lotion but its scent would wear off after awhile. In this case I was facing the perhaps most direct insult about my olfactory and/or hygienic choices but well, it is her boat. I said I’d take care of it as she held her nose with a gauzy coverup and frowned. Now, any other time someone tells me to jump in the water for a little swim I am nearly always game. I love the water. Floating, splashing, gliding far below the surface- I feel at peace. But she told me to. Because she said I stink. I have that reaction that every employed person has at some point in their career and want to do anything but what she is telling me I must do. Rebellion. Or kind of because it is a small (ish) boat and there are still two weeks to go. I simply go into the head and scrub the offensive scent off with another lightly scented soap hoping that remedy wont become another problem. It doesn’t. But short story long now I am lotionless. So I am scaly. I’m ok with it because appearance wise, it gets worse.

Down to my knee. Scars and stubble. I’m not sure where the bright pink scar on my left knee cap is from. Probably running into something on deck or jumping onto a dock onshore. I have so many scabs and oozing-on-the-verge-of-infected wounds that it is hard to remember the sources.

Except for the beef jerky-ish striated one on my right shin. That has a story. The owners went off the boat to stay in the interior of Dominica (a place that I will not see on this trip. I am usually restricted to the peripheries as I neither have the time nor permissio to go further afield.) But I do have the dinghy for the afternoon and I am off to town to look for ripe papaya and pineapple and just to look around. Roseau is a cruise ship port of call and there are tons of pasty overfed tourists with floppy hats and Hawaiian shirts milling around the docks. It is also one of my favorite towns in the Caribbean, tourists aside. I motor up to a dock and am immediately cognizant of the amount of surge flinging the dinghys around in the L shaped basin but even more alarmingly, underneath the dock. Now in tying up a dinghy the last thing you want to happen god forbid and knock on wood, is for the dinghy to end up under the dock. All sorts of mayhem can ensue: popping the tubes on a rusty bolt or jagged plank, thrashing the outboard against pilings, getting the dinghy stuck under the dock itself when the tide rises or there is a surge, etc etc. not something you want to happen. So all this is on my mind as I am figuring out how to secure the dinghy when I go into town. I decide to tie it diagonally instead of putting out a stern anchor. So I tie up the painter to the cleat on the cement and wood dock which happens to be a good six feet above the water. There is another small platform only a foot off the water with a ladder to the cement dock, but I am young and agile (and tan and have cool sunglasses. I am a haughty boater dammit) and so therefore I am in no need of such things. Ha! The line is tied on and I am ready to pull myself up onto the dock but somehow my timing is a bit off with the swell bouncing the dinghy up and down and well, I almost eat shit. Literally, because that inner harbor water next to the cruise ship was nasty. I flail a little but luckily get a handhold on a plank and hoist myself onto the dock where a gaggle of French speaking (pasty white is pasty white no matter what language you speak) tourists are simply staring at me as if they’ve never seen a girl and an outboard engine. Or they realize that I almost just fell into the water and could have knocked myself out on the splintered metal- spiked pilings along the way. I clambered to safety nonetheless and tried to play it cool as I picked up my bag and ignored the sting of skin missing from my shin. I made it half way up the dock before I looked down to make sure I wasn’t gushing blood. Nope. Just an abrasion that would become a thick hairless scab.

Which brings us to the next point of interest.

My legs haven’t been shaved in about three weeks. In the Caribbean where one wears shorts and/or a bikini everyday that is a long time. Its not like I planned it this way. Just because I haven’t worn makeup in six weeks and soaping up in the shower isn’t an everyday ritual doesn’t mean I’ve gone totally granola and refuse to shave. It is just that I refuse to buy a 20 dollar razor. It’s my own fault: with all the choices we have these days I somehow have two completely different shaving “systems” and packed the wrong combination. And the disposable razors I have tried simply leave me with the same amount of leg hair but a gizzilion more cuts. So, fuck shaving.

Now we’re at my poor feet. I have multiple cuts and blood blisters from my flops. I otherwise love my way overpriced flops that I got in Key West- they float, they don’t get unwalkable in when they’re wet, they’re tough and slightly cushioned. They’ve lasted more than a year. But when I haven’t worn them in a while they give me nasty scar-inducing blisters. Maybe that’s because when I am onboard I am not wearing shoes so I’ve basically been barefoot for a month. Then a few days ago I took advantage of a morning without guests to take a three hour trek along the coastal road in Dominica. I started in Roseau and wandered through little villages with precariously nailed together wooden and tin houses. Music and religious sermons emanated from curtained doors, dogs pranced down the main road, chickens crowed and clucked in the long green grass scattered with discarded beer bottles and chip bags. I walked near the sea and then followed the road as it climbed into the forest on its way to Scotts Head on the southern tip of the island. By the time I returned to the boat I was parched (despite a stop at a place called Irie Safari for fresh guava juice) and highly blistered but invigorated physically and emotionally by my stroll. It’s amazing what a little time off the boat and to myself can do for flagging morale. The next day up in Portsmouth I was excited to do one of the local hikes I found in the cruisers guide. Forgetting my wounds I slipped those same flops into my bag. I walked for an hour or so up and up past vegetable gardens and banana and pineapple fields. Up through bright red mounds of dirt lining the gravelly road and down into a valley lush with palms and vines and a simple wooden planked shelter with a few ragged shirts hanging on a line. The rush of water over rocks and roots was audible in the bird-call inflected silence. I climbed down to the cascading falls and dipped my now bloody foot into the cool stream. I contemplated lowering myself into one of the shallow pools but instead splashed some water on my sweaty red face and started my trek back down to the beach. Whenever I could I took off my flops. But this hike is going to scar for sure.

Finally we get to the sole. In the anatomy book I am reading they site that calluses are made up of a keratin rich layer called stratum corneum also known as the horny layer. Boy are my feet horny! The hot teak deck is definitely a turn and my feet have become hornier by the day. OK, childish humor aside, I am pretty sure you could stick a pin in my heel and I wouldn’t feel it. Which comes in handy when you break a measuring glass in the galley after the galley has been on the diagonal for a four hour sail and everything in the lockers has shifted and comes tumbling out onto the floor when you reach the mooring. Then you can’t turn on the generator to power the vacuum because the owners don’t want it on during cocktails and you do your best to clean up the shards but well, one or two remnants are bound to escape the dustpan and wham- glass lodged in my heel. I find it as an annoying pressure as opposed to a stabbing pain and simply finagle the glass out of my horny layer.

So there it is. My legs from the pasty white to the horny layer.

Notice I said nothing about my incredible tan…