Thursday 4th July 2019 – Port Headland to Broome

We arrived in Broome around 7am and found ourselves a suitable place to anchor amongst all the other cruising yachts at Gantheaume Point.

Right away we got the boat ship shape, I turned on the water maker and then we went straight to the doctors as I had contracted a serious flesh-eating infection or blood poisoning.

A couple of days before we got to Dampier, I started to get bad infections. Any small scratch or skinned knuckle would immediately become infected. During the bad gale, I suffered a cut to my right thumb and over night it had turned black and was getting worse by the day.

I had a similar infection on the left hand and they were extremely painful and by now I was having difficulty sailing and sleeping and needed antibiotics fast as I was in a bad way.

Luckily the Balinese community helped to get me an immediate appointment at the doctors and a car and driver waiting at the beach. At the doctors, swab tests were taken and I was given antibiotics and my wounds were cleaned out. The doctor was shocked by the severity of my right thumb and I think I had made it just in time or I could have easily lost my thumb or even worse.

After the doctor, our new Balinese friend lent us his car and we went to the laundry matt and did some shopping and bought some fuel. I needed to buy a new tube and tyre for my dingy wheel as one of them got damaged dragging the dingy up the beach with a flat tyre. I tired a few places but no one had the size we needed.

It was a big day and by late afternoon we were ready to go back to the boat but Dewa who owns the car was too busy at work to take us back, so we just had to wait. By the time he could drop us back it was dark and the tide had gone out about a kilometre, so we had to drag the dingy all the way back to the water behind his car in the dark.

It was a major exercise but eventually we got the dingy back in the water and floating and we were very grateful for all the help Dewa had given us today considering we had only just met him. If you are ever in Broome, go and have a meal in Dewa’s restaurant “DMK – The Kitchen” as you won’t be disappointed.

I slept well knowing the antibiotics were doing their job and I was on the way to recovery.

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