'Bug Out' Weekend...

For awhile now I've been plotting 'disappearing for a weekend... And decided that it would be this weekend... After much satellite imagery perusal I picked a spot and organised to be dropped off...

Of course, as it would be, this weekend was one of the wettest and coldest I have experienced in a very, very long time... Especially considering this is the East Coast of South Africa...

We arrived in the dark and waited patiently for the Sun to shed some light on our situation... A very rudimentary camp was established and it was fishing lines in the water... The sea was very generous and no sooner had we set our lines and the fish were coming in... Salmon, Grunter, Natal Stumpnose and stacks of Shad... We only kept what we could eat...

It's strange, but the day seemed short, between fishing, collecting wood, some reconnaissance and refining the camp for the wet night ahead, the time just flew... Darkness slowly crept closer and closer and suddenly you couldn't see your hand...

Between the intense cold and the constant rain, keeping ourselves and the wood dry and the fire going was a challenge to say the least... Of course, as it is, there is never enough wood and in the process of looking for more, while blundering in the dark I picked up a serious injury to my right leg, just below the bone, next to the joint on the outside of my knee...

While trying to break a branch, it snapped back and put 2 perfect holes into me... Approximately 1cm in circumference and about 8mm's deep... I think there were old knots on the tree where branches had been attached, hence, the 2 perfect holes in my ligament...

Right, so now I was in the middle of no where, cold, wet and injured... Time to STOP, collect myself and deal with the situation at hand...

After a short limp/hobble, I was back in camp digging around in my gear for my First Aid Kit, my sidekick was quick to respond calmly and relaxed... After a while I was able to stop the bleeding and ended up with 2 neat holes on the side of the area just below my knee right in the joint, one worse than the other with just some transparent liquid oozing from them, I needed stitches, just brilliant...

How was my knee joint going to feel in the morning? Would I be mobile? How was I going to walk the few kilometres back to the road? Would I be able to? How was I going to carry all my gear? For the first few hours I left the wounds open, every now and again just dabbing them with alcohol/antiseptic swabs. Eventually the holes were just sticky orifices with a clear visual into the white meat below... Time to dress the wounds, close them and get some 'shut-eye'...

By the time morning came I was rather surprised at the lack of pain, albeit really stiff... I genuinely expected this to be really, really sore... The rest of the day was relatively pleasant, with regular checks on the wound and a few more dressings, I slowly but surely became more and more mobile...

In the end I was successfully able to reach the extraction point later in the day with basically no issues, except for doing it rather slowly...

Right, so what did I learn?

Always plan for the worst weather conditions - Jackets, dry clothes, rain-coat, spare socks, beanie, etc.

Always plan for the worst injuries - Pack stitching equipment or at least butterfly plasters, make sure you have extra swabs and dressing plasters.

Always collect more wood - If you think you have enough collect more, if you think that's enough collect more.

Here's a few photos...

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'Bug Out' Weekend...