Ciguatera. Recovering from the Illness

Ciguatera. Recovering from the illness. Hi, guys. We’re alive. Though it’s hard to call this a full life just yet, but today I can finally write. This is about ciguatera, day six. For the beginning, see the previous two posts. It’s quite hard to hold my hands over the keyboard. As is maintaining a semi-upright position at the table. So Andryukha and I are spending day six mostly horizontal, especially me. Because I turned out to be greedier when it came to that poisoned fish and gobbled up more than he did. Basically, I saved the captain. You could say I spared no stomach. Cramps, numbness, itching and aches throughout the body continue to remind us that the body exists. But there’s no point complaining—it’s all fine now. We still can’t set off for the Tuamotu Archipelago, and of course we’re losing precious time. But at least we’ll be wiser from now on. You must never let your guard down. Not when it comes to belongings that might walk off because of your carelessness. Nor when it comes to food. It’s one thing to come down with some kind of dengue fever (God forbid, of course—it’s no fun either). But at least then the infection isn’t directly up to you: a mosquito bites you, and there you have it. No one to blame. But here, first you have to catch the fish, then cook it, and only then eat it. At least two or three hours to think it over. The thought of ciguatera did occur to me when the captain deftly slapped his fins above the grey expanse of the sea. It gave a quiet, delicate little knock on my skull. But the gluttonous barbarian in my head said, “Aaaaaah.” And the thought crawled away. And just eight hours later, I crawled after it to spend the first night on deck—it was closer for calling Ichthyander, and from the bowsprit you can dangle any part of yourself over the sea. All right, once I’ve recovered, I’ll tell the whole story in vivid detail. For now, it’s the second day of our school year, and I’ve decided not to leave our young sailor’s studies to chance and to do some lessons with our inquisitive girl, or we’ll let things slip. Somehow, left to her own devices, she learned to read more and faster than many adults, add and subtract whole numbers up to a hundred in her head, and write legibly in cursive. Now we’re filling in the gaps, and quite successfully. For two whole days. The teacher—that is, me—reclines on the sofa, while the pupil sits beside her. After two days of zeal, we’re both a little tired. Tomorrow we’ve decided to shorten the lessons, or the girl will get far too clever. We’re not going ashore or swimming in the sea. The captain is almost back in shape, except that about three times a day he collapses from exhaustion when his vision goes dark with fatigue. I no longer have to psych myself up for five minutes before taking a drink, let alone getting up. And I consider that major progress )). So everything is fine, guys. Wishing you all good health.