The Sting
Our usual routine is to go for a swim before and after
lunch. I swim as far as I feel like across the bay and back to where Ray, who
has swum a shorter distance is waiting for me. That routine had served us well
until one morning when I waded into the shallows of La Madera beach and felt
something puncture my heel. It was not painful so I considered just continuing
into the water. I knew something was not right and I was suspicious as to the
cause. I told Ray that I had better return to shore and find out what had
happened. I walked out of the water and back to one of our favourite beach
restaurants, Chinciquira. By that time the puncture had started to bleed and it
was somewhat painful. The staff of the restaurant got a dish of water to bathe
my foot and a first aid kit with rubbing alcohol to clean my foot. The bleeding
eventually stopped but my heel was becoming swollen and red. The pain I was
experiencing was certainly manageable, more like a severe bee sting. Ray brought
me some Benadryl and others at the restaurant suggested ice to bring down the
swelling. I just sat back and relaxed and let the treatments take their
course.
The obvious cause was that I had been stung by a
stingray burrowed into the sand at the water’s edge. We had been warned that
this was the season for stingrays to come ashore to give birth to babies. The
advice had been to shuffle your feet as you entered the water to give the
stingrays warning to get out of the way. The waves cresting on the shore on La
Madera stir up the sandy bottom, obscuring whatever lies below. I consider I got
off very easily. The stingray must have been very young and struck me on the
back of my bony heel.
It took several hours, but by the time we had finished
lunch the pain had subsided. One man from Saskatchewan and a man from Inuvik
starting tuning up their guitars. It was going to be another jam session. I had
to get some photos today as I didn’t have my camera with me when they played the
previous week. I walked back to Casa Azul to retrieve my camera and realized the
pain had really
gone.
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