Hi James,
I was out at Darwin in the Galapagos. We were warned of swift currents at Sunset between the arch and the small island. And two others to the crews knowledge got swept away and were never found. My plight was simple. I had to make the swim from the arch to the island at sunset in those swift currents as we were losing the sun. The island has no beaches, it's really a vertical island, so I only had slimey boulders to use as hiking ground once I made the hour or so swim. NOW the fun really began because the crew was searching for me in the area I was no longer in, so it was imperative to make the slimey boulder hike to the other side of the island where the main boat was anchored. I was scared shitless that they would pull anchor and go join the search and I surly would have been dead if they did that.
The 'hike' caused the injuries when I climbed up the rocks with all of my gear on and my camera stuff. Pinning my shoulders on two boulders with that weight caused them to give out. One shoulder was locked and I had to grab it and yank it back into it's socket before making the hike. Hey, I had to save my camera stuff in case I was found :shock:
I used my sea sausage to tie around a boulder so I could locate my stuff which was burried in boulder crevices so it did not get carried away by a rising tide. The blood was from barnacle slashes while I hiked and climbed, but I really didn't know I had them til I got back to the main boat. Once I got close enough to the boat (maybe an hour or more of climbing and hiking), I shouted loud enough to so someone heard me and radioed the pongas that I was on the island and not out at sea.
The rest is history but we can surly say that it was an added adventrue I'd rather not experience again. I kept a log of the events and there is a lot more that happened but this is the basics.
It's amazing how you change and how focused you become when put in that kind of a situation.
Joe