Rogues Bay

Aka The Lava Flows

An odd day to write about, wonderful, followed by challenging followed by thankful. Always thankful.

Finally an actual day off, a day away from first aid.

Pete was running a learn to drive a 4wd off road course. The plan being to end up at a remote and spectacular beach. As is the way of BVI after a lot of interest only one person actually turned up.. .

Sat at the top of the descent to Rogues Bay I've gotta be honest it looked implausibly like a roller-coaster ride. But tbf I trust Pete totally, I know I can drive a 4wd and Jeff seemed attentive and keen. So I was pretty chilled. Plus I could see some gloriously white sand...
The drive down was wild but fun, the track more cliff than road, the broken car we found at the bottom attesting to a job well done.
The bay, and more importantly the Lava Flows that make up its rock walls and part of the seabed, was spectacular. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been, anywhere on our planet. This blip in no way at all does it justice. And then we snorkelled out...
The Lava Flows extend across the seabed forming shallows and ravines - an aquatic wonderland. We saw 3ft+ lobsters, parrot fish, clownfish, wrasse and a barracuda - it was wonderful, intense and simply magical. Beer in the surf topped it off.

So all that remained was to drive the land-rover out and find another beach. Up, is much more difficult than down...

I knew we had a problem when the wheels spun as we bounced and J hit the gas. Instinctive but wrong. We landed and lurched forward, the cliff beckoned. We came to rest with the trees inside the car. Phew, that, I thought, was close. So now a gentle reverse was needed. Hindsight is a waste, but perhaps we were past learning and into doing.
J used the clutch, again instinctively, again wrong, and gravity took over, we shot both backwards and downward. Then we came to rest on a loose pile of rock in a 4ft ditch. Land Rovers are good but not that good. As we got out the car slid more and grounded out on its axle.
With escape still feasible Pete went to look, and in doing so slipped and tore open his head on the spare wheel retaining bolts, I knew, just knew, from the cursing that it wasn't good.
The middle of nowhere, and a lot of blood. Time for real world emergency first aid.
Obvs I stopped the bleeding, with limited kit it wasn't pretty, but the job was done fast and as well as possible. Stitches clearly needed. With a head injury or serious bleeding there's a magic 30minutes if your lucky where the casualty is ok (ish). We had a climb to do. Unbelievablely another Red Cross member was there and lived nearby, by the time I'd recovered our kit from the stranded vehicle he had Pete in the car and we hit the hospital in doubletime.
2 internal stitches stopped a minor arterial bleed and six external stitches did a really neat job. In a year it'll be one more laughter line.

Practice and practice and practice. Then doing happens.