Report from Chris Cunningham:

I spoke to Freya via Skype from Nhulunbuy. She’ll be taking several days off to rest and to let her skin recover. During the crossing she developed several small but painful sores on the backs of her hands, elbows, feet and lower legs.

 Time to take stock of my body sores…was the crossing worth the (few) pain? Yes, definitively…all sores heal pretty quick, once out of the salt water and humidity and in a dry climated room for some days.

My lower legs got the worst look, I was not even aware that they will be looking so ugly! I just noticed some sore spots developing on the calfs from the constant up-and down movement of the lower legs – they hit some strapped across bungees which hold my manual pump on the bottom of my kayak. I had to take the bungees off and to store the pump somewhere else to have a clean kayak bottom again.

But the lower legs, as well as the hands, were quite swollen for the first days off the water, and this red rash took a while to get better. The small open sores on the calfs, hands and elbow heal much quicker!

I simply need to *walk* a bit and to move my hands again as well to get rid of the swollen feeling and the red rash, but walking was tough the first two days with the sore spots under both of the little toes and typing all day Monday and Tuesday is not great for your hands either…

I may have prevented the sore toes better by swapping sandals from TEVAS to filpflops occasionally, and by NOT wearing my neoprene socks all the last four days constantly to prevent more rubbing. Next time…

What I basically did the first day off in Nhulunbuy was to decide which ointment to put on which sore…to re-paint my toenails and to find a hairdresser to get rid of my grey hair, a fresh cut and a bit of pampering!

I sat at the hairdresser the first hour incognito, but as someone saw me rubbing my lower legs with some ointment and asked where it came from, the chatting allover the salon started! After the treatment I was happy to pay my bill – but had to learn a lovely lady, Jo, from the other end of the salon was willing to come up for my expenses! Thanks, Jo! Very much appreciated!

I used some Betadine on the first night on the open sores, but I was even *more* sick just of the yellow look and the messed up sheets next morning. I had to jump under the shower again to wash that ugly stuff off, change sheets and simply used tea trea oil after cleaning everything, as I used the other weeks as well on tiny sores. This desinfects and dries my small open wounds much better and doesn’t look so sick…! Some good moisturizing cream on the skin, and by Tuesday morning everything looks pretty good already. I may launch tomorrow, latest Thursday…