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Yesterday was my first day in bali for kiting. I was using equipment from the kite "school"/coroboree at the southern point of sanur (no names) near the lagoon (the only place to kite at dead low tide). After my session I was walking the flat part of dead reef/sand/rubble that dries out at low tide with board booties and 14m kite. Whilst walking in rapid succession with the kite not navigating a route because its forgiving terrain I stepped down left right boom boom - two punctures that I knew immediately were not any coral or sea urchin id ever had the privilege of stepping on before. On inspection id tromped on a solid timber structure (which now I know was part of a ship) about 3m squared with rows of NAILS sticking up put of it, it is/was hard to distinguish because its flush with the sand. At low tide it has a couple inches of water covering it. Also the nails werent very fancy bunnings type nails more like dodgey 3rd world nails sunbaking in the tropical ocean for a long time. I didnt make a big deal out of it then and there because I was hoping I was overreacting and infection or even tetanus wouldnt stop me from having fun or dieing, and besides knowone really gave a piss that I had punctured both feet on nails through my booties on a section of reef dozens of paying foriegn customers were walking over every lowtide. Reason, pain, throbbing, the tropics and not having a tetanus shot in about 20yrs got me to a doctors clinic in sanur last night, the young bali girl doctor seemed to do a sufficient job cleaning, inspecting for foriegn objects, bathing in peroxide and wrapping the punctures (it hurt enough to know she was quite thorough), she showed me the depth of the punctures with her inspection tool to be approx 1 inch. Tetanus shot also, antibiotics, antiinflamitories and painkillers, return to the docs tommorow to take the wraps off and have alook . In the meantime I cant even shower let alone go kiting. hopefully back in the water reall soon. What ****s me though is that when I was telling a group of the local instructors one ensured me there are no nails in the ocean, but when I went into detail about what I had stood on he remembered and knew exactly what I was talking about. This is their workarea. Whether anything is done about it or not who knows, maybe if the aussie bloke who trys to coordinate some of the ****fight down there reads this it might. Be carefull

Things like that, like reef cuts, are not worth taking lightly. Something very similar happened to me at the pond, of all places. I managed to step pretty hard on some limestone rock, one of them was fairly sharp, and penetrated my ankle area. Made it bleed but nothing more than like cutting yourself with a knife in the kitchen. In that area there is some really calm areas near the sand bar also with a fair amount of organic material under the surface, I did step into that ooze a bit as I was packing up. So what I thought, I'm in the ocean, its salt water, cleans out wounds. Thought nothing of it.

But the ocean is full of beasties. It got infected, swelled up like a balloon, oozing pus etc over about 2 weeks, so i just kept washing it, redressing it, putting betadine etc on it. It got worse, my whole leg swelled up red, then my neck started to puff up, my face...... it wasn't going well. So I went to the doctor, he sent me straight to hospital. Explained that the bugs that live in the ocean, many of them they don't even know what they are. They live in salt water, so they are tough. They checked me into infectious diseases area, swabbed it and sent of for culturing. They had me on some big time strong antibiotics (knocked my body around I tell you), steroids to reduce the swelling around my neck... I could go on, but my lesson was, if you get cut by rocks, reef or anything much in the ocean, it gets messy fast, easily. If I have any doubt about an area now, I just wear some reef shoes. Not as good "feel" in them, but I get to keep kiting.