Some said if you are cut  near your eyebrow then you bleed profusely, more than in any other part of your face. I found out that it is the equivalent of  5cc of blood, which is the amount of blood taken for a blood test. Yet it looks like a lot.

    On the last week of September, while I was flying to Mexico,  I was sitting next to Rafa Garcia an ultimate fighter from ESPN-Latino. We were talking about some of his octagon fights and we agreed about how  bloody was an eyebrow laceration.

    If you are boxing and a lesion occurs; the skin and underlying tissues are cut and blood flows from the wound. This looks very dramatic as blood is spilled on everyone and everywhere around the ring. But if you are having an ultimate fight, then, you are not using boxing gloves, you are using a thin cover for the hands, and the palms are exposed. I tried one of his special covers, the ones he uses for training that have a little more pad than the ones for the real fight, they are not gloves just covers. It was  like an adrenaline shock, to have them on. People around us like me, were very impressed.

    Rafael Garcia, also told me, there is a way to  inflict an open wound at the temple of your face. A firm fist  go straight to the countenance opponent and at contact a fast twist is done, so the knuckles can jag in that vulnerable part of the face so close to the eye. He showed me two short videos of her knockouts. They were fierce, very impressive and super fast. The opponents were lying on the floor and immobilized  without a doubt.

    We were able to have this conversation because of the intermittent  clunking noise inside the airplane, made while it was being repaired with tape at the luggage compartment door, or so the flight attendant told us through the speaker. We were delayed two hours, and on the way we have turbulence every other half hour. Instead of panicked we talked about blood.

    What bloody episodes have I had in my life? Well, several but at that time I remembered one accident  with blood on my face.

    One day, when I was in my twenties, I was sailing in our beloved sailboat, a little dingy, with my Dad. We were sailing on a placid lake in Valle de Bravo, Mexico; the day was beautiful, the wind perfect. I was relaxing from last week semester finals. I was really tired and somnolent. We weren’t in a rush, we weren’t in a regatta meaning race, and there weren’t many boats on the lake.

    When you sail you need to watch out for many things; For example: the cords, the keel, the boom, the sails. Also you need to have equilibrium, react fast and be steady and firm to move with the boat, the waves and the wind.

    You can sail straight or turn with the help of the wind, the current and all the ship. It is so interesting to announce when you are going to change directions, it is called  the turn or tac. All on board get ready to tac to on the port beam or to starboard; in order words, turn right or left. Sailing crew needs to be aware of two things mainly; the first is to know where is the boom, but what is a boom?

    In sailing, a boom is a spar (pole), along the foot of a fore and aft (front and rear) rigged sail, that greatly improves control of the angle and shape of the sail. The primary action of the boom is to keep the foot flatter when the sail angle is away from the centerline of the boat. In a tack, that horizontal pole will cross the boat immediately when you move the rudder, which is the equivalent of the wheel in your car, to make a turn or in other words a tac.

    And the second thing you need to be aware of while doing a tac or turning is that when there is a mild wind and almost no current you don’t sink the keel to the bottom, you left one-third of it above. This time we were in that situation.

     Not so fast, let me tell you what is a keel.

    The keel on a boat is the longitudinal structure along the centerline at the bottom of a vessel’s hull, on which the rest of the hull is built, in our vessel it was extended downward with a steel thick blade to increase the stability of the boat. and at that time it protruded like a thick ax in the middle of the boat; well, that’s today while I was remembering all about that turn; on that day, for me was just part of the boat with no other thought.

    I was almost falling asleep, when suddenly my Dad shout ready to tac?  I said yes, but when the mainsail boom crossed above me; in order to avoid being hit by this horizontal wooden pole; I went so fast down that I hit somewhere in my face with the edge of the keel. Yes, the gigantic  blade I described to you before.

    In a matter of seconds the inside of white sailboat was red; Daddy was in a panic attack, we didn’t know what part was bleeding. I just saw red with one eye, the other I wasn’t sure.

    My Dad asked me; Can you see?

     I explained; Yes, barely with one eye.

    Daddy asked for help. A motorboat came and three guys towed us to shore. Everybody was pretty worried because of my bleeding face and because the sailboat was half full of red water, it was a tremendously yucky situation.  When we got ashore, I ran straight to the bathroom to clean myself. Yes, it was there, you guessed. It was a slit in my eyebrow. I still have the scar; though you can barely see it. We went to the only first aid infirmary of, at that time, little town; and I received six stitches. My eyes were OK. I think my dad had a stomach ache. Nobody sailed for the rest of our vacations.

    The good thing is that life went by to today’s remembrance  of one bloody day that helped me to pass a flight full of emotions.