Those in the know will spot that the letters ‘P’ and ‘R’ sit quite some way apart on the ‘qwerty’ keyboard. Only the paw of a grizzly bear would find the wrong letter by mistake. So if you thought ‘Pain’ was a typo for ‘Rain’ and alluded to us taking up cricket then that’s not the case. It’s ‘Pain’ with a capital ‘P’. The ‘Admiral’s’ pain to be precise and not on this occasion caused by ‘Skip’ and his antics. That’s a different pain altogether! This time it’s the ‘Admiral’s’ tooth causing the grief, although we should add that she still does have more than one but this particular tooth needs to be fixed urgently. So Marsh Harbour can now be added to the list of exotic locations which include Malta, Cyprus and Panama where our illustrious ‘Commander in Chief’ on Ajaya has sought out the delicate skills of a local dental surgeon. Yes, it’s possibly another root canal job.

 

There was no one moment where there was a ‘crunch’ then ‘crack’ but it manifested itself during one of ‘Skip’s excellent (his word) curries.  It’s a complete mystery as to how it happened but there it is. Wednesday will see us sitting back in the surgery waiting room for possibly the first of the two sessions to sort out the problem molar. ‘Skip’ will certainly be taking his own reading matter this time. Another thirty minutes immersed in the pictorial day to day life of the Kardashian family in the gutter press or thumbing through Good Housekeeping recipes will send him batty. Whilst the noise of the drill and smell of burning enamel permeates the waiting room area due to there being no treatment room door. Just a blanking wall with a walk round which is convenient for any of the locals to pop their head round to attract the attention of whoever happens to be doing the drilling.

 

So, our intended meal out at ‘Cracker P’s’ was put on hold on account that eating anything with a dodgy tooth is fraught with problems. Paying almost $100 for that privilege and grimacing with pain every few minutes wouldn’t go down well especially with the restaurant proprietor or other diners either so we’ll catch ‘Cracker P’s’ another time. To be fair and out of necessity our tooth fairy has now almost perfected the art of chewing on one side. The ‘eggy soldiers’ on boiled egg day are a mere shadow of their former strong crusty selves being reduced to bite sized ‘melt-in-the-mouth’ morsels.

 

But there was fun before the tooth gave in. We spent a very pleasant couple of nights around the Lubbers Quarters area, near Tahiti beach, mindful of the possible presence of bitey sharks. All we saw were Rays and, in the ‘Admiral’s’ case, rocks that looked just like rays under the water, so much so that she captured a specimen ‘Rock-Ray’ on camera. This equated to and possibly cancelled out the ‘small bright blue bird’ that ‘Skip’ had seen swimming gently across Man ‘O’ War Harbour the previous week. Such was the ‘Admiral’s’ skepticism about such a siting at the time that the dinghy was immediately launched to pursue the feathered rarity and to prove a point. It was a piece of bright blue plastic paper which had a fold at the top making it look exactly like the head and body of a small bird. Hmm! Have we both been in the sun too long?

 

 

 

     

 

Being out of bread and not fancying another home made floury brick we popped into Hope Town, taking anchorage outside the harbour for an hour or so. Here ‘Skip’ did see a shark swimming slowly through the anchorage in that lazy side to side motion they have when not in pursuit of prey. It was evident by it’s attendant Remora fish – those horrible little things with a sucker uppermost on it’s body so as to stay firmly attached to the shark when things get hectic in the afternoon feeding frenzy. If they become detached at that point, well, they are history, so to speak. We were in luck as the local bakery had churned out some fresh bread that morning which was absolutely delicious. Then a quick walk to see what had changed in Hope Town in the last year. It’s very commercial and almost impossible to find a mooring ball in peak season but the place never disappoints and is a photographers dream. Back onboard we enjoyed some of the fresh bread (small squares for the ‘Admiral’ of course).

 

 

 

 

 

Other than that not much else to report really.  The weather is nice and warm although we are steadily moving towards the time of year when we can be hit with squalls and thunderstorms. The Abaconians will welcome the rain as there have been bush fires raging for the last week on the backside of Great Abaco and the local water storage cisterns in the islands must be almost empty. The seawater temperature is just below 80 degrees so the wet suits tend to be left behind when swimming and one can now jump straight into the water without risking heart seizure. Many of the cruisers have departed back to the USA, especially those that have to sail northwards to the Chesapeake, so anchorages are thinning out in the Abaco especially with less charter traffic. And the really good news (we hope) is that the experts have predicted another soft hurricane season for the North Atlantic as we are in another El Nino year. Yippee.

 

 

 

 

Now we just need to get that tooth fixed!