Sequence of events.  Heads (toilets) in one of the cabins start to leak and need new pipes.  Old pipes by definition very stuck, very calcified and very difficult to remove.  Heads, and the sewage holding tank by definition, very confined space with everything positioned for maximum awkwardness.  Altogether a nightmare. 

Screwdriver makes contact with the base of Mikes thumb and keeps going.  Penetrating wound full of very nasty bugs into a joint.  Great.

Major cleaning and immediate course of Ciprofloxacin and Metronidazole which,  thanks to the lovely pharmacist and doctor at Glasgow Nuffield Carol has plenty of, would hopefully mean that the aerobic and anaerobic bacteria would not get a chance to take hold. 

We wake the next morning to find Mikes thumb is fairly comfortable but the inside of his elbow has a horrible, aggressive looking cellulitis.  Either a small scratch from a wire or an earlier insect bite had given the way in for some bugs and they were having a party in spite of the antibiotics.

Off to the delightful local hospital where we were treated superbly.  The doctor was extremely concerned and considered admitting Mike for IV antibiotics but decided that, because we had been able to start him on the right thing as quickly as we had that we should stick with it.  Skin dressed, topical antibiotic applied and off we went promising to come back at the first sign of further trouble.

Next day.  Further trouble.  Having marked the border of the cellulitis the previous day it was clearly creeping round a bit further and Mike has a temperature of 39.8!  Back to the hospital.  More topical antibiotics – and this time they gave me the tube so we could re-dress it ourselves.

Fortunately it then seemed to slow down, stop and eventually start healing.  Mike then had the savage itches that his Granny had told him meant a wound was getting better so we felt good about that.

Slowly it all mended and he was back to full duties.  The skin is very sensitive still and he keeps it covered but on balance all was soon well. It meant that we were not able to deploy our new diving skills in the diving mecca of Bonaire but there will be plenty of other opportunities later on.