All quiet(ish) on the Buzzard. Tony left for Indonesia last Wednesday after refusing all offers to help him get sorted out here in Grenada. We ended up taking him back to the hospital on Good Friday and although the doctor reassured him that he was not in any danger he remained adamant about going back. One thing that was quite poetic/funny was the doctor he saw at the hospital was a 26yr old female, very much to Tony's chagrin. When Mike was dismissed from the translating duties (like having to put 'bowel movement' into something Tony would understand) the doctor asked him to remove his clothes and lay on the table ... the look on his face was priceless, especially given his strong chauvanistic tendencies ................ LOLOL

Anyway, there was not a great deal we could do about it in the end, just pay for the ticket and wish him the best. Can't see that we'll ever meet again.

James has, finally, been in touch and may be back next week, or not as the case may be, so we're on our own. It makes for a calm boat which is good, and we're still managing to get a few jobs done, but unfortunately it also means our few days off the boat, has had to be put on hold.

My tooth is still not sorted and I had to go back for an emergency abscess draining and more antibiotics (the only side-effect of these being photo-sensitivity which made my toes go pink) BUT, fingers, pink toes and everything else crossed, it does seem better and hopefully when I go in the morning the hole in my tooth can finally be filled permanently. Then I apparently just have to have splints put on to check the mobility issue and it's done. I'm a little bit anxious about the cost as I haven't paid anything yet and I've had almost fifteen appointments over the last six weeks ... but I guess a front tooth is worth it.

We managed a quiet night out at Sep's with June and Jeff the night before June returned to Toronto. Just the luck of the draw that we really didn't get to spent much time with her this trip, but you never know we may get to see her in Canada sooner rather than later as Mike has to go back to re-new his driving license before September.

We helped organise a 70th birthday party on Hog Island for our friend Don on Easter Monday which was good and much appreciated, especially the cake I made. He's now in Trinidad painting the bottom of his boat, and Rudi is now in St. Martin looking for crew to sail back across the Atlantic with him.

Mike, Jeff and three others had a guys fishing/bilge pumping day out on the Buzzard last Friday. They took off around 1 pm and went out to the 12 mile bank, getting back just before dark. In amongst the beer and the rum they even managed to catch three barracudas and a tuna. I spent the day on Jeff's boat, in the rain. We seem to be having an awful lot of rain considering it's still the dry season.

Jeff kindly went down and cleaned the prop before they went out. Our friend Scott had gone done a few weeks before to replace the anodes, there being no sign of the ones we attached before we left the UK, surprise, surprise. While Scott was down there he took some video footage of the bottom. We have a scarily big eco-system living down there where we haven't managed to reach with the scrapers, and even our own resident crab colony around the intake valves. All quite beautiful; maybe we could start an in-house reef diving centre. Or maybe we have to start thinking about the necessity of hauling out ... no, that's even more scary!

We're still having outboard problems unfortunately. The 8 hp proved not only to be frustratingly slow and unable to plane but also a worse gas guzzler than the 25 hp. Mike switched them round again and took the 8 hp to get looked at. Apparently it needs a new diaphragm for the carbuerator and also a new reed valve, both of which have to ordered from the States so we're hurrying up and waiting on those.

Ron and Jeanne's heat exchanger went and Mike just happened to have a spare one down in our hold so he's been helping Ron reconfigure his system to incorporate the new one. I sometimes wonder what we don't have down in that hold, well except for the stuff we seem to need.

I still haven't finished the new blog site yet. I'm struggling to find a way to transfer the photo albums from this blog to the new one, without having to individually copy and paste all the photos, of which there are quite a lot. If any of you computer literate folks out there have any ideas please let me know.

Toby and Nellie are fine. There are quite a few young kids around Hog Island at the moment so Toby gets lots of attention and play-mates to help him dig holes. And we actually get to have a couple of beers without constantly having to throw sticks or coconuts in the water, which is a good result all round.

Love to all .... Don't be shy about commenting either !!