So, when we first started coming to G’Town, there was a retired ex-pat named Howard. Howard was a veterinarian from Florida who retired to Great Exuma and set up a small, part time lab and office to handle the island’s pet needs. Howard was a crotchety old bugger, but a good vet and a real friend. Unfortunately, he died about two years ago and ever since, our little slice of paradise has been without any full-time animal care.
Of course, we still don’t have a human doctor either, but that’s another story.
Anyway, with Howard’s passing, a local charitable organization, The Exuma Foundation, stepped in and bought all of Howard’s vet gear from his widow. Then, a bunch of ex-pat volunteers set up a small, two room vet office in one of the outbuildings at the Palmbay Beach Resort and now we have a vet fly in one weekend a month to take appointments and treat our animals.
Our current fly-in vet is a Bahamian woman from Freeport named Doctor Wild-Goose. She was here this past weekend and I played nurse Chapel to her Doctor McCoy.
Over the course of two days we saw 52 animals, spayed 12 dogs and 6 cats, neutered 1 dog and cut the toe nails off of some 36 animals and treated a wide variety of rashes, aches and other ailments.
Mostly I administered injections and glue furry things back together. I also did a fair amount of animal wrestling as I tried to keep everyone on the examination table and avoid getting bitten by any of our patients. It was a lot of work and it paid nothing, but I had fun regardless.
I think I am invited back next month, so this may be a new career opportunity for me.
In other news, regatta has ended and the migration of boats back to the north is beginning. Yay! Hopefully we will resume a much more relaxed and douche-berry free existence moving forward.
On the boating front, I received a shipment of spare parts from the U.S. two days ago. Foremost on the replacement agenda is installing a new pump on our head (toilet). The old one is in year three of it’s life and in my experience, three years is past due for a replacement. You can just buy a service kit for the pump at a bargain $139 or you can get the whole assembly for ten bucks more.
Can you guess which option we choose? I think you can.
The new pump went in fine and fifteen minutes later, we were back in business.
Next up, I tackled checking the batteries and topping them off with distilled water. It’s not a hard job, but the batteries are in a fairly inaccessible place, but with the help of my expert battery technician weasels, the job was completed in only an hour.
More to follow, end of line …
P.S. – Today’s picture is of a mega yacht that ruined my sunset picture. Damn you mega yachts!