We gave rudimentary first aid today to a child from the village on Gigila Island. She had a hand sized scold on on her stomach, blistered in areas. Janette, aged about 5 year old, was paddled out to our boat by her mother. She was tiny and tough as nails she was silent as we applied burn gel. I asked if she was in pain and her mother translated. Her answer; no. We gave them Bactroban Topical and some amoxy we had in our medical stash in case it got infected.

I reckon the villagers would have to be near death to seek real medical attention. It is also difficult to get. A canoe paddle to the school is about 5ks away, a ham radio call to Nimoa,  50ks away, and if urgent enough several hours wait for the Nimoa water ambulance. If it is just painful, like the childs burn, it is just grin and bear it until things get worse. Hopefully they wont.


The day before yesterday we went for a dive in the gold rush channel at the eastern entrance to the Calvados Chain. The edge of this snaking channel was bordered with reef and fell into 60m of clear blue water. The reef jutted out like a shelf in places with a 10m overhang. In places there were holes you could swim through up to the reef flat. Jamie and I went in together ' to decrease the probability of death by shark by half'. It was spooky as hell and very beautiful.