Bahamas: Spanish Wells - the dentist

Day 282
No travel

Friday night while Clark was eating green beans for dinner, a piece of one of his molars broke off. Now I could understand that if he had been eating something hard, but I had not burned the beans to a crisp and they were, therefore, quite soft. He showed me the piece of something and said, "I think that is a piece of my tooth." I poo-pooed that as ridiculous and said it looked more like a piece of rice. Oddly we did not have rice for dinner Friday night.

He continued to eat, and so I thought nothing more of it until later he said the tooth felt "funny" to his tongue. He opened wide for me to look and sure enough, his tooth did look "odd". I asked if hot / cold bothered, etc, and he said it was fine in that regard. "Well, he got off lucky," I thought to myself.

Later the next day I noticed that Clark started to talk vewwy funny if he talked at all. Clearly something was not right with his mouth. He started to prefer conversations where he could nod his head in acknowledgement or reply with a one-word answer to my questions.  I was able to discern that the broken portion of the tooth was sharp and had abraded his tongue when he talked.

Before coming on this trip to the Bahamas, Clark purchased short-term medical and dental health coverage. Over the past couple of days, I mentioned to Clark several times that he should try to see a dentist while we are among the civilized but could not get a positive response. Surprisingly I found I did not much care for a Clark that would not talk or talked vewwy funny when he did.

This morning, since it was finally a weekday, I decided that I would try to push him to do what I considered to be the sensible thing one more time. By this morning his tongue was irritated enough by the constant scraping over the broken tooth that he said it hurt to talk, eat, and swallow because all those actions brought his tongue in contact with the damaged tooth. It was definitely time to find a dentist!

I already had a list of places to go today because unlike yesterday the stores would be open. The Islander Shop sells swim attire, and I wanted to see what they offered in two-piece suits (not bikinis) in my size. Also, we are very low on marine toilet paper, so we planned to go to the marine store to stock up. We went to the marine store first and found that if we had wanted to work on the engine or wax the hull, we would have been in luck. However, they did not sell any products related to care for the head including toilet paper. We inquired as to where we might purchase marine toilet paper and they sent us to a marine store a block away.

That store also sold many boat items but no marine toilet paper. Is it not used in the Bahamas??? We inquired here as well as to any possible place to buy it on the island. They recommended we try the place we had just come from. Oh well. Cross that one off the list.

Here are some photos that Clark managed to get as we walked along the waterway.

Boat Exiting Spanish Harbor

Bahamian Channel Markers

Docks

Someone's Front Yard Garden

From there we went to The Islander Shop. Although I found several swimsuits, not one of them looked good enough on me to even model it for Clark to ask for his critique. I tried on five and put all five back on the rack. Ah well, I knew that was a long shot. I just had no idea how badly they would look on me.

By the time we returned to Sea Moss from our unsuccessful shopping trip, we had added finding an insurance- approved dentist to our to-do list. While I made lunch, Clark contacted the insurance company to get their approval for an emergency visit to a dentist here. They sent him the forms to be completed and provided some references for possible places to go though they said Clark could go anywhere he wanted.

With a set of phone numbers in Spanish Wells but no dentist's names to go with them, Clark stopped into the marine office to inquire about the government clinic and other possible options. Destiny, who works in the marina office, recognized the number for the clinic as one of the numbers. However, she advised Clark that the dentist is only at the clinic on Wednesdays each week, and one other dentist in Spanish Wells only sees patients on Thursdays.

Destiny did know though about a new dentist in Spanish Wells that sees patients daily - Chelsea. Destiny called Chelsea herself since Chelsea's assistant was out sick today. She explained Clark's predicament with his tooth and Chelsea agreed to see him today at 2:30. When we looked at our watches, that was only 50 minutes away. We decided to pull out the bicycles and ride there as it would be cooler to bike than to walk.

Spanish Wells Yacht Haven Marina
(where we are staying - all new facility)

The Grounds at the Spanish Wells Yacht Haven

Since we needed to go to Food Fair, and it was in the same direction, we took our backpacks with us. It felt lovely to be back on my bike which has not been used since we left Florida. Just before we left the marina, Clark got a text that his Bahamas phone had $1.00 left of cell service. He needed to get "topped up". We stopped in to ask Destiny where to "top up" and she said we could do it at Food Fair.

We passed Food Fair on the way to see Dr. Chelsea. Since we had some time to spare, Clark stopped in to buy his BTC vouchers. While we waited at the dentist office for Clark's turn, we loaded the phone with minutes. The voucher resembled a lottery "scratch off" ticket. We scratched off the tickets (he bought two) and then entered the revealed codes into the phone to "top up" our account.

Chelsea was able to polish Clark's tooth to take off the rough edge and stop the tongue irritation from continuing / worsening. She could not however instantly cure the damage to Clark's tongue. That will take a couple of days she said. An ulcer had appeared on his tongue due to the abuse it received and is still quite sore. He is talking more normally now, so I am no longer listening to Daffy Duck but have my Clark back! Most of the time related to addressing the tooth problem turned out to be paperwork. Less than a half hour after we arrived at the dentist, we were back on our bikes and heading for Food Fair.

Food Fair is a full-sized supermarket, so even though I only needed five things, we walked up and down every aisle to see what they had to offer.  For fun I looked at the price of true maple syrup which we normally use at home. At $10.84 for a very small bottle, I decided that Aunt Jemima's was just fine for now. Apples ranged in price from $1.00 for a Red Delicious to over $2.00 for a Fuji. That is the price per apple not per pound. I love apples, but $2.00 for a Fuji that looked like it had seen better days was out of my price range.

I picked up more fresh vegetables than I had expected to buy simply because I found fresh vegetables available for purchase. I have not seen a zucchini since Florida. They had them. I bought them. I also bought some frozen veggies to throw in the freezer for when this batch of fresh runs out.

After food shopping we biked back to the boat to drop off our supplies and then headed out once more to do some sightseeing on our bikes. We stopped by and saw the ocean on our travels. It was simply magnificent! The colors were amazing and the wave action was awe-inspiring. We saw the beach there but it looked like private property, so we did not venture onto the sand.

View of the Atlantic from Shore

Winds Whipping the Palm Tree

Spanish Wells Museum
(closed for two weeks while the curator is away)

Looking Across the Water to Gun Point
on Eleuthera Island

Clark wanted to bike down and around the end of the island. We did that, and he got some great ocean-view pictures near the restaurant right there.

Shipyard Restaurant at Shipyard Point
(highly recommended restaurant but we did not get a chance to try it)

View from Shipyard Restaurant

Typical Street Scene in Spanish Wells
(more golf carts than cars, or so it appears)

Gazebo at Shipyard Point

Clark had other ideas of places we could bike to, but the weather decided to threaten us and so, sadly, we headed back to Sea Moss to wait to see what the weather might produce. We went home via the "docks".

The "Docks" of Spanish Wells

Colorful House with Trusty Golf Cart

Multi-Colored House with Mural of a Crab

Tug Along the Docks

House on a Hill
(Paths up from Docks to shops are surprisingly steep)

We never did get back out for more exploring. I sat down to work on this blog entry, and Clark went and took a nap. Eventually some rain did fall, but it was the three-drips-and-done variety. The clouds continued to look like they wanted to deliver more right up to and after sunset occurred.

Sunset Similar to Last Night's Showing

But with more ominous clouds

I took the sunset pictures (shown above) tonight as Clark enjoyed his much-needed nap. When he smelled the food cooking, he got up from his nap and took a walk up to the marina restroom. He got his own sunset picture at that time.