The pain in Christi’s nose had continued to get worse throughout the evening. Before going to bed she saw the interior of her nose was swollen. By the next morning the swelling has spread into her upper lip and right cheek, making it painful to smile and eat.

Shortly after getting up, we caught the ferry from Horn Island to Thursday Island. We could have taken the dinghy, but the current here is strong and the wind erratic. It would have been a very long, slow, wet ride across the channel. One of the members of the ferry crew was especially friendly, giving all kinds of good info. Like, for example, the crocodiles live in the mangrove trees where we are anchored and if we shine a spotlight at night we should see lots. Guess it might not be a good idea to go under the boat to see if the bottom needs to be done yet.

TI is nicer than Horn Island. It is also dry, with grass only in the parks. But the streets don’t have that layer of dirt and the buildings look better. Our first stop was customs, to turn in some paperwork that we had been given by customs in Cairns. The customs building is an old style mansion from the late 1800’s, just a short walk from the wharf where the ferry dropped us off. It is a pretty building, with high ceilings and crown molding.

The customs people were really nice and surprisingly chatty. We found out that if customs catches a boat illegally fishing in Australia’s waters, they will often arrest the crew and sink the boat right then and there, with the crew watching. The captain and owner of the boat are usually prosecuted. They are serious about not fishing in their waters! And with tons of boats and planes patrolling the area, it seems likely they will get caught. As pleasant as the customs agents were to talk to, Christi was eager to get to the doctor, so the customs crew directed us to the health care center a couple blocks away.

The health care center is located in the middle of the main drag of town, which runs parallel to the waterfront. It is a prefabricated bungalow, which stands out from all the rest of the buildings. The streets are wide and the buildings are mostly old fashioned store fronts. There are a few newer buildings here and there, but the majority of them look like they may be from the turn of the century. Downtown TI almost has a Little House on the Prairie feel to it.

The wait at the medical center was 4 hours. The diagnosis is that she had an infection, likely caused by a small cut in her mouth from eating sharp foods, such as crackers. The doctor said the same thing we have read time and again in the tropics, even the smallest and most innocuous of breaks in the skin can turn into nasty infections. Bacteria grows really well in this climate.

We made a quick trip to the pharmacy, located farther down the same street. We walked around a little more. The road along the waterfront offers stunning views of Horn and Prince Wales islands across the channel. Here is a photo of Horn Island from TI:

Christi wasn’t feeling good and wanted a nap, so we hopped the ferry back to Horn Island. Our timing was impeccable, because it started to pour rain a few minutes after we got back to Kosmos.

On a side note, there are more indigenous people on Horn & TI than whites. In Cairns, it was rare to see indigenous people. Cairns was almost all white people. It is nice to see so many indigenous people in the workplace, especially in skilled jobs like customs agents and nurses.