Notes from a small island

We resumed our snorkelling after breakfast, revisiting the area we were in yesterday. Today I took the underwater camera too, despite not having brought its hieroglyphic instructions.

We saw lots of fish and corals, but the camera refused to take any pictures of them. Apparently Chinese logic dictates that you have to press the mode button twice before the shutter button is enabled.

After a consolatory cup of coffee we tried again. This time the camera functioned perfectly until a big blue square started to appear in the viewfinder window whenever the shutter button was depressed.

As I stood waste deep in the lagoon pondering this unexpected development, I suddenly realised something else was amiss. I seemed to be lacking my bottom set of dentures. They must have attached themselves to the snorkel mouthpiece rather than my gums and fallen out when I removed the snorkel.

I replaced my mask and could see the escaped prosthetic lying on the sandy seabed only a metre from my feet, but how to retrieve it? I couldn't reach down for it as not only did the buoyancy of my snorkelling vest preclude that course of action, but my lack of dentures also meant that I now got a mouthful of brine whenever I ducked my head underwater. The rescue had to be performed quickly as already fish were beginning to nose around the teeth and it was only a matter of time before a large piscine bandit made off with them. I tried to grab them with my toes, but evolution had robbed me of sufficient prehensility. I noticed that this action did however scare off the fish, so I resorted to repeatedly kicking the teeth upwards until I could finally catch them. What a relief, I had visions of spending the rest of the holiday mumbling, dribbling and sucking soup through a straw. For some inexplicable reason, Christine found the whole episode intensely amusing.

Upon examination with spectacles, the camera was complaining that its memory card was full, mostly with trial shots of the floor whilst I was discovering how it worked. I deleted the lot and will try again tomorrow, unless by then the batteries have run out too.

There is something soporific about afternoons here. Maybe it's the strength of the morning sun, maybe the (presumably) insecticidal fog that is blown around the buildings early afternoon, maybe it was a plate of fish and chips for lunch, but the next thing you know is the clouds are changing colour, the light is fading and it's sunset again.