Mosquitos

Poinsettia flowers, lovely trees

We have mozzies here. There are mozzies in Haast in New Zealand. They are legendary, they don't compare to Cayman mozzies. I'm usually fairly immune to being bitten, I seldom wear Dimp or Off, but on Saturday I was savaged by the buzzing creatures. I have bites in odd places. They can bite through clothing here, how else did my thighs get so bitten. No smart comments needed from the cheap seats, they are unpleasantly itchy.

Jo and I went to touch rugby and it rained in a way I've not seen rain before. Great sheets of rain that quickly flooded the road and all around. Driving was interesting, aquaplaning along the road with minimal visibility. The mozzies came out in force after the rain. We were talking to friends and swotting each other, would have looked great on YouTube with some appropriate music. Then we went to the airport to pick up a new person. That was like the slapping dance for everyone waiting. I used my new, natural potion for keeping mozzies at bay and where I put that was okay. Where I missed was really bitten. The back of my neck, in my ears and on my nose and cheeks, through my pants. Everywhere. A very impressive effort from the wee blighters.

As the Mosquito Research and Control Unit here say:

The Cayman Islands are famous for their mosquitoes which in the past reached levels that were unequalled anywhere else in the world. In South Sound mangrove swamp in 1971 as many as 600 bites per minute on one arm have been recorded. The record trap catch for one night in the Cayman Islands is 793,103 from a single New Jersey light trap in Bodden Town in 1974. Out of approximately thirty species occurring in Grand Cayman, six can probably be regarded as constituting the main pest species. Mosquitoes, such as Psorophora ciliata, Aedes sollicitans, Wyeomyia vanduzeei, are occasionally reported as nuisance but these tend to be sporadic and short lived problems and are usually highly localised in nature.

The locals tell me that it's been good this year. Most were a little sympathetic. I did feel for the new person who arrived to the slappers waiting for him. We hustled him to the car so we could get out of the mozzie firing line. I suspect he was sufficiently jet lagged to not notice. So another day passes in this tropical island paradise. The rainy season will soon be over. I've quite enjoyed it after the desert years.