Choices…

Is it better to stay in and sweat like crazy or go out and be plagued by flies?

That was the question of the day. I figured I might as well find out which is the easier or more bearable of the two experiences.

Having been up at the crack of dawn to fly my drone Maximillian, and being well bugged by flies even at that early hour, I figured some time away from those pesky little insects would be nice.

It was forecast to be hot and the ever present summer winds were expected to continue kicking up again.

I had shut most of the flies out, and shut myself in the camper, set up my laptop to begin downloading my photo files from the mornings flight and started playing with (editing) a few of them. It seemed like a good day to sit in and get some editing done, some planning, and make a start on the books I’d piled into my kindle to read.

The photo and video files all looked great, some even looked quite promising. But my laptop was really starting to heat up a bit. It was then that I noticed it really was warming up in the camper.

Closing my laptop I decided to read for while, opting to continue to stay inside rather than brave the numerous flies waiting to come in or the blasting heat.

Settling down to read for a while, I wasn’t long till I felt rivulets of sweat running down my skin, something I’m really not used to at all and my nose began to bleed… again.

It’s way too hot in here, I thought, it’s time to get out before I completely melt.

There’s a wooden rotunda type structure up near the toilets at the campground, and I figured it would probably be much cooler than sitting in Jilly.

I gathered up my kindle, my glasses, a cold bottle of water from the fridge, and my towel in case I wanted to swim in the water.

The rotunda was much cooler, but there were also millions more flies than had been outside in my little campsite.

Other campers were all cooling off in the water so I hopped in too. It was a welcome relief from the heat. I could feel my core temperature dropping as I floated in the sea. I stayed in for quite a while, enjoying the cooler environment . A few pesky flies had followed me out into the water, but there was far less of them out there than there were on land.

As I stood up and waded onto the shore, I was greeted by billions of tiny, bitey flies intent on sucking as much moisture and salt from my skin as they could, like ravenous little bloodthirsty beasts.

It was like being covered by a moving plague of voraciously hungry bloodsuckers eager to feast on my skin. I’ve been well bugged by flies before, when flying my drones but this far exceeded anything I’d ever experienced.

After a really quick shower to wash away the salt I was back in the camper, preferring to handle the heat rather than the flies.

I have to admit, when I first planned this trip I had a pretty good idea of what I was in for but I think the reality far outweighed my initial thinking.