Qnape
Contributor
My daughter and I got back from a week in Utila a few days ago. We used 23% deet sparingly in the evenings and generally nothing during the day before and after diving. Some of the folks with us at Utopia Dive Village were more affected by the sand flies than others and we donated our second bottle of Deet to some continuing on to the mainland for some rafting. Some there did use the cactus juice but reported only fair results.
Between us only I got a single mosquito bite during the trip. The sand flies got to us from time to time (when the breeze died, of course), despite application of the deet. but oddly the bites bothered me and became visible only after I returned to NJ. Nothing extreme but for two days the ich did force me to use sunburn gel a few times to get relief.
The folks we met living and working there used baby oil exclusively for the sand flies. It does nothing for mosquitos, but the flies basically drown in the oil as they are so small. This seemed to do the trick for them quite nicely and if we return to the area we will try the baby oil. Yuck, but not harmful like deet. We will still bring the deet for time inland, like waiting on the airstrip where you could literally observe circling squadrons of mosquitos above travelers heads!
Between us only I got a single mosquito bite during the trip. The sand flies got to us from time to time (when the breeze died, of course), despite application of the deet. but oddly the bites bothered me and became visible only after I returned to NJ. Nothing extreme but for two days the ich did force me to use sunburn gel a few times to get relief.
The folks we met living and working there used baby oil exclusively for the sand flies. It does nothing for mosquitos, but the flies basically drown in the oil as they are so small. This seemed to do the trick for them quite nicely and if we return to the area we will try the baby oil. Yuck, but not harmful like deet. We will still bring the deet for time inland, like waiting on the airstrip where you could literally observe circling squadrons of mosquitos above travelers heads!