[at-l] DEET

[Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net> (Bob Cummings)]

I live on a salt marsh that has the bitingest mosquitoes around. At home I tend
to spray the back of the tee shirt I wear during bug season to keep them from
biting through the fabric. I use liquid DEET on bare skin.

 On the trail, I don't use spray at all. It is too heavy and wasteful, plus I
 don't like to breathe the stuff.

 I find DEET doesn't have to be applied very heavily. But it has to be replaced
 frequently as sweat and abrasion washes and wears it off. Just put a couple of
 drops in the palm of your hands, rub your hands together and then rub your
 hands over as much bare skin as you can reach.

 I then wipe whatever residue is left on my hands on the back of my shirt. Since
 I wear the same shirt for a week at a time on the trail, it gradually builds up
 to be effectively repulsive to bugs -- and people.

 I don't use a great volume of DEET. At home a 1.25 ounce container of liquid
 Ben's 100 will last a season. If I hide it from my wife who won't touch the
 liquid, a spray can lasts me for two or three years. My wife and adult kids
 will use up a can of spray in less than a week.

  1993 was a very mild bug year, at least compared with my salt marsh home. I
  started with a partially used container of liquid and still had some left when
  I climbed Katahdin.

  I tend to use less repellant than most. But it's not because I'm tolerant of
  bug bites. My impossible goal is to never be bitten. But I come reasonably
  close.

  Weary