It won’t be a problem, I thought, there really weren’t any mosquitoes at that location the day before. But it was 3 am, and I was in the Everglades, during the wet season, at night. And it was about to be a problem.
The chorus of mosquitoes greeted me not long after I exited the car, hungrily whining all around me in the dark. I put on a thick sweatshirt, and my headnet. Every time I checked an image on the screen on the back of my camera, its illumination revealed two or three mosquitoes dancing around in the screen’s glow. Distant flashes of lightning punctured the horizon, but I didn’t dare change to my telephoto lens out here, for fear of trapping a mosquito inside the camera. And inside the car was no better; the mosquitoes were in there already. I would have to put down the windows and drive away at highway speeds when I left, hoping the wind would suck out more mosquitoes than it would suck in.
Distant flashes of lightning illuminate the horizon
I was better prepared than when I had visited several years prior. On that occasion, after several hours each on two nights, I had counted over 40 mosquito bites on my right hand alone. Tonight, I was armed with net mittens, which seemed to serve their purpose well. Even with the headnet, though, I still got a few bites on my head. Apparently, the mosquitoes had been so prevalent that I had inadvertently trapped several under the headnet when I put it on. And indeed, much later back in Miami, I found three mosquitoes trapped on top of my hat under the headnet, where they had been resting when I had flung it over my hat, and where they had now baked to death under the hot Miami summer sun in the passenger seat of my closed car. That’ll teach you, I thought.
Next time, though, the headnet goes on before I get out of the car.