Hilton Head Island: the early Webb; joy; coy; sun screen

Summer has come to the marsh.  We are not having a heat wave as is some of the South, just normal late June weather with highs in the low 90sF/23+C and, of course, heat indexes five or more degrees F higher.  This means that outside activity needs to be performed early in the morning.  So on Sunday, I woke at 6 and was walking down to GANNET at 6:30, a few minutes after sunrise.  

Once on the little boat I prepared her to be left alone for two months.  I doubled some dock lines, tied down the tiller, tied a line around the furling jib and through its clew so it can’t unfurl, set up the running back stays, adjusted fenders.  I did not unbend the sails which is a major hassle.  To remove the fully battened main requires first detaching the solid boom vang from the boom and then detaching the boom from the mast.

Yesterday morning I woke at 6:30 and was biking to Harris Teeter supermarket by 7, back home by 8:45 with sufficient supplies to last the week.

This morning I again woke at 6:30 and was out taking a walk a few minutes later.  My path was around the neighborhood, then down to the marina all the way out to the far end of A dock.  1.68 miles according to my Apple watch.  Along the way I passed a great egret who didn’t even fly away.  He just stepped courteously to one side of the dock when I passed both going and returning and watched me.  Of the two of us he was armed with a long sharp beak and I was weaponless.  He rightly judged he had nothing to fear.  

This walk was just for the exercise.  I like to walk or bike most days in addition to doing my usual workouts, and after being stuck inside due to rain last week, feel a strong need to get out.  I am not the only old person here who knows the value of keeping in motion and always encounter others doing so, many widows walking small dogs.  I feel for them and would even if I did not know that Carol faces long widowhood, unless she remarries.

In THE SEASHELL ANTHOLOGY OF GREAT POETRY I have recently come across a poem by Carl Sandburg that I did not know and one by Andrew Marvell that I did.  You may have read Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’ in school.  I did and it continues to bring a smile each time I do again.

How good to live so as to make the sun run.

Being a garden of skin cancer I have a personal interest in sun screens.  Among the hundreds of magazines, newspapers and news sources I have access to via Apple News+, which at $9.99 a month is one of the truly great bargains, is CONSUMER REPORTS.  In the current issue they report on testing sun screens.  I have googled and there is a public link only to part of the article.

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/sunscreens/best-sunscreens-of-the-year-a7763432372/

As a public service I will provide you will some of the rest.

What is most surprising and distressing is that the vast majority of sun screens tested had less, often, far less protection than their labels claim.  53 of the 68 lotions and sprays tested had less than than SPF 30 protection, which is the minimum recommended by the American Academy of Dermatology.  

Here are four lotions and four sprays Consumer Reports recommends.

Note that Coppertone Water Babies gets a perfect 100 rating.  I had never heard of it and ordered a bottle from Amazon.