As I hobble around enduring the fruits of a major bout of stupidity over the weekend, I would like to remind readers about the importance of sunscreen. Let my abject lapse at Albert’s Landing on Sunday be a cautionary tale to all.
It was a sparkling summer morning. Under a bright blue sky, the water was warm, and a nice breeze of about 8 knots, gusting to 14, was coming from the southwest over the trees. My friend Mike and I were eager to take his fussy new sailing dinghy out on the bay, which we did. We took turns sailing toward the Devon Yacht Club, plopping into a beach chair to rest between jaunts.
Mike’s dinghy is a tippy little thing with a hull that weighs less than 70 pounds and about 75 square feet of sail. Though I carry around a few more pounds than I once did, I could not keep the thing flat on the water when the gusts came up. Dumping the small craft on its side four or five times was fine; crawling back aboard the righted boat was something else. Back on shore, I noticed blood trickling from both kneecaps. Looking into it later on the internet, Mike reported that older sailors — or those not of Olympic team caliber — opted for smaller sails and shorter masts. But that was all fine; getting dumped is part of the fun. Where I ran into trouble was on the beach.
Earlier, in a hurry to sail, I had neglected to put sunscreen on my legs. Arms, face, and neck were taken care of, but from the knees down I was bare to the elements. I compounded the error by doing what one should never do under these circumstances: I napped. Sleeping on the beach seems to intensify the effects of the sun, though I have no idea why.
Some time later, after Mike and his husband, John, had returned with ice cream cones after a sprint to a passing Mister Softee truck, I awoke and looked at my feet, where red blotches had erupted. I quickly found sunscreen and lathered it on, but it was already way too late. The damage was done.
Three days later, my ankles still look like they were sprained, my knees ache, and when I stand up, pain courses up and down my shins as if I were being filleted with an electric knife.
Luckily, I suppose, the last time I burned my legs this badly was during a late-1980s surf trip in Costa Rica. A worker at the hotel where we were staying gave me a tube of livestock liniment — a horse on the label gave away the fact that it was a veterinary salve. In that state, I would not have cared if it were for wombats; it worked to cut the swelling, and at that moment that was all that mattered. Today, I have access to no such miracle cure and must sit on the couch reflecting on what should have been.