I probably should have posted this with my Maui sketches, but it was done after I got back. This is the special mineral-based sunscreen that it’s required to wear in Maui county, particularly if going in the ocean. The other stuff might be alright, but this stuff is supposed to be a lot better for the corals and stuff. I probably didn’t need the SPF 50 stuff, but you can’t be too careful I suppose, and I have had a skin issue in the past couple of years. The SPF 50 stuff is like thick bloody paste though, it’s so white and impossible to wash off, which is I suppose the point. In the evening after I had showered, I did surprise myself that I had a much more silvery stubble than I actually have, but it was just the sunscreen caught in all my bristles, despite a fairly robust scrubbing of the chin. I still think my ear caught a bit of sun, as it was feeling pretty sore on top after a swim in the ocean. I remember back to being a kid, back in the bad old days of the mid-80s, and being the only red-haired freckly one in my immediate family. We went to Spain, and back then what was considered sun protection was like factor 4, or factor 6 if you’re lucky. I wanted factor 10 but I swear everyone was just laughing at me. Half the time there’d be none whatsoever. It was called sun-tan-lotion because it was for exactly that, getting a sun-tan, it was little more than putting butter on before going into the oven. Fine for those whose skin turned brown, but not for the likes of me. When I was ten we went to Spain for the first time, to Ibiza, and I remember a few days in I had already been burnt so badly that I could not move, and had to lie in bed crying my eyes out in absolute agony. Cheers mum and dad! They would have to put that awful smelly calamine lotion on my skin to soothe it. Or natural Greek yoghurt! Yes they would put Greek yogurt on my sunburn. Of course I was always made to feel like some sort of freak for not wanting to go into the sun, and wanting to stay indoors in the shade in the hottest part of the day in Spain (you know, like the Spanish do). I remember a big argument with my mum about it on the second time we were in Ibiza, when I was 11, and I ended up staying in by myself and drawing football shirts, which was totally fine by me. My dad was not red-headed, but he would put practically no sun protection on at all, and then lie outside in the sun until he turned into a lobster. It was a different time wasn’t it, a different generation, and a very British/Irish thing to do. “Aren’t you looking well!” they would say when you came home burnt to a crisp. If you avoided the sun and tried not to get burnt they would laugh at you for being so milky white and say that you wouldn’t know you’d gone to Spain. Different times. Now I, the sun-avoider, live in California of all places! But in California, most people I know avoid the sun and do what they can not to be burnt by it, and they all seem to understand red hair and freckly skin is a lot more sensitive. I still get burnt, if I’m out too long, even with sunscreen and hats and long sleeves. Anyway this was a fun story.