These are a few observations I made right after a trip to Crete.
- Avoid leather watch straps -we know this for jungle, but I forgot where I first read it it was wrt Australia. 38°C heat in Crete is quite enough for you to sweat through the leather in the space of a week.
- Carry a small tube of superglue in addition to your electrical tape, dental floss and sewing kit -would have proved useful for very quick repairs, and I could have used it to reattach a girl's toenail that was in danger of detaching.
- You sometimes can't cover all your body with repellant -in which case cover the areas where a bite will cause most inconvienience. I covered my face and feet so they bit my back where my rucksac would be!
- TCP is still great against mosquito bites -but some of the other rhemedies against stings and bites (acids or alkalis) also work well -treated a young lass's bites at the dinner table with vinegar.
- Haemostats are very useful for holding the nut of a nut and bolt on sunglasses while tightening them with a mini-screwdriver. They are also good for clamping things that you are gluing together.
- In hot sun a Boonie hat is a life saver. Quite a few people liked it too.
- Advantage camouflage is very effective -hung my hat on a rock at dusk and it was so hard to see that I had to move it less I overlook it when I left.
- Carry a spare buckle for your rucksac -one snapped the first morning I was there -but since the other one had snapped on a trip last year I was prepared. The ladder lock buckles with a curve to them are best -work better and have more strength.
- Put the cream on before you think you are tanning!
- Take beer to the beach-if you don't you'll invariably want one.
- Treating sunburn with a hot shower does work -don't ask me why, but it does.
- An open neck shirt will let in a lot of sun to your upper sternum -put cream here or you will burn before you notice.
- Having a check list really simplifies your packing –but also have one for the contents of items such as your medical kit –I found I didn't have as many aspirin as I intended.