Dengue Fever Hits Close to Home Again

Assassino!!!!!!

With a local highland friend getting nailed fairly severely with dengue fever this past month it's refresher time, for me, regarding its severity. And on how to possibly avoid it in the first place.

My amigo lives in fairly close quarters to other neighbors and while mosquitos vector out (spread) the disease in a pretty small radius odds are one of his neighbors probably made a Oaxacan coast vacation run, someone got nailed down on the steaming coast where dengue, malaria, zika, and chikungunya are pretty endemic, drove the 6 hours back up here to the mile high central valleys, and became a mosquito vector in his hood.

Dengue currently comes in 4 delightful strains. Catching one doesn't make you immune to catching the others later. A small % of initial infections are so bad you bleed out of your orifices. The sad kicker is a second infection is far more likely to go hemorrhagic on you and risk bleeding out.

My friends strain was obviously not the bleeding-out variety but for 2 weeks he labored with high fever, severe joint pain (dengue is nicknamed "break bone fever" as it feels like your joints and bones are breaking), stabbing gut pains, severe diarhea, dehydration, and other fun time symptoms. A friend of his lost his sister to it when her heart became inflamed and she had a heart attack, despite being in a hospital bed.

Currently a vast global uptick in dengue cases, asia being nailed hard lately but cases in Mexico up significantly as well. Seasonal temps going up yearly and thus so with the bug population. Mosquitos kill more humans on the planet than any other animal. My own uncle died of a mosquito bite years ago.

 Here's a few delightful pix:

Some mild bleeding out symptoms

Once nailed critical to isolate the patient from further vectoring out the disease to others

Wow.... gimme some of THAT, aye!?!?!?

It seems EVERYONE down here knows someone personally who has gotten dengue. My dentist got zika and her house is in the capital city center. A guy in the campground here last year had just gotten out of the hospital after two weeks in there getting I.V. fluids and care. A local surfer I spoke with down on the coast had just had his sister in the hospital with dengue.

When I was in my 20s and cruising the oceans in the merchant marine, or coming to to the latin american tropics for vacations in my off times, I was damn cavalier about mosquito borne illnesses. It's a numbers game in the end. Spend a lot of time in hot disease zones and your odds go way up of catching some bug. Less % of contraction up here in the eternal spring altiplano but obviously still a risk.

Here's some video of my own strategy in avoiding mosquitos about our house here:

In our alaskan sailing days nothing to worry about. In the tropics: watch yore top knot (as Bearclaw Grizzlap told Jeremiah Johnson).

Prone-O Surfboard Design

Prone surfing has traditionally been viewed as the wimpy outcastlandia of elder surfers and unbalanced dweebatronics but it's a wide open frontier actually.

It makes a 5 foot wave into a double overheader perceptually and is much kinder on wipe-outs. Much more tube time.......

This board is the end result of this designers quest for the ideal prone riding surfboard. The tail is broad for ease of wave catching. The width goes 5" more than the usual widest available board. The rocker is relatively flat like a fish.

Vastly increased perception of speed with your face inches above the power source. Emphasis on glide over extreme maneuvering. Dare we call it.... gasp.... "soul surfing" material.

Hippy dippy early 70s retro surf spirituality...... so sue me, melon farmer.

Secret Oaxaca Surf Village #473

I ain't telling yas where its at, melon farmers. You're gonna have to piece it together from the video: