Sand Fleas and Utila or Roatan

[Robertcrockett]

Yup ull get get bit at least some im sure...tiny black buggers like a single grain of pepper...hence their being called noseeums....however i would gladly stick my bare behind in a 50 gallon drum of hungy noseeums to have one more salva vida and another night in utila!...seriously the bites arent bad if u use some common sense...dont go laying in the sand without ample..ample...ample protection...spray ur legs especially with ur weapon of choice...if its windy..they arent much of an issue...on the no wind days they can be brutal...or no where to be found...i was bitten mostly on the ankles and after a week or so they didnt bite me much at all...just every here and there...i would douse it in alcohol to kill the itch and go on my way...dont let some noseeums keep u from going to paradise. I was there a month and my only complaint was that there were only 31 days in a month...already planning my next trip and just bought some baseball stuff for some of the locals down there....ull have a blast!

 

[PB125]

Screw THAT! I live in Houston and deal with enough mosquitos to have to mess with sandfleas while I'm on vacation. While working nightshift on the street, I used to cover myself with DEET and usually felt ill in the morning when I got off work. I'll take a pass. From the pics I've seen, the diving looks incredible.
I went to Costa Rica in May this year, walked through rain forests, laid on the beach along with diving without issue. Not all tropics have sandfleas.

 

[RTBDiver]

Sand fleas are also an excellent bait.

And the really big ones are great with butter and garlic.

 

[deeper thoughts]

I guess it is everywhere. The summer state bird in the Keys is the skeeter. No backyard for us until the fake winter most of the time

 

[dmoore19]

Sand fleas are also an excellent bait.

And the really big ones are great with butter and garlic.

Wow, gonna take a lot of cactus juice to keep that one away!

 

[Hank49]

I went to Costa Rica in May this year, walked through rain forests, laid on the beach along with diving without issue. Not all tropics have sandfleas.

you're absolutely right. You can lay on the beaches in the Philippines, Hawaii...and only get bit by mosquitos. Here in Belize...we have them, sand flies...and as you go from caye to caye, your resistance will vary as to the reaction to the bite....we also have doctor (small horsefly) flys, beef worms, some other little black fly up in the mountains that leaves a big red welt....oh yeah, the Caribbean is bug central. And lots of snakes too....

 

[montanagal]

You don't have to go to the Caribbean to have issues with the bugs and getting bit. One summer when I was in both Western Russia north of Moscow and Siberia we were having to deal with mosquitoes and flying gnats. Then gnats would get try to get into your eyes. Russian friend's son had been fishing and a gnat bit him after getting in his eye and for two days his eye was red and swollen shut. The biting black flies in Siberia reminded me of the horse and deer flies we had in Montana and bit just as hard.

 

[LynnB]

We were there in June. While I didn't get biten as bad as my daughter did we all got some. She is one that tends to be the one that always gets bitten more. In Georgia on the coast we have the noseeums as well.
We used cactus juice and it worked well. they didn't seem to itch like mosquitos do.
Go enjoy, you will have a great time and it is not something that would keep me from going back.
Lynn