I love that website, by the way.

Today was the perfect Sunday. A late start, a bit of brekkie, beach time with lots of swimming, a beverage or two...maybe some ice cream. Perhaps.

We headed out to the beach at around noon. Kurt was showing us (us being myself and our friend Amy, of last night's date) a "secret" beach that he had only just discovered via another friend who has only been on the Rock for 6 months and yet seems to know about absolutely everything cool that we have never heard of. Like this beach. It is gorgeous. Secluded. Deserted. Clean. And not ghetto, like the other beach we tend to spend time at, mostly because it's the island default. It's also the beach that all of the cruise ships send their passengers to en masse, meaning that it is a sea of pasty-skinned tourists, yelling at their sulky teenagers and letting it all hang out. Literally. It's not gorgeous.

So, I guess my point is that the beach we went to today was a diamond in the rough. It WAS gorgeous and we are so going back, like every Sunday.

I did the obligatory application of SPF prior to getting on the bike this morning, thinking that I'd had so much sun already this year that if I missed a little spot here or there, or didn't re-apply directly after coming out of the water, I'd probably still do OK. My skin tends to get pretty dark and once it's past a certain point, I know I'm not going to burn anymore. I still like to cover up, but I don't fret about it too much because honestly, we don't get to the beach as often as we'd like to, and I don't spend hours and hours baking in the sun. Anyways, we got to the beach, I took a quick dip in the beautiful blue waves, stretched out on the towel and fell asleep.

Mistake #1.

I woke up feeling pretty hot and bothered, so I got back into the water to cool down. I spent about half an hour bobbing around in the waves, dodging fish and trying to keep my bathing suit bottoms on, before getting back out and spending another hour or so reading on the towel.

Mistake #2.

Both mistakes being, of course, the absence of even a half-assed attempt at re-applying sunscreen.

Now, shortly before bedtime, I am facing the distinct prospect of waking up tomorrow looking like someone who had a terrible facial done by someone who hated me. Burned. Nose, cheeks, forehead. Awesome. Oh, and the backs of my legs, my lower back, my stomach and my chest. FML. I know it's no one's fault but my own and can't for the life of me imagine what would make me so irresponsible as to believe that my skin is invincible to harmful UV rays.

The worst part? I commute to work every day with my dermatologist, a women who takes such care to avoid any iota of a UV ray that she has the complexion of a corpse. She is a lovely person, and (as you can imagine) a fantastic dermatologist, but I know there will be disapproval in her eyes tomorrow morning when she surveys the UV damage I have sustained this weekend. Awkward.