This morning you would have found something interesting in my oven. No, we aren’t going to eat it. It’s ‘indicator silica gel’.

In the tropics, it can be a challenge to take care of cameras and binoculars and keep them dry. If they are left in a humid environment, a fungus can start growing on the lenses which ‘eats’ into the protective coating. While the lenses can be cleaned professionally, the lenses are never the same afterward.

We attempt to keep our cameras and binoculars safe by keeping them in an air tight box with the silica gel beads in a sock. When this type of silica gel is dry, it is blue. As it absorbs moisture, it turns to a light pink. Occasionally, we take the silica out of the box and heat it in the oven to dry it out again. That’s what I have in my oven this morning.