Jellyfish

Dave and I have been trying to do some good swims to train for the St Croix Coral Reef 5 mile swim next month. This morning we went to Magen's Bay to swim the usual 1.3 mile swim we do sometimes. There was a big sign at the entrance to the beach warning us "Caution: jellyfish in the water. Exercise extreme caution." Nobody was in the water at all. We put our feet in and it felt so warm, it was amazing. But we decided against swimming and took a walk on the beach instead after we decided to implement the new household rule: If you think it might be really stupid and you might get hurt, don't do it. This was created after my bike fall and a minor accident the other day involving kevin and a butterknife... (don't worry mom, krazy glue seems to work better than stitches). On our walk back from the far end of the beach, the sun had rised enough that we could see there was actually steam rising from the ocean! The air was apparently a lot cooler than the warm water.

Jellyfish apparently show up in the waters here around this time of year. About three weeks ago, Dave and I were swimming at Sapphire Beach to train for the race. There were only a couple of people in the water, but we assumed that was because the water was so choppy. After we got as far away from the beach as we'd planned to swim, Dave asked if I felt any stinging, and I had not. Every so often we do experience small sharp stings while swimming, but they are usually so minor it's hard to tell if we're imagining them. There are microscopic organisms that can sting but we are only sure we encountered them once. It's similar to when we think we're being attacked by mosquitos on our backs - or somewhere that we can't see them.

Back to the swim at Sapphire... Shortly after Dave asked me about the stings, we encountered about a dozen moon jellyfish all at once. We were fairly far from shore and knew nothing about them so it was quite scary. We swam pretty fast back to the beach, dodging more clusters along the way. I felt a bit trapped, like in a horror movie where there is no way to escape. (Dave could hear me scream underwater.) By the time we reached the beach, we'd probably seen about three dozen jellyfish. Dave researched them and apparently the moon jellys are either harmless or don't sting much. I'd still prefer to stay away from them. This morning we weren't quite sure what type of jellyfish the Magen's Bay sign was there to warn us about, so we figured better safe than sorry! Hopefully we'll get some swimming in this weekend.

The pictures of the moon jellyfish in this blog were taken by Dave at Coki Beach when he and Kevin went snorkeling last week. There was a good one of Kevin with a jellyfish but we can't seem to find it right now...