I can't remember this incident but my mother told me that at my very first visit to the beach in Australia when my father carried me into the water I screamed and screamed. He and my mother were very concerned when they couldn't calm me down. Someone kindly came to help and said that I had probably been stung by a bluebottle (jellyfish) and that they should take me to see a lifeguard. Sure enough, there was the mark from the stinger. The lifeguard got out a little bag of laundry blue and held it on the sting. I stopped screaming and my parents were amazed at the solution. In the old days 'laundry blue' always got placed on stings and bites of all kinds.
Last week my daughter and son-in-law walked along Malua Bay beach and photographed long lines of stranded bluebottles which had come in with the on-shore wind. They are little nasties which are taken where the wind blows them thanks to their air-filled floats, trailing their stinging tentacles in the water where they enmesh and devour small sea creatures.
Years ago my father and I went to Balmoral Beach for a swim. Even though it was a very hot day we were surprised to see that the water was empty even though the beach was crowded. "You beauty!" we thought as we galloped over the blistering sand and plunged into the cool briny and swam out into the deeper water. All of a sudden I became aware of being surrounded on all sides by masses of bluebottles. The water was thick with them. I shouted at my father who was still obliviously swimming along. When he finally realised what was happening he cleverly suggested I hold onto his shoulders and he would breaststroke his way through the multitudes of stingers, thus protecting me. The theory was good the actuality not quite so. As my father pushed the bluebottles away and to the side with his strokes, they swirled around and behind him efficiently avoiding him and floating straight at my chest and shoulders. We progressed to shore and sheepishly got out of the water with everyone looking at we two idiots. Amazingly neither of us was stung.
We usually swam at 'the net', a large area protected from sharks by a very long suspended net. Years later I saw underwater photographs of this shark proof net. It had such massive holes that anything could have got through had it wanted to, but we were oblivious to any danger and happily swam there for years. These days the net is regularly inspected and repaired.
I was at Balmoral baths when I was stung once. The baths were enclosed with metal poles. There were walkways all around and springboards, change rooms and showers and you had to pay to get in. It was where I learnt to swim and where the local schools had their swimming carnivals. I had been swimming around for a while and when I got out of the water my skin felt like it was burning. I got back in the water and the burning sensation went away. As soon as I got out of the water the burning came back and that's when someone noticed all the red weals on my skin. Ouch! There was a lifeguard who had never seen such a thing - they weren't bluebottle stings. With the lifeguard and my friends we went around the walkway inspecting the water. We spotted a massive brown jellyfish who must have been the culprit. It was fished out of the water with a net on a long pole and I was treated with 'laundry blue'. I survived.
My father and I loved to dive around the rocks within the netted area at Balmoral and would probe the various crevices looking for interesting shells etc. Luckily we never chanced upon the deadly blue ringed octopuses which apparently (we found out years later) bred there.
Over the years I have had several painful brushes with bluebottles. Once in the surf during my bikini days a bluebottle got entangled around my middle. I pulled it off, and cleverly threw it back into the water so that with the next wave it was again entangled around my waist. I had scars from that encounter for some time.
Even popping dead bluebottles on the beach can be fraught. Occasionally bits of their stingers can fly up and though the creature is long dead you can still be stung. It is, however, hard to resist popping dead sun dried bluebottles.
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