Catherine: Jellyfish Hunter

Today we mixed things up a bit. Instead of hitting the beach early and then heading out the pool we went to the pool first, then had lunch and went back out to the beach. I think we might have missed a good opportunity in the morning though. While Ginger and the kids were in the pool I walked out to the beach. The water was the warmest I've felt this year (and this is including when we were here a month ago). Also the water was shallow for a good ways out.




So when we went out this afternoon Quinn was ecstatic since he could take his boogie board out into the waves. And it was a great afternoon. Right up until I got stung by a jellyfish. At least I think I was stung. Suddenly the back of my knee started feeling like I had briar thorns stuck in it. I glanced around and saw we were in the middle of a small school of jellies. I say small school because I only spotted about 3 jellies before the next wave came over.


I started getting Quinn to head back into land. Once there the pain intensified a bit, but it still felt like I had something stuck in the back of my leg even though clearly there wasn't anything there that I could see. When we made it all the way back onto the beach we learned that Catherine had also been stung (on the top of her foot). She had been working her way out in the water to get my attention and ask if she could use the boogie board when she got stung, and unfortunately that pretty much ended her desire to back out in the water. Evidently there must have been a large school of these jellies moving up the coast. Luckily the jellyfish were only the clear ones, so while it hurt for a while, it wasn't as painful as I've heard the stings from the red ones can be.


Once the pain subsided a bit for Catherine she took her revenge by going up and down the beach with the shovel and cutting any beached jellies she found into pieces. Quinn remained somewhat undaunted by the prospects of the jellyfish (possibly because he hadn't been stung) and continued to go back out ever so often.


And tonight I managed to get back out at sunset and the results were pretty good this time (at least I like to think so). So because of that there's a few more sunset pictures here than on previous days.