Woah Jellyfish!

Bluebottle 100
Originally uploaded by Roger OZ.

Okay so last night I got home and went straight down the beach for a swim...

I've had a pretty busy week at work so I couldn't wait to get in there...

I put my boardies on and ran out of my house, down the street and straight to the beach.

When I got there I just kept on running and went straight into the sea and swam out pretty far.

I was having a pretty good swim and there were loads of surfers riding the big waves so I was just watching them, doing some body surfing and just swimming about.

I'm not even that good a swimmer but I went out pretty far.

I was near this Aussie surfer dude and he turned round and said to me:

"Be careful mate you dont wanna get stung..."

I was like:

"err.. what do you mean mate?"

and he said:

"There are loads of blueys!"

I took this to mean jellyfish and swam straight back to the shore.

I kind of got caught in a mini rip tide so it took a lot longer than usual to get back but I made it and walked back on to the beach.

I looked around and there were LOADS of Bluebottle Jellyfish washed up on the beach! LOADS and LOADS of them!

I didn't feel like I had been stung and I kind of checked my back and stuff and all seemed ok.

I guess I was pretty lucky...

When I came into work today I told the people I work with my 'funny story' about the jellyfish and they were all like "you were so lucky not to get stung, they are real dangerous!"

No way!

So I looked the Bluebottle jellyfish up on Wikipedia...

It turns out these jellyfish are WELL danergous!

They are also known as the Portuguese Man o War Jellyfish and it says on Wikipedia that:

"The sting from the tentacles is potentially dangerous to most humans; these stings have been responsible for several deaths, but usually only cause excruciating pain"

No way!

I guess I need to be more careful!

I'm real lucky sometimes!