Ouch.
Of all the menacing creatures hiding in, or near, the surf zone, I will mark those belonging to the jellyfish family as lame number one. Sharks may bite and other surfers may scalp but the ill-intentioned jellyfish stings with uncommon relish and hurt very extremely badly.
But who, here, has not been molested by a jelly? Out minding business, enjoying sun on face, warm water all around and… ouch! The sting growing in intensity until a good friend provides hot relief.
Ugh.
And, unfortunately for our Australian brothers and sisters, bluebottles are washing up in record, or “gobsmacking” numbers. Heaps of them according to jellyfish expert Dr Lisa-ann Gershwin who declared, “They’re having a really fun time this year and they’re definitely terrorising us this year. They’re really strange alien creatures. There’s no two ways about it. It doesn’t have any equal to people, or animals, or corals, or things we understand intuitively. It’s just their own brand of weirdness in such a cool way.”
Her sunny outlook is not replicated by surfers or little children.
Bluebottles travel in “armadas” which happen to be left or right handed and hermaphrodites. A wild sex party at sea. The worst bit, though, is the sting which is actually an excreted microscopic mucous.
Yuck.
Dr. Gershwin changed her tune when it came to close contact, describing the sting as “excruciating” and sharing stories of people who have poked a beached bluebottle with a stick, a dog playing with that stick and getting blasted in the mouth. Or young children who have stomped on one and shot the mucous into a child friend’s eyes temporarily blinding and hurting.
Worse, though, encouraging unfortunate TikTok moments (pictured above).
Not chill at all.
Our brave Australian brothers and sisters have succeeded in keeping Serbian tennis players out of the country but this intersexed invasion may simply be too much to bear.
Much pain on the horizon.
More as the story develops.
Once copped a ball lashing via a blue tentacle at The Bra. No scunners, just raw tentacle on bare scrotum….
A quick surf on my way to a bar job in town turned into simple torture. Had me vomiting out the window of my Sigma wagon down the eastern distributer with fire nuts and a gut ache like no other till I got to the bar. Got a Canadian bar girl to massage hand cream into the sack for a good hour before my shift started and wollah! Good as new!
Ive been up coast thru holidays – been some atrocious surf conditions really thru dec and now – but seen a few on beach at home but not armadas????
DR can mix in a wild sex party to just about any story. I am surprised there was no mention of sticky, glossy, semen-like descriptions of the bluebottle physiology.
May bluebottle jellyfish invade Lower Trestles… and never leave!
I was working a split shift in a cocktail bar overlooking Cronulla Point and was itching to get out there after perusing from the air conditioned comfort 4 floors up …. So at the end of the first shift , run up to Elouera , throw on boardies and run back , jump off the rocks , paddle straight into a set and before I can get to my feet become entangled with a blue bottle , surfed the wave to the beach , got out walked slowly back to Elouera , pain kicked in , glands under armpits and groin are screaming , lay down for 2 hours , feel better , just in time to get up and go back to work as a returned soldier at the RSL club ….
Fuck Blue Bottles ….. and Fuck Golf !
15 years later 3 weeks into a 4 week trip to Oz , feeling surf fit , midweek, light onshore South Coast Beach break , nice A frame peaks all over the shop , having a great time with about 20 fellow travelers for 45 minutes …..and then THE ARMADA ARRIVED !
Being a magnet for Blue Bottles I got stung in the first minute ruining the best surf of my trip and then watched from the beach with future wife as one by one the blue death knock the entourage off one by one till not a man was standing …..or paddling .
But we all survived so well may they say “GOD SAVE THE BLUE BOTTLE”.
More Annoying than sharky Scary .
the funnest part is when you push under and little bits of their stingers get washed into your wetsuit
You haven’t lived a full life if you haven’t experienced one of these fucking things wrapped around your face … then stinging your hands getting the fucking thing off. One of life’s true joys is walking along the beach stomping these fuckers when they’ve been stranded by the tides. Mother. Fuckers.
usually happens as the clean up set of the day catches you inside.
Oh no. Is this the beginning of a never ending series of jellyfish reports, stories, pieces, articles….Ad-naseum ?!!!!
More as the jelly story develops.
Fuck.
I’m no surf journalist, but you failed to include an Irukandji jellyfish reference
Why would god make a creature that is neither male nor female?
I’m stinging myself in the lips right now
Public service announcement.
If your fishing gear is covered in jellyfish, be careful not to touch your dick when you go pee.
Don’t ask how many times I’ve learned this lesson.
You could ask a non fishing friend for a hand with your Rod ?
But Bexy lives in Oz
Don’t Panic Urchin …I am sure there is a Bexy Avatar in every sea side town world over .
Thank God it’s Friday …… I have been trying to explain since 93 to a string of exotic overseas girlfriends and now my wife that Friday Night is Beer Night , celebrating the end of the working week ……and was very upset when they didn’t understand the importance of Friday Night Drinking to members of the Australian Surfing Tribe , at home , and the surfing diaspora far from the antipodean shores .
Especially when they had the hide to mention that I had not been working ….!
What difference could that make …. It’s an inter subjective myth , for gods sake and if enough people believe in it ( like God , the US Dollar or Human Rights ) then it must be true ….. CHEERS !
I’ve giddily paddled out after a shark has been spotted and everyone else has just raced for the beach. But if I see so much as one bluebottle on the sand I will hop straight back in my car and leave even the funnest looking waves unmolested.
So happy to meet a fellow blue bottle magnet ….. You are not alone.
A wild sex party at sea is a good antidote to blue balls.
A friend of mine who’s a Nor-Cal grower messaged me saying he’s moving to South Carolina because of the lower housing prices and the fact that the pound price here havegone from $1400 to $300 due to the big legal grows.
I told him the laws back there are pretty heavy so be careful. Any thoughts?
Edit: Justgot some good info from somebody that lives there and grows. Thanks
Ganja growing illegal as fuck here. Hemp is only just now legal, and only based on a few permits statewide. Some politicians trying to get medical bill passed, claiming a libertarian perspective and it may have a shot. Housing prices in Charleston are not cheap. Tell them to head to Beaufort, or up north of Myrtle Beach. Beaufort has shit waves, though, but is 3 hours from Jax beaches. North Myrtle has shit waves but is 1 hour from Wilmington waves.
He’s gonna risk it and grow illegally there. I told him the laws are fucked. He has a wife and kids and can’t buy a house in Nor Cal. Thanks for the info I’ll pass it on.
Lots of rural land 1 hour in off the coast West of Myrtle and Edisto and Beaufort. Stay away from Charleston. If he builds a house from scratch they can dig out a big basement and put in grow lights and cover with the house so thermal sensing from helicopters will just pick up the house. If he grows outdoors then land is cheap in areas I mention above. But lots of rural towns and cops have nothing better to do than harass a family that just moved from California.
Sounds bad. But you got the sick ass ice storms to make up for it, haha
This place is a joke–in lockdown over what used to be 20 years ago a normal January day.
Yesterday was suffering had blue balls , blue fingers and blue toes …..after a surf due to the 4 degree water and -7 chill factor from 40 knot onshore northwest winds and sadly was not invited to the wild sex party at sea to warm the cockles of my heart .
Mega points for calling them by the appropriate name and not “manowar” clearly..they are blue and bottley. Never trust a creature that can fuck itself.
Literally everyone on the planet: “Go fuck yourself you useless prick”
Bluebottles: “….um, if you say so!”
Check your pronouns mister.
Let’s file this under climate apocalypse and gender dysmorphia
Meanwhile Kelly is playing golf with Adam Scott
https://youtu.be/3_p9wpSnEu8
I hated Golf before I started surfing at 10 , a year after my dad offered me free golf clubs at 9 ( no free board though ) ….and then again when Slater took it up !
The only course a surfer should be interested is sexual intercourse after the race course ?
I believe in Germany it’s a game only for the extremely wealthy. Any hobo can play here, of course the sun probably won’t be shining. How is the Nordic surf treating you? Check this out, the captain has surfboards on the ship, would be a great boat trip, he probably gets great surf to himself now and again:
https://youtu.be/aaeBN_JYkcA
Hi Jimmy …..I had a council owned golf course just down the road from where I grew up , and my dad , great bloke , was just trying to be wonderful , unlike his own dad who had fucked off when he was a kid …..but I had already decide at 7 that I would one day be a surfer .
A great week for shit surf in my neck of the woods …… managed to surf twice , running lefts on the rocks in freezing cold howling NW winds and a pleasant 4 degree water temp .
I’m sure Hamburg will have a wavepool before long