Jellyfish and Stingrays


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I’m from South Carolina and I paddleboard here a lot. This morning I had a very nice paddle at low tide around the harbor and beaches here. I saw a ton of jellyfish and stingrays (there were also a ton of bait fish schooling and a feeding frenzy for dolphins, redfish and the pelicans). I figured the many Australians here probably have a lot of experience with jellyfish and stingrays so I’m wondering if I fell into the water and made contact with jellyfish, would they just instinctively sting on contact? We don’t have the super dangerous ones here like yall do but I guess it’d still be painful. When I walk in the shallows I notice many of the stingrays seem to have poor situational awareness and don’t notice I’m there until I’m very close so it wouldn’t be hard to imagine accidentally stepping on one ( hasn’t happened yet knock on wood).

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If you touch the tentacle you get stung. The jellys dont even control that, it is just a little fishhooked barbs that sting whatever they touch without control. Atlantic jellys only hurt you though, rhey will not kill ya, like the super tiny ones (that you cant even see) in Oz. Get stung by Atlantic jellys, it's fine. Just have a friend pee on it l, if it hurts too much?

Yeah Ray's are skittish. They rarely sting

 RIP my my man Irwin.

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You do know to shuffle your feet in the water, right?  Long as your shuffling, you can't step on the back of a 'ray.  That how most people get hit, and it's just instinct on the ray's part.

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Yep, you pretty much have to run into or have a jellyfish run into you to get a sting. They won't search you out :o

You'd need to step on the stingray's barb as well, they typically won't back in to you.

Good luck, stay safe, and hang with a full-bladdered friend :)

 

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A jellyfish stinging you is involuntary and making contact with their millions of nematocysts that are like tiny hypodermic needles.  I sucker punched one in Mexico and it hooked my up with a couple red lines across my arm.  

When I moved to CA and started surfing the other surfers told me to drag my feet and not pick them up when walking to avoid stepping on top of a stingray.  I was told that they sting involuntarily as well, but not sure if that is true. Supposedly scooping them with your foot they won't sting, which I have done several times.   I was also warned that if you get hit with one of their stingers, you will want a stick to bite on. 


Here is a link to a guy visiting a center in AU filming a jellyfish sting in slow motion 
 


 

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agree with this. jellys just sting on contact. rays might skewer you if they think you are a threat - i am convinced that the ray which got steve irwin thought he was a shark (tiger sharks feed on them regularly) and went into defence mode by spearing him. 

stood on a small one when i was kid, up in pumicestone passage. it must have had no idea i was coming because we both got the shock of our lives. fortunately missed the barb. it quite literally took off across the water for about 20 yards in utter terror and i walked on water the other way back to the boat. we see, and hook, quite a few up on fraser island. hard to fight. they just dig in and are hard to move. 

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We shuffled our feet when swimming in the Chesapeake Bay. Skates were everywhere especially late season. One of my neighbors stepped on a skate and was skewered and had to be rushed to the hospital, he was in agony.

We used to pick up the moon jellys, no tentacles, and rub them on our arms at night to make the phosphorescence glow green and throw them at each other, dumb kids ? I know. The best way to avoid or lessen the chance of getting stung was to lay on a good layer of suntan oil before going swimming. The tentacles would just slide over your skin preventing the barbs from hooking up and stinging. We always kept a bottle of meat tenderizer in our beach bags just in case. More likely than not SOMEONE would always get stung. 

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For almost 40 years of going to the beaches of North Carolina and South Carolina, I had never been stung by a jellyfish.  I've been stung three of the past four years now...multiple stings two of those three years.  They didn't hurt too bad, more of a burning sensation, but they all left a mark where their tentacles contacted me.  A white vinegar and water mix sprayed onto the area will bring relief quickly...not sure about peeing on the sting, though. 

Even though I know they are there, I've never encountered a sting ray that I'm aware of...hope I didn't just jinx myself...

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