I haven't! Although I should have been a couple of times!
I haven't! Although I should have been a couple of times!
coconut / 8483 posts
I think I did in Myrtle Beach on my butt!! All of a sudden it really stung and was kind of tingling!! But i never saw anything or had a mark.
grapefruit / 4819 posts
Nope, but living in Australia, it's a perpetual fear of mine! Of course the jellyfish here are fatal (box jellyfish from Oct - May) or excruciatingly painful (irukandji) and so it's something I'm hyper aware of when swimming in the ocean!
pomelo / 5820 posts
Thankfully, no! I have seen them wash ashore in South Florida though... which should make me nervous about going in the ocean, but I still do. They gross me out!
GOLD / pineapple / 12662 posts
@Ree723: I just did some googling - holy crap! that is really scary stuff!
cantaloupe / 6630 posts
Yes, while snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. It hurt like hell but I was so seasick (and hungover, awful combo, ha) that getting back on the boat felt even worse, lol.
grape / 99 posts
Yes, once while diving. We were on the surface swimming and I pushed one away with my gloved hand. Without thinking I touched my face.
GOLD / wonderful pea / 17697 posts
No. Not a jellyfish, but related: when I was younger my, a brother, a stepbrother and my dad were out surf fishing off of Padre Island. They were about 100 ft ahead of me (I was trying to bait my hook) and suddenly my dad screams at me to get back to shore. I think there's a shark or something, because all three of them are moving away, and then all three of them are screaming.
Turns out my dad had walked into a Portuguese Man O' War. My brother and stepbrother backed away from him...right into a second one. I was far enough back to avoid being stung, but my brother had a tentacle wrap around his leg from his calf to his groin (sort of like a candy cane).
I don't remember how bad my dad and stepbrother were stung, but they were all in agony. Someone on the beach gave them vinegar to pour on the stings, but apparently that makes it worse (I don't remember how they reacted to it, it was nearly 20 years ago.)
pomelo / 5789 posts
When I went scuba diving, there were a ton, and one got my friend in the face! Luckily his mask was covering his eyes but his whole face was swollen!
GOLD / pineapple / 12662 posts
@FutureMrsMcK: I thought those were jellyfish? *scratcheshead* either way, OMG! That is so so scary!
pomegranate / 3105 posts
Yes - while swimming with dolphins with my niece in Jamaica. Mine wasn't too bad, my niece's was worse, and then DH got stung the next day on the beach at our resort. His was bad.
GOLD / wonderful pea / 17697 posts
@MsLipGloss: "Despite its outward appearance, the man o' war is not a jellyfish but a siphonophore, which differs from jellyfish in that it is not actually a single organism, but a colonial organism made up of many minute individuals called zooids.[1] Each of these zooids is highly specialized, and, although structurally similar to other solitary animals, they are attached to one another and physiologically integrated to the extent that they are incapable of independent survival."
(sorry, C&P from wiki. I thought it was interesting, lol).
grapefruit / 4681 posts
Yes, some very mild stings and I've had "seabather's eruption" which was much worse, IMO. It's basically being stung by immature nematocysts like jellyfish and anemone larvae all over your body.
During a fields study in a Bermudian mangrove forest nearly half my class received multiple stings from Cassiopea xamachana. The area of the study was covered in them and the majority of the students began to freak out...stirring the jellyfish to the surface with their flippers during our exercise even though they were told to remain calm and not kick. Sigh. So many people got stung by so many jellyfish! Luckily I was not one.
pomegranate / 3388 posts
Yes. I was stung by a portuguese man-o-war at the beach in Florida when I was younger. It was so excruciating. Way worse than a bee sting.
GOLD / papaya / 10166 posts
Yes, by a man-o-war jellyfish. I thought it was a piece of seaweed so I tried to kick it off, but it was actually a jellyfish and had wrapped itself around both of my legs. It felt like a million fire ants were stinging me at the same time.
papaya / 10473 posts
Yep, on the butt! I had actually gotten out of the water due to jellyfish and got back in for one second to rinse the sand off. An older man and his wife came to my rescue with a credit card to scrape the tentacles off! So embarrassing but it seriously helped!
eggplant / 11716 posts
I have, when I was about 14. It was really hilarious actually.
I was on a church trip, and a guy not in our group was stung pretty badly by a jellyfish and the lifeguards were all helping him. So our youth group leader told us we should join hand and pray (in the water! LOL) for this guy. And about halfway through the prayer, my friend starts screaming. We all thought she was joking, and then I got stung, and then we all started getting stings. Ironic.
A whole jellyfish colony ran into our prayer group. The crazy thing about jellyfish stings is that you can see exactly where they land on your body...like, I had an imprint of a jellyfish with it's tentacles on my leg.
It was also super painful.
pomegranate / 3759 posts
Yep, while snorkeling the GBR in Australia. Got me right above the lip.
GOLD / wonderful grape / 20289 posts
Yes, when I was little. I have to admit, I'm still scared of the ocean because of that. But I still do go in.
grapefruit / 4817 posts
Oh yeah, lots of times. Sometime during scallop season, they're all over the place, so you're whole body is basically stinging. I hate those years.
@Ree723: My SIL and I watched a show years ago about the irukandji, and to this day we still talk about it. We have some weird obsession with them and will call each each other any time we see something on tv about box jellyfish.
pomegranate / 3716 posts
Oh my gosh, this is a scary thread! I can't believe so many of you actually have been stung!
nectarine / 2192 posts
Yes. DH and I were both stung in Africa. No jellyfish in sight and we were walking in the ocean in waist high water. I was stung, yelled, and then 5 seconds later, DH started yelling too. Good story now. this happened almost 3 months ago and the marks are still there but lighter. I wonder how long it will take.
grapefruit / 4800 posts
I've gotten a couple mild stings from small jellyfish, they itched and stung and swelled a bit but the marks were gone after a few days.
grapefruit / 4819 posts
@BananaPancakes: I wonder if it was the same show my sister and I watched on the irukandji! It was two researchers, a man and a woman, out studying them, wearing stinger suits, but they both still managed to get hit with a broken tentacle I think? I can't remember how exactly it happened but the woman had the worse of the stings and I think spent two weeks in hospital. My sister and I still talk about that documentary we watched too!
Regardless, I am petrified of the box jellyfish and stingers up here and will be sticking to our swimming pool!
grapefruit / 4817 posts
@Ree723: That was totally it!! I think I've seen it twice now. And I get so excited when I see them mentioned, for some reason. I think it's because they're so scary and because we don't have them here.
hostess / wonderful apple seed / 16729 posts
One time. Very minor, though. It was just a little irritation.
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