When Jellyfish Attack!
I heard and read about the jellyfish that plagued the swim at the NYC Triathlon last weekend. In the two years that I did the race and from everything I’ve heard there have never been jellyfish in the Hudson during the NYC Tri. This year though, there were swarms. People got stung all over the body and face. I thought to myself “Wow, that sucks!” and went on with my life. I’ve read about jellyfish appearing at some of the local swim races, but have never swam with them myself.
Fast-forward to this morning. Because I’m not running this week and I rode yesterday, and with the Grimaldo’s Mile Swim in three weeks and SOS coming up in just six weeks, I figured I could use some cold water, no-wetsuit open water swimming. So, I decided to head out to Brighton Beach for an ocean swim. My only concern getting into the water was the current – the news reports this morning said that the currents are really strong right now and a few people have actually drowned at area beaches in the last few days. When I got down to Grimaldo’s Chair, I asked around and consensus was that there is a current, but it’s not that strong, especially for a good swimmer who’s aware of the possibilities. The lifeguards were watching the beach and there were enough CIBBOWS swimmers in and around the water, that I wasn’t concerned. One of the guys did mention that he ran into “some” jelly fish, mostly at the beginning of the swim, but it wasn’t a big deal.
I got in the water and the first thing I noticed was how warm it was. Awesome. The water felt great. There was a slight current, but it was either against me or pushing me towards shore, which seemed safe. I was swimming well until about 10 minutes into the swim I caught something brownish in the corner of my eye and a few seconds later felt the stings across my leg. Jellies!!! The stings themselves didn’t really “hurt” it was more like little pinpricks. I decided to push on and hope they weren’t all over my path. But then I saw another one. And another one. Now I was pretty freaked and spending more time thinking about the jellyfish than my stroke. My head was up so I could look around underwater (like I could see the damn things before it was too late anyway) and I couldn’t concentrate. There were little ones and big ones, ones that were all translucent and ones that were brown or red. I saw a few that were probably the size of a large salad plate, with really long, dangling tentacles. They weren’t all over the place, but there were enough to have me on edge and to get stung every so often on the arms, legs and hands.
I wanted to swim the half-mile out to the “white building” but before I got there decided to turn around and head back. I thought that maybe, if there weren’t jellies closer to Grimaldo’s Chair I’d continue past it for a bit. But by this point, the swim was less fun and I was more tense. And sure enough there were jellies the whole way. I got back to Grimado’s Chair after a little over 30 minutes of swimming and decided enough was enough! I felt the stings for a few minutes after I got out of the water, but by the time I was walking to the subway, the stinging was gone. Phew. (There was one girl on the beach who swam yesterday and was covered in rashes and welts from the stings. I guess she’s allergic. She was wisely not going in the water today.)
After I got home I did a little research and sure enough marine biologists are reporting that there are more jellyfish in local waters than usual. It seems like the ones I ran through (and that were at the NYC Tri) were Lion’s Mane jellyfish. Those mother’s are the largest jellyfish in the world and the largest lion’s mane recorded had a 7.5 foot diameter and tentacles that stretched 120 feet! Now that would have had me out of the faster than you can yell “Jelly!”
Ocean Swim – July 27
Distance: ~1,500 yards
Time: 32 minutes