by Anelisa

Created on: August 05, 2008

The beach was covered with the heads of jellyfish. Its tentacles were removed and the vast beach looked like the planet Mars with little spaceships which had landed and were to stay. We immediately told our son and daughter to not touch any of them and stay back so we walked away on the coast where the sand was dry and there were no heads of jellyfish. We were in a resort we had gone often for fifteen years on the coast of South Carolina.

We had seen jelly fish on the beach all the other times we were there but never this many covering the beach. No one was in the water although the life guards were there. People were walking like us but some through the maze of jelly fish's heads. Parents kept telling their kids to not touch them. People made comments but no one seemed to know much about jelly fish. We usually had gone during June and spring but this time we were there in the middle of August. Was this typical and what kind of jelly fish were they?

The first one that came to my mind was Portuguese Man of War. My son beat me to it and he said it can have a deadly sting. Our kids were in high school and bigger than we as parents.
Our daughter reminded us about the time her brother was bitten by a jelly fish and the lifeguard just put vinegar and water and he was fine. No one was concerned about the jelly fish all the times we went there but this time people were confused and concened. People and kids were asking the same question we were, "What ate the tentacles?"

As we walked along a man approached us and said, " I don't know if I'm going golfing today. My husband said why since it was a perfect day to golf. He said to him that it couldn't be the jellyfish on the beach since he would be not golfing on the sand. The man had a serious and rather fearful look and said, "Its not the jellyfish I'm worried about. Their dead. Its the alligators which sneak up on the golf course!" We laughed but he did not think it was so funny.

We like most people decided to do something different that day and not be on the beach. The man we were talking to also was going anyplace but golfing.

We had heard of people being stung by the jellyfish in other beaches we were but nobody worried about it nor did anyone know any difference from one to another. Worst of all most of us had not bothered to find out.

When we were eating lunch in the marina and eating fish we were rather quiet and reflective. This was unusual for us. We noticed some other families from the same resort who were eating

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