Oh, yes, there are jellies in the water… sorry didn’t tell you.
Written by Silver on October 9th, 2007
The water off of Cabo San Lucas was comfortably warm. Not as cold as Hawaii, but cooler than the Barrier Reef. Visibility was eh, clear enough but nothing to see. This picture here is staged. Our guide brought some banana peel with him and hundreds of fish appeared out of nowhere when he started to scatter pieces about. One lady in our group started panicking and screaming her head off after seeing the swarming fish. Don’t worry lady, the fish don’t want to touch you anymore than you want to touch them. Heck, you couldn’t touch them even if you tried.
The snorkeling stared out well; we climbed off the pirate ship and into the water. Yes, pirate ship, as in a real original black pirate ship. Well, most of it was original except for the motor, nylon sails, refurbished pieces…but it looked like a good old fashioned pirate ship that would have any sailing merchant that saw it shaking in his boots. I may have been more awed by the historicalness if there had been some wind so that we could actually use the sails and if the captain didn’t play Enya during our time onboard. I like Enya and all, but not while sailing on a historical pirate ship. Anyhow, we were swimming to get a closer look at El Arco when I felt a sharp sting on my ankle.
Looking around, I saw nothing. I immediately thought of jellyfish. At the barrier reef we had worn jellysuits to prevent stings from the box jellyfish, with certain species, 1 sting could be fatal. But here, no one mentioned anything about jellyfish.
Hmmm… fish? Can’t feel any bites.
Allergic to dirty water? No open wounds on my ankle.
Figment of imagination? Oh wells, too far away from the ship to turn back, and if it was a jellyfish wouldn’t it be more than just one sharp pinch since they have long tentacles? And aren’t most jellyfish big so one can see them?
After a second sharp sting a few minutes later, I told Jae about it just in case I passed out or something….
We swam out further, our guide brought out a piece of banana peel. So this is how they attract the fish. I’ve snorkeled in various places around the world and I’ve never seen this. It feels kinda wrong. After the banana peel was gone, so were the fish. Then, our guide told us to look around and left.
After a while, we got tired and headed back, fighting the rough current and dodging motorboats, sailboats, and glass bottom boats. In Cabo, apparently, safety isn’t too big of a concern to anyone. As we came closer to our ship I started to feel more stings that came with more frequency. A few on my legs; mostly around the ankle since I had knee length board shorts on, and then on my wrists. Frustrated, I had the bright idea that maybe I should stick my head in the water to see if I could see my invisible tormentors. Sure enough I got stung on the chin. Jae was starting to get some stings too. Damn jellyfish! If I could see and catch you, I’d eat you for dinner.
We swam hard for the ship but the current got stronger, as my energy drained and the stings became more and more frequent, I started to feel panicky and wanted more than ever to get onto the ship. Obviously it wasn’t rational fear, we were pretty close to the ship, and the stings weren’t all that painful, just random and annoying, what was there to fear? I didn’t want to be beaten by a bunch of jellyfish so to get over the panic, spite the jellies, and to get some rest, we stopped and took pictures. Those seemingly happy pictures of us by the ship? Ya… not so happy.
Eventually we got back and miraculously a spray bottle of vinegar appeared. Oh look, someone did know about jellyfish in the water.