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Jellyfish real pain for Long Island Sound swimmers

Joye Brown

July 20, 2008

Not long after Holger Fietkau fired his starter's gun to send a wave of swimmers off on a 5K race in Huntington Bay last Sunday, a jellyfish undulated brazenly into view.

It was plump and as wide as a small pizza, a billowing cloud of royal purples and reds, pulling a 2-foot-long mass of dancing tendrils behind it.

Holger and I watched, in horror and awe.

No, that's not right.

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He watched. I fought the urge to run.

"Glad I'm not swimming," Holger said, as the beast bobbed away from the pier.

By race's end, at least 22 swimmers would report lion's mane jellyfish stings, according to meet director Bea Hartigan.

Not one week earlier, in the waters off Bayville, another group of elite swimmers smoothly pulled their way into Long Island Sound.

They moved past the Crescent Club and a scattering of small boat moorings.

Straight into a mass of red monsters.

"I've never seen anything like this in Long Island Sound in a lifetime of swimming," Rob Ripp would recall. "Where did these things come from? Was it global warming? High gas prices?

"We didn't know, but my friends elected to have me swim ahead and clear the way for them. After a couple more run-ins and a sting, I had enough. It was too spooky. We headed back after only about a mile swim."

For more than a week, lion's mane jellies have been roaring along the North Shore. They're early this summer. Bigger, and more plentiful.

And no one really knows why.

For some boaters, they've been a joy.

"We took great pleasure in playing 'egg beater' with the prop," reported Liz, who said she saw them as she cruised between Nissequogue and Crane's Neck. "The purplish jelly flesh looks jewel-like as it is flying through the air!!!"

For parents they've been a wonder:

Joan Motherway saw them when she visited her son's camp in Huntington on Thursday. "These were big, ugly red ones! ... The lifeguards were scooping them out and rushing kids out of the area ... I've never seen so many jellyfish so close to the beach. It was crazy. I'm sticking to the pool, for now."

Now would be the time to acknowledge that everyone in this column has a link to swimming, and to Bob Miller, a former Jones Beach lifeguard who has introduced a legion of pool swimmers, including me, to open water.

Many forwarded red-jelly updates to me this week, which was great, because swimmers have little choice but to pay attention to what's around them.