Well Jeff, as I waded in the waters off Padre Island waste deep a little baggie swam by me with tenticles over 10 ft. long and wrapped themselves around my waste. The Man-O-War proceeded to paralyse me. Fellow sailors rubbed sand on me and while in the ER, I was futher rubbed with Adolfs meat tenderizer to counteract the poision. I hope this description helped.
One time in Fort Lauderdale, I was with a friend who got stung by a man-o-war. It was in shallow water where many people were, it looked like a plastic bag with yarn ties on it. It was just floating on the water & next thing, it stung the friends leg and left very bad red burns that burned for at least 24 hours. Guess the friend was luckier than you Phibes.
Wow! I didn't mean to bring up bad memories but I've never seen a jellyfish in the wild, but I've heard they can be very dangerous.
It sounds like you didn't make any mistakes but just were in the wrong place and the wrong time. I'm glad you're ok.
They really do look like an un-natural piece of trash... especially when washed up on the beach.
...However, it wasn't until they rolled me in the minced garlic and prepared to cauterize the wounds that I realized I wasn't in the ER at all...
Seriously though...it is surprising how multipurpose some foods/spices are. I'm surprised that they didn't use some generic equivalent to Adolphs.
I read that if you see their floats, you just stay the hell out of the water altogether. I've heard that their tenticles can reach as long as 40 feet, but I could be wrong about that. It's been a very long time since I was interested in diving.
Mark